You’re Not Keeping 90% Profit, You’re Buying 90% of the Work

I keep seeing gurus saying “keep 90% profit margins.” And honestly, that’s one of the worst pieces of advice you can follow.

Because the more profit you keep, the more time you’ll spend working for that profit.

Imagine McDonald’s founder flipping burgers to keep more margin. Imagine if Steve Jobs were assembling iPhones to keep more margin.

Sounds weird, right?

That’s exactly what happens when agency owners try to keep everything for themselves. They become the employee of their own business.

If your agency has 90% margins, it’s probably because you don’t have a team. And if you don’t have a team, you don’t own a business, you own a job.

You started your agency to gain freedom. But high margins without delegation are how you build your own cage.

At first, it feels good. You’re making money. But soon, you hit capacity: no time for new clients, no time to think, and no time to rest.

And that’s when it hits you: You didn’t build a business. You built busyness.

Imagine your agency as a limousine. You built something valuable, but you’re still the one driving it. If you don’t start hiring people to drive it for you, you’ll never enjoy the ride.

Lower margins aren’t bad if they buy you time.

Time to focus on high-value tasks, managing, hiring, and training. Time to build systems so your team can do more with less. Time to move to the back seat.

Because scaling doesn’t come from keeping more, it comes from building something that can run without you.

What’s been the hardest part of trusting others with your agency’s delivery?

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