Profitability is an Operations Problem, with Sarah Still –– Ep.227
About this Episode
In this episode of the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel is joined by Sarah Still, Partner and COO at RAYNE IX, to explore why building a healthier, more valuable agency starts with operationalized leadership. Drawing from her background in accounting, finance, and agency operations, Sarah shares what she learned helping scale a marketing agency to nearly $10 million and 60–70 team members, and how that experience now shapes her work with women building valuable agencies. Together, she and Marcel unpack why culture is not something founders simply “create,” but the result of clearly defined values, expectations, and behaviors being consistently protected and enforced. From pricing assumptions and unreliable time tracking to the complex relationship between finance and operations, this episode offers a practical lens for agency leaders who want more clarity, stronger accountability, healthier teams, and better profitability without relying on burnout as the business model.
Watch this Episode
Points of Interest
- 00:00 – 01:43 – Introduction: Marcel introduces Sarah Still, Partner and COO at RAYNE IX, and frames the conversation around agency operations, profitability, scaling, and building valuable businesses.
- 01:44 – 02:28 – Helping Women Build Valuable Agencies: Sarah explains how RAYNE IX works with women agency owners to improve performance, build enterprise value, and prepare for future exit opportunities.
- 02:29 – 04:33 – From Finance to Agency Operations: Sarah shares how her accounting background led her into agency operations after helping clean up the books of a startup marketing agency.
- 04:34 – 06:10 – Building RAYNE IX After Agency Leadership: Sarah describes leaving her COO role after 11 years and eventually partnering with Kylie Peters to support women building healthier agencies.
- 06:11 – 08:39 – Why Focus on Women Agency Owners: Sarah explains the personal and professional motivation behind helping women founders capture the value they are creating in their businesses.
- 08:40 – 11:32 – Operationalized Leadership: Sarah argues that agencies often miss the importance of defining values, behaviors, standards, and leadership cadences that protect the business as it scales.
- 11:33 – 13:58 – Clarifying Founder Values: Marcel reflects on how unclear values at Parakeeto led to frustration, poor leadership moments, and delayed decisions around hiring and accountability.
- 13:59 – 15:43 – Culture as the Result of Enforced Values: Sarah explains that culture is not created through intention alone, but through the behaviors, standards, and values that leaders consistently enforce.
- 15:44 – 19:18 – The Power of Clear Expectations: Marcel and Sarah discuss how expectations shape leadership, performance, accountability, pricing, forecasting, and enterprise value.
- 19:19 – 24:52 – Assumptions Before Certainty: Sarah and Marcel explore why agencies should not wait for perfect clarity before taking action, but should make assumptions explicit so results can be compared against expectations.
- 24:53 – 28:59 – Time Tracking and Precision Traps: Sarah and Marcel discuss why unreliable time-tracking data can be worse than no data, and how agencies often overcomplicate measurement without knowing what question they are trying to answer.
- 29:00 – 43:38 – Finance, Operations, and Profitability: Sarah and Marcel unpack why profitability is an operational problem made visible through finance, and why agency leaders must understand the tradeoffs between margin, hiring, utilization, pricing, team health, and growth.
Show Notes
- RAYNE IX
- Connect on LinkedIn
Written by
Parakeeto
Free Resource
Free tools, templates, and training videos to measure the right metrics and improve your profitability.
Free Consultation
Schedule a free consultation with a profitability expert to find out how much money you're leaving on the table.
Free Consultation
About this Episode In this episode of the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel Petitpas is joined by Kristen Kelly for a reflective conversation about a major shift in how Parakeeto thinks about profitability and why it matters. Rather than treating profit as the end goal, Marcel unpacks why it is really the thing that enables agency […]
.png%3F2026-08-12T11%253A40%253A09.238Z&w=3840&q=75&dpl=dpl_2V79DSWJaJpFdQ2hivFKSM23XLDk)
Explore how agencies can move beyond basic time tracking and use better operational data to make smarter business decisions.
About This Episode In this episode of the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel is joined by longtime collaborator and agency operator Carson Pierce to tackle a deceptively simple headache for service firms, recognizing revenue in a way that actually matches the work getting done. They unpack cash versus accrual accounting in plain English, why cash makes […]
Marcel Petitpas and Kristen Kelly share a step-by-step framework for sequencing agency profitability efforts—model first, then forecast, then data.
About this Episode In this episode of the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel is joined once again by Carson Pierce to unpack one of the trickiest dynamics in running a service business: utilization. While many agency owners understand the surface-level math of underutilization, Carson and Marcel dig into the hidden and often overlooked costs that come […]
Learn how agencies can build an AI intelligence layer using context-aware agents, automations, and connected data to make smarter decisions and scale efficiently.
About this Episode In this episode of the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel is joined once again by operations expert Carson Pierce to unpack one of the most misunderstood but critical revenue models in the agency world: retainers. Together they trace the history of retainers from professional services to modern digital agencies and explain why the […]
Eric Brown of Blood, Sweat and Tears joins Carson Pierce to share a framework for building repeatable agency growth.
Sei-Wook Kim of Barrel Holdings unpacks the holdco model, agency acquisition criteria, and the financial fundamentals that make agencies durable and worth buying.