Helping Digital Agency Owners Operate & Grow Their Business | Founder @ FlexOps | Agency Operations & Management

Hi, I’m Ross.

I help agency owners get unstuck and grow their business.

There are 5 key areas I tackle with my clients:

1. Founder - Understand what you want for the business and your role in it
2. Clients - Retain and grow clients through exceptional service
3. People - Get the right people, in the right place, doing the right things
4. Processes - Build a system that the agency operates on
5. Pipeline - Working with more of the right clients for your agency

I’ve helped my clients go from:

- Nearly quitting their agency → Loving their leading role and keen to grow
- A dysfunctional team → Organised, aligned and autonomous
- Losing clients from bad systems → Clear processes for the team to execute
- No defined customer → Calendar full of prospects that fit his ICP

If you are an Agency Owner struggling with these problems…

Send me a DM 📥

Let’s see if I can help.

Ross Brown

I'm Jack. Friends call me Snacky Jacky. 

I started my marketing agency Utopiads in 2013 in Toronto. Over 11 wild years I grew the agency to $2 MM / yr net profit but nearly unalived myself in the process. 

I ignored my (long overdue) diagnosis of Crohn's Disease in 2019, putting off surgeries and rest because I was growing and having fun. 

In March 2024 this caught up with me and claimed its price: I had to sell my agency and undergo two life-saving operations in as many days, culminating in a two-month high-dependency unit hospital stay. 

My heart was broken as I never wanted to leave my mission and people.

Still, everything happens for a reason. 

After taking a year to recover I launched my Agency Growth Advisory in July '25 with one mission: 

~Help Agency Leaders Add A Zero To Revenues Without Sacrificing Their Health~

In my own story I was good at the former and bad at the latter. 

I don't think health and success have to be mutually exclusive, but both require intentional balance. What are we chasing and why? And how do we do this intelligently without succumbing to the agency-founder-martyr syndrome?

During my time off I wrote a few books about agency growth, most recently Writing Home and Sixty Seconds of Glory, which you can find on Amazon.

Additionally, here's a video explaining my newsletter (Snacky Unfiltered) where I dish the best and spiciest stuff: 
https://www.loom.com/share/8c5af465add44cc29ee453db9157acf4

I'm a huge fan of EOS by Gino Wickman and most of my agency's growth came through public speaking and partnerships. I love business planning, fiscal management, problem solving, and growth strategy.

I also love Taylor Swift and heavy metal, and I'm an aspiring amateur drummer.

Rootin' for ya! 
Snacky

Jack Porter-Smith

*nervous exhale*… James Rose is my new business partner and I’m Inflectiv Group's new Managing Partner. 

Translation: I now lead a group of agencies 🤯

I owe both James and Agency Hackers Ibiza (the conference we met at last year) an inordinate debt of gratitude.

For I’m building again when I thought I was done! I honestly thought I was the horse put out to pasture at 35 and that was DARK 😐 

I grieved this notion for a while and then after I pulled through the Great Crohn's Crisis of early '25 begrudgingly accepted it. Grateful to be alive n' all that. 

I figured my 'big' adventures were over and to embrace my new advisory career (which is great, but I'm also a builder).

Happily, I found a loophole ☺️

Turns out I never needed to start anything on my own–I’ve partnered into an existing business and been gifted a perfect role. Meaning I’m ready to build big again, just not on my own. 100% of my brain but 20% of the load sort of thing.

Sooo, what are we doing at Inflectiv Group? 

Backing the top 1% of category-leading independent agencies for extraordinary outcomes, basically. 

We acquire minority equity stakes. The agencies in our group maintain full independence and get our immense support and firepower, and go to town with a bunch of new sibling agencies!

James is the founder and visionary and has laid incredible foundations. The agencies within our group are brilliant. My job is to run the unification of our agencies for maximum collective performance and value creation. 

Have you any idea of the power of such a group in one room sharing ideas, methods, resources, tools, acquisition opportunities, and little black books?!

All with centralised finance and coordinated GTM strategies... pulling toward a shared objective. Not passively, but with the explicit intent of raising each other up operationally and commercially. It’s mind-blowing to witness.


And yes, my little Agency Growth Advisory shop is here to stay, too. 

Because if you're an agency with growth ambition but aren’t quite ready to join Inflectiv, you can work with me 1-1. Then one day you might want to ‘level-up’ to the group.


James, thank you for believing in me and being a friend. To my esteemed new colleagues… here's to our adventure.

