We didn’t have the right data to understand what was and wasn’t working
Dean Corney is the Chief Operating Officer at The Pull Agency – an award-winning creative agency with a team of 25. With a focus on health and beauty brands, The Pull Agency harnesses the power of brand and technology to deliver game-changing transformations.
While the agency had no problem getting business in, they were finding they weren’t making the best margins and were sometimes overdelivering for clients. To run a more profitable agency, Dean knew they needed a much better understanding of their financial and operating performance across the business.
“We didn’t have the right data to understand what was and wasn’t working.”
Dean says “We relied on Sage for reporting, but the reports gave us minimal insight. We needed to gain visibility of every area of the business, right down to the nitty-gritty detail on staff, jobs, projects and clients. We didn’t have the right data to understand what was and wasn’t working.” After speaking to The Agency Works, The Pull Agency decided to implement Synergist.
Dean says “Synergist has given us visibility of all areas of the business from leads, clients, projects and resources to the financials. Being able to review the overall performance of the business, for me, is the best part. We’re now able to access in-depth, more accurate data quickly and easily. So we can forecast and plan more effectively and make more informed decisions across the business.”
Once we’d set up Synergist and accurate data was being recorded in the right place, we made sure Dean had the right metrics in place to analyse what’s happening, why, and what can be improved.
Dean CorneyChief Operating OfficerThe Pull Agency
“The Agency Works team has taken a lot off my plate – I couldn’t do that level of reporting without them. And it’s so much more than reporting – the team analyse the data and spot improvement opportunities. They give us constructive insight and we’re accountable for taking action too, so we can keep moving forward,” says Dean.
“The Agency Works does more for us than one person could. Vast agency experience, Synergist expertise and market insight would be very hard to come by.”
“Their value is in their strategic approach and in-depth understanding of agencies. They understand recovery and utilisation rates, for example, and which bracket you should be in per head. It feels very much like having financially-minded operations directors in-house, but with an outside view so we can benchmark our performance,” says Dean. “They’re integral to our business now.”
we’ve maximised our profitability.
“Essentially, The Agency Works helped us get a solid system in place for tracking and reporting on those key metrics and putting critical processes in place to get the business running really well from an operational and financial point of view. We now run the agency really tightly, and we know what’s going on because we have the right information. It’s very powerful,” says Dean.
“And I trust Jay, Karen and the team completely – they’re a fantastic group of people, and that’s important when you’re working so closely.”
“Since working with The Agency Works, we’ve maximised our profitability. We’ve been able to move forward without needing to increase the number of clients we work with.” says Dean.
