The Handbook: The Operations Podcast
Episodes
Why Ops Is Really About Culture (Not Just Process) with Nicky Russell
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
The work we produce gets all the attention.But the real question is: what’s happening behind the scenes that makes that work possible?In this episod...
Live event: Run like you're looking to sell, 19 March
04 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Have you heard of The Handbook: Breakfast Sessions?These are intimate breakfast roundtables where we dive into big operational topics with leaders fro...
From 11% to 43% Net Profit – Fixing the Fundamentals with Robert Patin
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Your numbers might look healthy.Revenue’s up. Projects are flowing. The pipeline feels… fine.But underneath? Margins are eroding. Cash is tighter ...
5 AI Guardrails COOs Need to Put in Place Today with Sharon Toerek
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
AI is moving fast in professional services firms. And while most conversations focus on efficiency gains and new tools, the harder questions are arou...
The 8 Systems Every COO Needs to Scale with Jason Swenk
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Most service businesses don’t stall because of a lack of talent or ambition. They stall because the business quietly outgrows the systems it was bui...
One Question Before the Break – What Should We Tackle Next?
17 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A short one to close out the year! 🎁No frameworks. No deep dives. Just a genuine thank you.Whether you found The Handbook last week or you’ve bee...
Ops Quickie: Fixing the Sales-to-Delivery 'Black Hole'
09 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿"Ballpark" is a dangerous word.Especially when Sales sells the dream, a...
Scaling Effort, Not Results? This is your wake-up call – with Michael Wark
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When your business feels busy but the numbers don’t back it up, something’s off.Agencies and consultancies often confuse effort with progress – ...
Ops Quickie: AI isn't the threat. Flying blind is.
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿Flat demand, tighter budgets, squeezed margins. And AI is adding uncertainty on t...
How to Run Annual Planning Like a CFO (Even If You’re Not One) with Adam Cooper
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most teams treat annual planning like a spreadsheet exercise.Finance builds the numbers. Everyone else nods along. Then the plan gets filed away until...
Ops Quickie: PSA vs ERP – Same Same...or Totally Different?
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿So many acronyms, but what do they mean!? This one’s for anyone wondering: wha...
Beyond Experiments: What It Really Takes to Operationalize AI with Luke Alexander
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AI has stopped being a side project – it’s rewriting the rules of how professional services businesses operate – and – stay competitive.Luke A...
Ops Quickie: MCP – the Missing Link Between Ops & AI?
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿This one’s for anyone curious about the next big shift in how AI connects with ...
Becoming Better Ops Leaders: Lessons from Operations Nation
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops isn’t just about keeping the lights on anymore.As Aušrinė Keršanskaitė, co-founder of Operations Nation, puts it – today’s ops leaders a...
Ops Quickie: When your stack starts to crack 😬
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ops Quickies – snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿This one’s for anyone who’s ever looked at their jumble of spreadsheets and a...
Lessons From Scaling $750k to $25m with Lindsey Head
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 T...
Ops Quickie: What ERA is your business in? Find out here!
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
How to Scale Smarter: Productizing Value with Brian Kessman
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When businesses talk about “productizing,” they often picture cookie-cutter scopes and rigid templates. But according to Brian Kessman, that’s m...
Ops Quickie: Why a PSA ≠ PM Tool
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
What 11 Acquisitions Taught Dom Hawes About M&A
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 i...
Ops Quickie: What the heck is a PSA?!
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
New series alert: Ops Quickies — snackable episodes on tech, tools, and systems. 🍿We're kicking off with a big question wrapped in The Clunk...
Board-Level Thinking, Sale-Ready Ops – with Sam Wood
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 deci...
The ops CHEAT CODE: One year of insights condensed with Harv Nagra
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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. H...
Are you helping or hindering your delivery team? With Galen Low
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 Di...
Strategic Ops, Unlocked: Manish Kapur’s Workshop Playbook
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 firefig...
Growth Thresholds & Growing Pains with Marcel Petitpas
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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.Ma...
Pricing, Profitability & Predictions with Karl Sakas
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
Why your tools aren’t talking & what it’s costing you with Ryan Pearcy
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Your tech stack might be holding your agency back more than you think.Ryan Pearcy, founder of Digital Transformers and chartered accountant, has helpe...
BenchPress 2025: 4 Big Agency Opportunities You Need To Be On Top Of
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
How to Get Clients to See You as a Strategic Partner with Max Traylor
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Most agencies add value far beyond execution. They develop methodologies, frameworks, and strategic thinking that help clients make better decisions. ...
