The Agency's Children Have No Shoes
As someone who builds automation systems for clients day in and day out, I've come to recognize an uncomfortable truth: I'm exceptional at solving other people's problems but have systematically neglected my own. The irony isn't lost on me—I've spent a decade helping businesses reimagine their operations while my own agency runs on disconnected tools and manual processes.
Doug Silkstone
Across the agency world, this is an issue that all agency owners face at some point—we're extraordinary at delivering services but notoriously bad at optimizing our own operations. We preach automation while drowning in administrative tasks. We sell the future while living in the past. We're the digital equivalent of the cobbler whose children go barefoot.
Why does this happen? Because we're wired to prioritize client work. We derive deep satisfaction from solving others' problems. And when faced with the choice between improving our own systems or delivering for a client, the client wins every time. We work in our businesses, rarely on them.
In 2025, I'm changing this pattern for my agency. Not just because it's operationally efficient, but because it's a matter of integrity. How can I claim to transform clients' businesses if I haven't transformed my own?
Why Trust My Vision for 2025
I've been in the automation game for 10-15 years, well before it became today's buzzword. Starting in PPC and performance marketing, I automated over £1 million in ad spend yearly. Through my career, I've optimized campaigns managing between £15-20 million, systematically removing guesswork and human error from the equation. It was a lot less glamorous and node-based back then, with far more hoops to jump through, and definitely not as in-your-face as your LinkedIn feed would have you like.
Moving through MarTech, analytics, and product development, I built and exited two businesses—including a fully automated affiliate voucher site generating £10K monthly with virtually no operational overhead. This was before any whisper of LLMs or mainstream AI—pure, creative automation through code. (And a ton of Spintax. Oh, that spammy|low-tier syntax.
Now as a full-stack engineer, my work centers on creating cash through code: automated RepOps, sales functions, and marketing features that fundamentally change how businesses capture and convert opportunities. My clients come to me when they want to reimagine their revenue generation for the modern era.
The value I bring isn't just technical expertise—it's perspective. I help businesses reimagine what it's like for them to make money if they started fresh today, with all modern tools at their disposal. For many, this vision reveals a completely different business model—less manual process, grander scale, no bogging down in monotonous tasks or the overheads they bring.
When automation is implemented correctly, it's not just about doing the same things faster—it's about enabling entirely new possibilities. Processes that were previously impossible due to complexity or resource constraints suddenly become viable. We can be more accurate, faster, cost-efficient, and operate at scales others simply can't touch.
This creates a moat that even those working in AI and automation aren't utilizing fully. Yet despite helping others build these systems, I haven't fully implemented them in my own agency. That changes now.
Why Finding Joy In Transformation Matters to Me
Before diving into my vision, it's worth reflecting on why this matters to me personally. Throughout my career, I've found profound satisfaction in solving complex problems through code and automation. There's something deeply fulfilling about taking a chaotic, manual process and transforming it into an elegant automated system.
When I help clients reimagine their businesses, I'm not just selling efficiency—I'm offering liberation. Liberation from tedious tasks. Liberation from unnecessary constraints. Liberation from outdated ways of working that limit growth and creativity.
This isn't just my job; it's a calling that brings me genuine joy. Each successful implementation represents not just a technical achievement but a human one—people freed to focus on what truly matters rather than wrestling with systems that should fade into the background.
I love talking to people about their challenges and providing solutions that genuinely help. It sounds cliché, but it brings me immense pleasure—and selfishly, lets me practice JavaScript, solutions architecture, and UI development while building things that don't exist yet. That, to me, is a great calling.
That's why turning these capabilities toward my own business isn't merely practical—it's essential. If I truly believe in the transformative power of automation (and I do), then I owe it to myself and my clients to build an agency that embodies these principles from first touch to final deliverable.
A Typical Client Experience Of Today
The typical agency onboarding experience is a friction machine, full of disjointed touchpoints and manual handoffs:
We send calendar links for booking calls that exist in isolation from everything else. We use document signing tools that require manual setup and tracking. We create project management spaces disconnected from our communications. We build knowledge bases that clients must actively hunt through. And we manage it all through email threads that inevitably get lost in the shuffle.
Each transition creates cognitive load. Each manual step introduces delay. Each disconnected tool adds complexity. The client experience becomes a reflection not of our expertise but of our internal limitations.
In my case, the disconnect is even more pronounced. I promise clients a future of seamless automation while delivering an onboarding experience that feels firmly rooted in the past. Each time I manually create a new client workspace, send a contract for signature, or build a custom onboarding document, I'm reminded that I'm not fully living the future I'm selling.
The experience I'm providing isn't bad—it's just ordinary. And in a world where exceptional is the new baseline, ordinary isn't enough.
My 2025 Agency Vision As The Seamless Experience Machine
In 2025, I'm reimagining what my own business looks like. My vision is to create a client experience so seamless and so thoughtfully designed that it becomes a living demonstration of what's possible through automation.
When someone expresses interest in working with my agency, they'll immediately enter an ecosystem designed to showcase the power of automation:
They book a calendar slot, and the system immediately sends them a tailored NDA, welcome guide, and grants access to a personalized client portal—all before our first conversation. Behind the scenes, automated crawlers and LLMs research their business, analyze their market position, and identify potential automation opportunities.
By the time we have our first call, they've experienced a taste of what automation can do, and I'm equipped with deep insights about their business. We're not starting from zero—we're starting from 50.