Snacky 🩵

Here to share the story of my agency and life, and make friends

How to assert dominance over your new business partner: a masterclass by Snacky 💅 

Step 1: Get him to fly to Glasgow absurdly early in deep mid-winter, ensuring he’s bleary-eyed and disoriented.

Step 2: Pick him up at the airport and drive him to Glasgow City Center, but erratically and badly, ensuring he’s nauseous on arrival.

Step 3: Feed him some questionable-quality Scottish snacks. Activate acid reflux.

Step 4: Take him to Virtual Reality Sim Racing and secretly tell the sim owner to turn James’ rig up to level 97 vibrations.

Step 5: Thrash him around Silverstone in an F1 car. 

Step 6: Take this selfie afterwards and feign gracious indifference to victory, claiming it must have been luck.

Is this how you remember things, James? 

Jokes aside, a major commitment he and I made to each other in partnering at Inflectiv Group was to have FUN.

No Sunday night dread. No hissy fits or doom-chaining. No bad-fit deals.

We partnered to lift each other up and make each other better! 

To do things one another simply can’t alone, and execute a joint vision we believe passionately in–disrupting the agency group space and offering a truly new and better way of unifying agencies.

☝ How can I say it’s ‘new’?

Ummm... we literally created our playbook from scratch to be right and proper. 

I can say with total certainty no other is doing as we are because we tore up the book and imagined it anew our way.

Most crucially we democratised our unification plan. Our agencies guided and approved these plans. If they don't like it we don't do it.

🤌 How can I say it's better? 

Just wait and see... I'm not spilling our IP here :) 

Here’s to many years of fun, and I wish you all the same!
Snacky 🩵

Becoming Inflectiv Group's Managing Partner was not my only option in career 2.0 after exiting my agency.

I chose this mission above all others (alongside my advisory) because:

(1) Agency groups are a whole new world to me. It's fascinating because I know the agency space so well yet I'm learning a new part of it.

(2) James had already done the hardest part – envisioning and starting it.

(3) We met by luck just at the moment his growth meant it was a good time to expand the team.

(4) If you had a Rick n’ Morty science machine I honestly don’t think you could create a better match for this role than me.

But the big reason is disruptive correction.

James explained to me how traditional ‘Hold Cos’ work (it’s not pretty) and have operated the past 20 years.

They’re not there to enhance the experience or outcomes of the agencies within. Agencies are treated like pawns, dragged along, stripped of autonomy, dismantled, and milked.

There’s no true purpose of a whole becoming greater than the sum of its parts.

Crucially, there’s no true unification plan to get multiple agencies that are great matches working as one for extraordinary outcomes.

As you can imagine I was equal parts enlightened and dismayed. And what shone through was James’ desire to confront this, which resonated with me as someone who still thinks like an agency founder.

So everything here is agency-first: intelligent deal structures, retained autonomy and independence, freedom of choice, no-fee-gouging.

If something is not in each agency’s best interest it doesn’t happen.

I’ve found my professional home and purpose at Inflectiv and I'm very happy about it.

Snacky 🩵

Hi! This is a picture of me with some of my new colleagues at Inflectiv Group in London 🎉

Can’t tell you what we talked about all day, obvs. 

Supreme-dominance-of-the-agency-space-with-inevitable-extraordinary-outcomes-sessions are under strict confidentiality, naturally.

Yet if you’re a category-leading independent agency ready to break through the next glass ceiling, you could have a seat at the next leaders’ workshop 👀

Because that’s what this is… being in a collective of exceptional agencies is a growth strategy. 

I’m kind of jealous I couldn’t be in something like this when I had my agency. 

It’s not complicated–align yourself with perfectly matched world-beating peers and become better as a unit than you ever could alone.

We’re adding a couple more agencies to the group before summer. So you should probably talk to my partner James Rose about that if you like the sound of it!

Rootin’ for ya! 
Snacky ♥️

P.S. those are not minecraft characters standing next to me. Those pixelated colleagues will share their own announcement soon ☺️

Some signs (or shoes) can’t be ignored 👀 

Tomorrow I finally get to announce my new business partner and this deal would NEVER have been if we didn’t have the same taste in shoes.

(only half-joking)

We met by chance last year in a crowd of 300. I wandered aimlessly outside the conference hall for some air and he was sitting on a wall. We sort of caught eyes and he invited me to join him to chat.

After ten minutes of absorbing conversation I noticed we had exactly the same shoes on (some rather fetching Dad-style birkenstocks)

As insignificant as it seems it was an instant bonding moment and something to laugh about.

