Agencies of the future will be 'spike-y' and 'spoke-y'.
🎯 Spike-y - with a deep specialist skill or sector.
🕸️ Spoke-y - with a network of talent to bring in when needed.
What am I forming this opinion on?
The growth and investment of in-house creative teams means more generalist work is easily being done but these teams want to access specialisms they can't easily hire or don't need regularly.
The retainer has all but disappeared and you can't grow an agency with no foresight.
Great freelance talent is available like never before with smart platforms to allow you to easily build your talent networks.
AI is taking away the production/execution side of things which was another area of revenue for agencies.
Clients want to work directly with the founders/experienced peeps.
If you are a boutique, specialist creative agency now really is your time. You can focus on the work you love, and geek out on that one thing you really want to do.
The only thing stopping you will be your sales and marketing skills.
Maintaining that pipeline of work to avoid the feast or famine cycle.
And with project fees only you are going to have to really know how to build relationships.
Think small numbers of people but high touch, high value interactions.