Rethinking performance, pay reviews & career growth with Zoe Blogg
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Are performance reviews a waste of time—or your agency’s secret weapon?Too often, agencies treat performance management as a checkbox exercise, bo...
How to move from tactical to STRATEGIC ops with WPP's Preston Chandler
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Mike Della Porta: How to elevate service delivery for scale
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Managing Gen Z: Challenges, Myths, and the Opportunity with Isobel Camier
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 wate...
Building a systemized, codified, scalable sales engine with Ryan Hall
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a tight market, sales become a big concern. Relying on repeat business or referrals no longer cuts it, you have to put in more effort. Often in ag...
Running your agency like clockwork with Jinny Mitchell-Kent
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
How do you create a highly efficient agency without losing flexibility or quality?In this episode, Harv Nagra sits down with Jinny Mitchell-Kent, Join...
How to document and embed best practices that stick with Harv Nagra
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Are you battling with inconsistent processes, bad practice and poor staff training? In this episode, Harv Nagra explains the benefits of documenting ...
Hire, train and retain like Sarah Brougham
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Hiring and training new employees is a big commitment - and getting it right will have a lasting impact on your agency.Kicking off The Big Agency Club...
Amy Hopper: How to build more engaged, high-performing teams
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Individuals thrive when they’re equipped to handle challenges.Amy Hopper is a former agency owner and now founder of the business consultancy TOA. I...
Richard Brett: What is 'rev rec' & which metrics matter?
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Which metrics should you track, to run your agency as efficiently as possible?In this episode we speak with Richard Brett. Rich is a seasoned FinOps p...
BONUS EP: How can you boost your agency's productivity?
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Do you ever get to the end of the working day and wonder, ‘What did I actually get done today?'You’re certainly not alone. We’re interrupt...
Trenton Moss: 3 high-impact strategies that redefined my agency
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Curious about how an agency experimented with new approaches and found their recipe for success?In this episode, we talk with Trenton Moss, a former a...
Dan Timmiss: How to get your agency IT ready for scaling
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As an Ops person, the role of IT expert is often part of the job. So how can you ensure your agency’s IT infrastructure is set up for scaling? That...
Freia Muehlenbein: How to pitch to WIN
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Winning pitches is tough. Ghosting has become a common challenge, and even when you win, clients may be commissioning smaller pieces of the project r...
Jenny Plant: Great Sales & Great PM - Can One Person Do It All?
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Part of the remit of an ops leader is to ensure they’ve got the right people, in the right place. In many agencies, account managers handle sales, ...
Julia Vastrik: How to strengthen company culture in the WFH era
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We’re in the age of remote and hybrid working, and our physical distance from one another is having a huge impact on company culture. Previously, g...
Alfie Wenegieme: How to get better at finance
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Without financial results, we can’t see the impact of the decisions we make on our agency’s profit.In this episode we’re joined by Alfie Wenegie...
Matthew Peng: How to find the right tool for the job
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some platforms for niche use cases don’t require much consideration – you can try, and if it doesn’t work as intended, you can move onto somethi...
Ryan McNamara: The REAL purpose of ops: A revenue and growth driver
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Operations is a critical role within agencies today. But beyond the day-to-day, there’s a big opportunity to leverage this role as strategic driver ...
Claire Hutchings: Bad agency marketing is an ops problem: let’s fix it
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Why do agencies drop the ball on their own marketing?In Agencyland, we understand the importance of impactful campaigns, yet we frequently neglect our...
Claire Quansah: 6 steps to successful change management
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New tools and processes can transform your workflow. Especially when they’re well communicated, properly tested and correctly implemented. Successfu...
Tyler Caskey: How consolidating tools & automation can transform your agency
27 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Easy access to reports and dashboards is a game changer. But if your data is siloed in different systems, replicating data can be a daunting task, let...
Manish Kapur: Optimize these 4 areas to grow your agency
20 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Forget about revenue for a moment. Consider how much more profitable your agency would be if you optimized your team’s time and improved utilization...
Teaser: Hello from Harv
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Our new podcast The Handbook: The Agency Operations Podcast endeavours to create more community for agency operations people – a place where we can ...
Agency folks, welcome to The Handbook: Trailer
09 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Agency ops can be lonely – you might be the only person in your agency that works in operations, and you might end up having to figure things out on...