Your Agency’s Growth Problem Might Be… Your Books - with Brandon Kordower from AURA
🎙️ Happy Clients Podcast Recap: Your Agency’s Growth Problem Might Be… Your Books - with Brandon Kordower from AURA
Wondering why you feel stuck with you agency and can't find the reason? The problem might be in your books. Brandon Kordower from AURA is our guest today, and we will discuss the importance of getting the right numbers within the agency and how these can guide us to the grow we need.
We help agency owners grow by taking client management off your plate - and putting you in the CEO seat instead
🎙️ Happy Clients Podcast Recap: Your Agency’s Growth Problem Might Be… Your Books - with Brandon Kordower from AURA
On this episode of The Happy Clients Podcast, host Taylor McMaster is joined by Brandon Kordower, founder of AURA, a fractional CFO firm focused on marketing agencies. Together, they dive into a common (but often overlooked) growth blocker for agencies: messy financials.
Many agency owners focus on top-line revenue, but Brandon challenges this mindset, arguing that understanding your margins and tracking time accurately are the real keys to scaling profitably. Without clean, accrual-based financials, agencies risk making poor decisions based on misleading numbers.
Brandon shares that a million in annual revenue is the turning point when agencies should move beyond cash-based accounting and bring in a specialized controller or CFO to support decision-making and growth.
Key Takeaways:
Stop relying on top-line growth alone: track margins to scale sustainably.
Use time tracking tools (like Harvest, Clockify, or Toggle) to measure billable vs. non-billable work.
Align revenue and expenses in the same period using accrual accounting for accurate financial insights.
Consider outsourcing your financial leadership: fractional CFOs provide expert support without the full-time cost.
Start with small actions: analyze time tracking data in Excel to identify profitable (and unprofitable) clients.
Brandon’s parting advice? Start tracking your team’s time consistently: it’s the first step toward real financial clarity.