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Publications

What your agency is worth, and how to raise it.

Practical articles for real estate media agency owners on pricing, hiring, recurring revenue and selling. Each one opens on a real agency and a real number, and ends with what to do about it. Two new pieces a month.

A cut-paper mountain of blue and gold layers with a camera at the peak
Strategy6 min read

What Running Your Own Back Office Costs

The worksheet to fill in before you compare anything to 35%

One owner did the math on a call in September without being asked: his admin, his editing and his three full-time editors already cost about $14,300 a month, and 35% of his $45,000 residential month is $15,750. His number will not decide it for you. Yours will, and most owners have never written it down.

  • The worksheet
  • The comparison
  • Where 35% is more, and where it is less
  • growth-partner
  • finance
  • operations
Read
A blueprint dial with a gold segment
Strategy10 min read

Financial Management for Growth

Most agency decisions get made on a feeling, and the feeling is usually out of date

Two shoots grossed $2,300. After video editing, photo editing, a floor plan, listing sites and card fees, $1,758 was left, and the owner had touched the work for 11 hours. That is $160 an hour, which is the number to argue with. Ask an owner why they have not hired yet and you get: I do not think I have enough. Enough for what?

  • Turn every feeling into a number
  • Start with your baseline, not your revenue
  • Budget by percentage, then hire against the calendar
  • Move the cash forward
  • + 1 more section
  • strategy
  • acre-partner
  • finance
Read
A glass block lit from within, on a dark surface
Article10 min read

Clean Books Are Quiet Leverage

The most valuable work you will ever do on your agency is invisible until the day someone makes you an offer.

Due diligence runs $15,000 to $25,000 per brand and it is billed by the hour, so every month where the bank activity and the reported revenue do not line up is somebody's billable time. You pay for messy books twice. Once in the fees, and again in the discount a buyer puts on whatever nobody could verify.

  • Buyers price what they can verify
  • The add-backs you can't document aren't add-backs
  • What diligence actually looks at
  • Clean books change the close, not just the price
  • + 1 more section
  • selling
  • finance
  • exit
Read
A marble model house on a stepped plinth
Article11 min read

What Your Agency Is Actually Worth

The number that decides your exit is not on your P&L

Run $75,000 of personal and one-time costs through a P&L built for tax season and you have not lost $75,000 of value. At a 4x multiple you have lost $300,000, and the buyer who spots it before you do has no reason to raise a hand.

  • Nobody is buying your revenue
  • The bottom line of your P&L is the wrong earnings number too
  • The four add-backs
  • What that number is worth
  • + 2 more sections
  • valuation
  • exit
  • finance
Read
Newsletter

New writing lands twice a month.

What agency owners in the group are seeing on pricing, offers, platforms and AI, with the numbers attached. Unsubscribe whenever. No pitching.

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