Our industry is famously built on the ebb and flow of clients. Now with the swing to project work (over retainers), new competition from up and down the client’s value chain, downward pressure on budgets, and the temptation to match capabilities with the competition (rather than leave money on the table), and your agency becomes a roller coaster in the funhouse of disruption, chugging up steep hills (process, new business, expert execution), and racing back down (costly phantom pitches, high client churn, heavy overhead). Now you are managing something very different: a business in a constant state of change.

Just as a CEO’s skillset is rarely suited for every stage of a company’s development, people running agencies really have to stretch, learn and deliver outside their area of expertise with increasing regularity, an invaluable skill in and of itself.

Managing (reengineering) your agency to adapt to new market opportunities -- structuring and selling a new capability to fill a sudden decline in revenue elsewhere -- is certainly tricky and not always successful (enough). And when not successful, managing the ensuing decline is unpopular, unpleasant and pretty lonely. But it is a key skill to have. It like “Top Gun” who racks up the kills, but isn’t too confident about landing on a pitching aircraft carrier. To live to fight another day, you really need to be good at managing both growth and contraction. It’s a talent that improves with every near-death experience.

A few tips (of many) if you happen to find yourself on the downswing: Build an Excel dashboard with variations to map potential near-term outcomes, of potential new business, partnerships and of cost-cutting maneuvers.

Transparency, anticipation and planning are key to keeping your plane aloft at whatever altitude and speed you find yourself. If you may be carrying too much overhead, get your operation organized early for cutting it.

Culture is a vital resource for any creative company, so hoping to fill your unused space with complimentary sub-tenants rarely works in practice. Also, the process of finding sub-tenants (cultural fit or not) is a huge time-suck. Brokers are expensive, but you pay for their network of other brokers, and they are incentivized to succeed. If you must downsize your physical footprint, consider a broker to help.

Using outsourced accounting staff is another way to scale up or down, provided you are very clear about their responsibilities. Your growth is good for them (more revenue), but if you need to cut costs, they may become less proactive due to less revenue. In any event, do not let your outsourced accounting resources push responsibility for the accounting back on you just because you are downsizing. When you are doing your research – or even if you are currently working with an accounting company – make a point to discuss what happens if you grow or shrink – what are the max and minimums they are willing to accept. The price range of accounting firms for agencies is very wide – so clarity on this potential of outcomes is important for you.

Staffing: Given the inexorable downward pressure on staff salaries, it can be tempting to compensate with inflated titles. While it is true, “titles are cheap”, you can set yourself to scale up or down more easily if you have not complicated the process with inflated titles. For example, what happens when your Director of Account Services or Head of PR has 3 years experience and is pitching a potential client with 30? How expensive is title inflation now? When your business grows, and you add clients/revenue, what is the impact on your culture (a big reason your business is growing, perhaps) when you subordinate your previous “Head of….” In favor of someone more qualified to manage the new load?

Embrace the rollercoaster, and may you become a master of managing disruption.