The magic of this approach isn't just in eliminating administrative tasks—it's in creating an experience that feels anticipatory rather than reactive. The system predicts needs before they arise. It provides information at the moment it's needed, not before or after. It eliminates the question "what happens next?" because the next step is always clear.
For clients—especially those who become champions of automation within their organizations—this experience gives them all the tools to be the magician with the magic wand:
When they face pushback, the documentation is already there. When they need to set something up, it's already configured. When questions arise, answers are immediately accessible. When it's time to invoice, it's already generated. When they want to refer someone, the system is in place.
This isn't just about making problems disappear—it's about creating magical, incredible experiences that showcase what's possible when you reimagine service delivery from first principles.
Does Your Dog Food Taste Good?
I spend considerable time with clients, and great and all, but need to know I'm making progress on my own business too. As someone who helps others reimagine their operations, I must "eat my own dog food"—practicing what I preach.
This approach represents a fundamental shift from traditional service delivery to a product mindset. Rather than treating each client engagement as a unique project, I'm building a systematic experience that can be consistently delivered and continuously improved.
The result is a hybrid model that combines:
- The personalization of bespoke service, addressing each client's unique challenges
- The scalability of productized solutions, serving more clients without proportional overhead
- The reliability of automated systems, ensuring consistent quality regardless of variables
This isn't just operationally efficient—it's strategically transformative. Traditionally, agencies face a choice: grow the team (increasing costs and complexity) or limit client intake (capping revenue). This model offers a third path—increasing capacity through automation rather than headcount.
For clients, it means working with an agency that provides the personalized attention of a boutique firm with the systems and capabilities of a much larger organization. They get the best of both worlds without the typical compromises.
A Lesson In Trusting Your Gut
At this point in my career, I have great taste, and I trust my gut feeling. When I don't trust it, things tend to fall apart. When I do trust it, I feel confident and do my best work.
Ira Glass On The Taste Gap - A Must Listen For Anyone
This doesn't mean working without data or rigour—quite the opposite. It means recognizing when a solution has that ineffable quality of rightness, when all the pieces click together in a way that transcends the mere sum of their parts.
My intuition says this client-centric automation is the future of service delivery in 2025. Not just for my agency, but for any service business that wants to scale impact without proportionally scaling headcount or compromising quality.
The vision comes from lived experience on both sides of the equation. I've been the client frustrated by disjointed processes, and I've been the service provider scrambling to maintain the illusion of seamlessness while manually connecting disparate systems behind the scenes.
From Product Thinking to Service Excellence
The core challenge isn't technical—it's experiential. Drawing on my product development background, I'm focusing on principles that transform how clients interact with my agency:
Anticipatory Design: The system predicts needs before they arise, providing resources, information, and support proactively rather than reactively.
Seamless Transitions: Each step flows naturally into the next without the cognitive friction of context switching or redundant information gathering.
Consistent Communication: All touchpoints maintain a unified voice, whether automated or personal, creating the sense of dealing with a cohesive entity rather than disconnected systems.
Progressive Disclosure: Information appears at the moment it's relevant, creating a learning curve that feels intuitive rather than overwhelming.
Transparent Progress: Status and next steps are always visible, eliminating the uncertainty that often accompanies service relationships.
These principles have transformed product experiences and can equally transform service delivery. The goal isn't to replace human connection—it's to enhance it by removing the administrative burden that typically consumes it.
The Competitive Advantage of Authentic Automation
As we move deeper into 2025, the competitive landscape for agencies is shifting dramatically. Clients increasingly expect the businesses they hire to embody the same technological sophistication they're being sold.
This creates both a challenge and an opportunity. Agencies that continue to operate with disconnected tools and manual processes will find themselves at a growing disadvantage, unable to scale efficiently or deliver the seamless experiences clients expect.
Conversely, agencies that embrace comprehensive automation—not just in client deliverables but in their own operations—will create a powerful competitive advantage. They'll be able to:
- Scale without proportional cost increases
- Deliver more consistent quality
- Create more immersive client experiences
- Focus more energy on strategic thinking
- Adapt more quickly to changing market conditions
This isn't just an operational advantage—it's increasingly a marketing one. Clients want to work with agencies that practice what they preach, that embody the future they're selling. By building systems that showcase the power of automation in my own business, I'm not just creating efficiencies—I'm building a compelling demonstration of what's possible.
The Offer: One Week Automation Therapy
If you're feeling the same way—great at delivering but struggling to optimize your own operations—I'd love to explore this journey together. No more "cobbler's children have no shoes" syndrome. No more telling clients to automate while you drown in manual processes.
I'm offering a focused intervention: a one-week "Automation Therapy" sprint designed to identify your operational bottlenecks and create a clear path toward automation.
This isn't a vague consultation or generic audit, but a chance for an intensive, collaborative process where we:
- Identify your revenue blockers and operational pain points
- Document your current client journey from first touch to final deliverable
- Pinpoint specific processes ripe for automation
- Create a phased implementation roadmap that delivers quick wins while building toward comprehensive transformation
This intensive approach allows you to see what's possible without committing to a months-long engagement. In just one week, you'll gain clarity about your operational challenges and a concrete plan for addressing them through automation.
The outcome isn't just recommendations—it's an actionable blueprint for transforming how your agency operates. Whether you're dealing with outreach challenges, delivery bottlenecks, or internal operations issues, this focused sprint will give you a clear path toward a more automated future.
Ready to practice what you preach? Let's reimagine what your agency could be in 2025—starting today.