Balancing the Work vs. Building the Business: Lessons Learned After 3 Years in Services the Game
If you run an agency, consultancy, or anything in professional services, you’ve probably felt the tension of:
Do I prioritize my time by serving (and even over-servicing) clients or building my own business? What’s the right mix?
We talk about this all the time. At our core, we’re agency people. We’re wired to prioritize client work, which corresponds with quality above all else. We respond to emails first and deliver on deadlines before anything else. That instinct is what makes us good at what we do. But it’s also what makes it so easy to neglect the business we’re building - or at least have diminished energy to focus on our own business versus our client’s needs.
Why It’s So Hard
Clients pay the bills. They’re the reason you get to do the work you love. But without a healthy pipeline, without marketing, without structure behind the scenes — there are no clients.
It’s a constant push and pull. The challenge is that client work will always feel more urgent. Deadlines are tangible and revenue is tied to delivery. Working on your own business rarely carries the same immediacy, which makes it easy to push down the list.
That’s why we’ve had to be intentional about managing the balance. Over time, we’ve found a few ways to make sure the work on the business actually happens.
Forcing Functions
The truth is, we’re not naturally great at this. Left to our own devices, we’ll prioritize client deliverables 100% of the time.
So, we’ve learned to build in forcing functions to make it stick:
Project management software. We treat our own business like a client. Every call ends with action items assigned, dates attached, and someone responsible. If it’s not in the system, it might as well not exist. And yes, we’ve learned the hard way that “mental notes” are a myth. They vanish into the abyss faster than a Slack notification on a Friday afternoon.
Hiring outside experts. Nothing lights a fire like knowing you’re paying someone who’s waiting on you. It’s one thing to ignore your own to-do list, it’s another to ignore an invoice you’ve already signed. The second we bring in outside help, suddenly we remember how to prioritize. Money is the best accountability tool (or the potential for wasted money).
Accountability partners. For us, that’s our business coach. He’s strategic, thoughtful, and supportive, but he also has a memory like a steel trap. If we said we’d do something three weeks ago, it’s coming back up. He doesn’t even need to scold or lecture us. All it takes is a gentle, “So, how did that goal go?” and suddenly you’re fighting the urge to crawl under your desk and hide. Knowing someone else remembers what you promised makes you actually follow through.
A Constant Balance
Some of this comes down to basic personal discipline. In recent months, I’ve tried flipping my list where I’m doing the “work on the business” task first before touching client work. It’s hard, but it changes everything.
Like work-life balance, there’s no perfect formula here. It’s a constant negotiation, a give and take. What matters is that we keep the lines of communication open, stay honest about where we’re falling short, and hold ourselves accountable.
Three years in, we’ve come to know that you can’t just build a business by accident. It takes deliberate effort and making sure you’re setting aside time to make that happen.
Enjoying The Growth Stack? Don’t forget to subscribe for weekly updates straight to your inbox. 📥