There’s a version of the “we need to talk about scope” conversation that plays out in almost every agency, and it usually gets treated as a project management and profitability problem.
Talia Palermo doesn’t see it that way. She compares it to going in for what you think is a shoulder injury and finding out the real issue is somewhere else in your body entirely. Project management issues, she says, are often just the symptom. The real cause is usually hiding a few steps back.
Talia is the innovation manager at Function Point, where she talks to agency owners all day and hears what’s actually breaking before most of them have language for it. One number she shared stopped me mid-sentence: 56% of agencies say they don’t have enough information at the start of a project to scope it properly.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why over-servicing keeps showing up as the top frustration agency owners bring to Talia, and what’s really driving it
- How value-based pricing works differently on the outside than it does internally, and where agencies get that twisted
- The mindset shift that makes time tracking feel like advocacy instead of surveillance
- Why profitability has to be part of the entire project life cycle, from estimating to active work to review, not just something you check at the end
This one will change how you think about the numbers you’re not looking at.
Want more conversations like this one? Talia is leading a conversation on project management, profitability, and pricing at the Agency Together Mastermind Mingler in Vancouver on September 17th, one of five conversation streams agency owners can choose their own adventure through. Learn more here.
Show Notes:
-Talia’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taliapalermo
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