Is your business one unexpected week away from chaos? 😷

Last summer, my daughter was born three weeks early. 

I had to take an unplanned week off, and even though it was for the best possible reason, my business was still at risk of grinding to a halt. 

I ended up rescheduling and pushing back 15 meetings. 

That’s when I realized that I was the biggest risk to my own business.

Here’s the thing about single points of failure in agency businesses: they’re usually hiding in plain sight. 

If any process would break if one specific person (like you) couldn’t show up—that’s a single point of failure. 

And it’s a ticking time bomb that keeps you stuck in the day-to-day.

The most dangerous single points of failure often involve:

• The founder (that was my problem)

• Key employees who “just know how to do things”

• That one contractor who handles all your [important service]

• Any client making up more than 25% of your revenue

But fixing these isn’t just about hiring backups.

 It’s about documentation and systems that keep the agency running smoothly, no matter who’s out.

Take my situation. I was the only one who could approve final deliverables. 

My fix? 

I created a deliverable checklist so detailed that my team could confidently approve work. 

Took me three hours to make—saved me countless headaches and hours of rework since.

Here’s how to protect your agency in three steps:

1. List every process that would break if specific people disappeared.

2. Document each process like you’re teaching it to someone who’s never done it before.

3. Test your documentation by having someone else follow it. If they can’t complete the task successfully, your documentation needs work.

The goal isn’t perfection—it’s making sure your agency can run without any specific person, including you. 

Taking just a few hours now saves you hours of work and stress down the road. 

Plus, this frees you to focus on growth, not just daily operations.

Taking Action on Your Bottlenecks

This is exactly the kind of work we dive into every month in the Agency Alliance Mastermind. 

Just last month, one of our members faced a tough situation: their longest-standing employee, who handled billing and invoicing, broke her back and decided to retire two months earlier than planned. 

Without her, their revenue cycle would come to a halt. 

Within one session, we mapped out their hiring and training process, created a job description, posted the job, and built a backup plan.

That’s what I love about the Alliance. 

You’re in a room with other agency owners who’ve either solved these problems or are working through them right now. 

We dissect real processes, fix actual bottlenecks, and build systems that work. 

No theory—just practical solutions you can implement immediately.

If you’re doing at least $10K monthly and want help building an agency that doesn’t depend on any single person (including you), let’s talk. 

We’re opening a few spots this month. 

Fair warning though—this isn’t a “sit back and watch” kind of group. 

Everyone shares their systems, wins, and failures. That’s how we all get better.

If this sounds like what you’ve been looking for, schedule a quick chat here. 

We’ll talk about your agency’s specific single points of failure and see if the Alliance is a good fit.

And keep tuning in to The Agency CEO every Thursday for more tips on scaling your agency!

Until next time, 

Jesse Gilmore

CEO & Founder @ Niche in Control