Claim OwnershipThe Handbook: The Operations Podcast
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Running a serviced based business, an agency or consultancy isn’t just about great client work. It’s about keeping everything behind the scenes running smoothly.
That’s where The Handbook comes in. Our goal? To help you take your business to the next level of business maturity.
This podcast is for operations and service-business leaders who are juggling it all – people, processes, finance, tech, and everything in between.
Every other week, we dive deep into a specific challenge that businesses face as they grow in headcount and complexity. You'll get practical insights and real-world advice from experts who’ve been there, solved the problems, and know what works.
If you’re looking for smarter ways to scale, streamline, and strengthen your business, you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Handbook community, your go-to guide for better business operations.
And don’t forget to sign up for The Handbook newsletter – we’ll send you the key takeaways from each episode straight to your inbox: scoro.com/podcast/#handbook
The Handbook: The Operations Podcast is brought to you by Scoro.
41 Episodes
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Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿 This one’s for anyone who’s ever looked at their jumble of spreadsheets and apps and thought: “Is this normal?” Harv explains why the state of your tech stack is actually a mirror of your business maturity – from The Chaotic Era where everything’s buried in spreadsheets and copy-paste is your main 'process', through The Stable Era where processes click into place, and up to The Data-Driven Era where your systems finally give y...
Touch the same piece of information more than twice – fix the workflow. That’s the kind of CFO-meets-COO thinking we get into in this episode of The Handbook, where Harv sits down with Lindsey Head to connect the dots between finance, ops, tech, and people – and what really changes when you standardise how the business runs. Lindsey helped scale a PR agency from 5 to 125 people and $750k to $25m in revenue, leading finance, ops, HR, tech, legal and M&A along the way – so she’s seen ...
Ops Quickies – we're back with another snackable episode. 🍿 This one’s for anyone who’s ever wondered: Is my business actually set up to scale – or are we just surviving? Harv breaks down: 👉🏽 Why business maturity matters 👉🏽 What it really means (hint: it’s not about headcount or revenue) 👉🏽 Why most service businesses get stuck at the early stages 👉🏽 And how you can quickly benchmark where you stand today... Harv's launched a business maturity quiz to help you see where your business sits ac...
When businesses talk about “productizing,” they often picture cookie-cutter scopes and rigid templates. But according to Brian Kessman, that’s missing the point. Brian is the founder of Lodestar Consulting, and he’s spent 25 years helping agencies and consultancies scale without burning out teams or eroding margins. His approach isn’t about productizing services – it’s about productizing value. In this episode of The Handbook: The Operations Podcast, Brian and Harv dig into what that really m...
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿 This one’s for anyone who’s ever asked: How is a PSA actually different from a project management tool? And does it even matter? Spoiler: it does. Harv breaks down how project management platforms and PSAs serve very different purposes – and why the difference becomes more obvious (and more valuable) as your business grows. If you've got a question about ops tech, PSAs, or Scoro, drop Harv a message on LinkedIn. He might just tu...
From the outside, M&A can seem like a clean transaction – a new parent company, a logo change, a cheerful announcement. But inside? The reality is messier. Integration. Culture clashes. Reporting headaches. And a long list of decisions that determine whether the deal actually works. Dom Hawes has lived both sides. After his own agency was acquired (badly), he went on to build Selbey Anderson – a marketing services group backed by private equity, designed from day one to scale through M&am...
New series alert: Ops Quickies — snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿 We're kicking off with a big question wrapped in The Clunkiest Acronym: what the heck is a PSA ... or professional services automation platform? Harv explains why the name’s a problem, what this kind of platform actually does, and why service businesses need to start paying attention. If you've got any questions about ops tech, PSAs, or Scoro, drop me a message on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you – and might...
Your ops might be ticking along just fine. But what if your founder got sick tomorrow? What if your top client left? What if you had to make a big decision with zero visibility on the numbers? You might not be planning to sell your agency – but you should run it like you are. Because when you adopt that mindset, you zoom out. You stop firefighting. You start building a business that runs without you. This week on The Handbook, Harv sits down with Sam Wood – fractional COO and founder of consu...
Is your business growing, but it still feels messy? This solo episode from Harv looks back at one year of The Handbook podcast, and it’s a big one. Harv recaps what he’s learned from a year of speaking with ops leaders across the agency world. He packages it all into one whirlwind tour of the five core pillars of operational maturity: people, process, tools, data, and growth. If you’ve missed a few episodes (or want a cheat code to benchmark your agency’s ops maturity), this is your starting ...
Ops Leaders, are you unintentionally making life harder for your delivery team? Galen Low, co-founder of The Digital Project Manager and host of The Digital Project Manager podcast, joins us to flip the lens, and spotlight the real impact of operational decisions from the delivery floor up. Galen has spent years helping digital PMs thrive in chaotic environments. In this episode, he shares the signs leaders might be missing when systems break down and how to create structures that support peo...
What does it really take to operate more strategically as an agency? Manish Kapur returns to The Handbook to help agency ops leaders shift from firefighting mode to future-focused thinking. If you’ve ever struggled to carve out time for the big picture while juggling the day-to-day, this episode is your playbook. Harv and Manish dig into how to run fast-paced, high-impact workshops that drive meaningful change – and how to keep momentum once priorities have been decided. They also explore how...
Growth is the goal for many agencies, but as your team hits certain size thresholds, your structure, systems, and workflows can start to break down. Marcel Petitpas, CEO of Parakeeto, has spent years helping agencies around the world clean up their operations, tighten up forecasting, and build financial systems that actually support scale. In this episode, Marcel shares what breaks as agencies grow, and how small optimizations can make the difference between momentum and mayhem. If your team’...
What if you could charge more, and keep your best clients happy? Karl Sakas has spent over 20 years in agency operations and consulting, helping more than 600 agencies shift from reactive to strategic. In this episode, he joins us to break down why pricing isn’t just about numbers – it’s an ops play, and one that can define your agency’s future. Here’s what we get into: • Why time & materials pricing is on the way out, and what to do instead • How to use “value anchoring” as a bridge to...
Your tech stack might be holding your agency back more than you think. Ryan Pearcy, founder of Digital Transformers and chartered accountant, has helped countless agencies untangle their systems and make smarter, faster decisions. He’s spent nearly 15 years helping service-based businesses clean up their systems, bringing finance, tech, and process together so leaders can make decisions based on reality. In this episode, he helps Harv troubleshoot three common (and all-too-familiar) agency te...
How do agencies stack up in 2025? The results are in for BenchPress 2025. The UK’s largest benchmarking survey for independent agencies has revealed some surprising (and shocking) trends about the state of the industry. To break it all down, Rory Spence, Head of Commercial at The Wow Company, joins us to unpack the data, trends, and opportunities that agency leaders need to know. In this episode, we cover: Why 2024 was a brutal year for many agencies (and how to bounce back)Profitability tren...
Most agencies add value far beyond execution. They develop methodologies, frameworks, and strategic thinking that help clients make better decisions. But too often, they give that thinking away for free. Only to compete on price when it’s time for execution. Max Traylor has spent years helping agencies break this cycle. He’s an expert in packaging and selling strategy, helping agencies move from order takers to trusted advisors. In this episode, Max shares how to stop the race to the bottom a...
Are performance reviews a waste of time—or your agency’s secret weapon? Too often, agencies treat performance management as a checkbox exercise, bogged down with vague feedback and awkward salary conversations. But Zoe Elizabeth Blogg, Operations Director at Reboot Online, has built a system that actually works. From structured performance reviews to proactive (quarterly!) salary reviews, Zoe’s created a process that keeps teams engaged, managers confident, and top talent sticking aroun...
Your agency’s operations can either fuel creativity, or kill it. And you can focus on the big picture that drives real financial impact, or get stuck in the weeds. Preston Chandler, WPP’s Global Practice Lead of Strategic Operations has a point of view, and the experience to prove it. In fact, Preston’s role at WPP is all about advising agencies in the group on how they can operate in a better, smarter, and more strategic way. In this conversation, Preston shares how agencies can design their...
We’ve all had those moments, we land that huge new client – first comes the elation for winning the mandate that will transform our fortunes, and then the mild panic at how we’re going to deliver. There’s also times when what we do is simply just not that well understood across the organization – there might only be one internal expert, which creates a significant amount of risk for the business if they were to leave. That’s where assessing – and improving – your business capability maturit...
This year, Gen Z are due to make up over a quarter of the workforce – a huge proportion. But both the negative headlines and moaning around the watercooler have commenced. Claims of entitlement, laziness, and unreasonable expectations abound. But is any of it true? And is their approach to work really that detrimental to an efficient workplace? In this episode, Harv speaks with Isobel Camier, founder of Camier Communications and a training consultant with 15 years of experience in...
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