We spoke without moving for a few hours and I felt more deeply heard and understood than I have in a LONG time. He just got me. Our backgrounds had a lot of overlap, so I could easily relate to his stories, too. 

Ultimately, his mission and values spoke to me.

From there we stayed in touch and, in time, settled on the perfect partnership.

So here’s the wild part… Fast-forward a couple months and we meet up for a day of business planning and a photo for this announcement a few weeks ago.

What do we both rock up in?

ANOTHER PAIR OF THE SAME SHOES (same brand, colour, style, size - slightly different material, as pictured)

I said to the photographer: "please take a pic of our shoes, there's a story here". 

I just knew from the second I met this person we were going to do something special together.

The silly shoe thing just gave us an opportunity to bond early on and who knows… If it hadn’t, would the conversation have continued to deeper levels?

Tomorrow at 1 PM (UK) the secret’s out. Thank you ALL for your support in this life and career 2.0.

Snacky 🩵

Righto my Northern Nano Agencies, listen here!

I like Kelly Molson and Mat Bennett a lot. They're good advisors and top-tier humans.

They are huge advocates of the 'Lifestyle agency' (as am I, it's just not my domain and was never my destiny). Leaders of the charge, arguably.

And when two such people combine forces to serve those they care about, cool things happen. 

One such thing being their Agency Nano Days (I've never infiltrated one but I've heard a LOT of positive things from trusted peers).

If one is a nano agency who wants:

i) A customised approach to the management and growth of the agency YOU want for the RIGHT reasons.

ii) To spend a day with like-minded peers (always gold).

... then one should do a Nano Day.

Whether you identify as a nano, micro, lifestyle agency... I believe the criterion for entry are:

a) a 1-2 person shop.
b) not being a b3ll-end.

(i.e. no d*!k-swinging over headcount and turnover as you refill your pipe)

Get some help understanding, planning for, and managing whatever growth means to you (and not drowning in the process) from two people who have walked the exact path with success. It's a no-brainer.

📆 Thurs April 23rd, 9.30am - 4:30pm 
📍The Leeming Building, Leeds
🎟 £240+vat

https://lnkd.in/egp2a3Xq

I've not been asked or incentivised to make this post. 

I encourage you to procure a ticket...

Rootin for ya, 
Snacky 🩵

Dear anyone worried I'm over-doing it in career 2.0 in light of recent announcements, please see my schedule for this week and relax 😆 

- Today I have one internal Inflectiv catch-up with James.

- Tomorrow I have one group agency catch-up.

- Wednesday I have 3 x advisory client L10s (we review the company scorecard, issue list, key project status, and client/staff headlines). I group these as recurring bi-weekly in offset weeks... so next week it's 3 others at the same window.

- Friday I have an all-day business planning session for an agency in our group. These are my absolute favourite days... we're sitting in a resplendent castle (literally) asking the right questions and documenting the masterplan for 2026/27's growth and problem solving. We'll stroll the grounds for inspo, sip tea, eat club sandwiches, and laugh. By 5 PM we'll have an impeccable 1-page agency plan.

I have NO medical appointments this week (wow). I'm down to 3 steroids per day (from 8) - win.

This is not to pretend I'm not busy. Last week was a little more intense (I averaged 3.5 meetings per day). 

I obviously have projects and task lists to work on, and ad-hoc things come up by email like any business owner. My advisory clients voice-note me quite a lot for random support/updates.

And in April I have one big business trip and one big family holiday - but I'm already planning around that to manage things.

I run my life and diary with intentionality. I run my schedule (it does not run me). 

I have a master document for planning out recurring meetings with advisory clients and my agency group so that no one week gets overwhelmed. 

People can't book me within 24 hrs through Calendly, and Calendly is only open 3 days a week in a set time window. Now that I'm 'busy' I'm doing far fewer 'coffee catch ups' (sorry, DMs and voice notes will have to do!).

I'm having fun and appreciate the well-intended check-ins, and just want to show you I have not slipped back into the days of 60-hr weeks and crossing the Atlantic 3x per month! 

I am, as ever, rooting for you all to be happy in what you do and to protect your time (no-one else will). 

Snacky 🩵

Y'all almost unanimously say you need more leads. Does your agency deserve them? 
Ummm... I doubt it. Let me facetiously cook with love.

We all go through phases being fat and lazy due to a lucky streak of fish in a barrell. 

Then when things dry up we spring into action doing 'things to get leads'. We might even make a list... 

(1) Post more on LI. (2) Go to this networking event. (3) Do a webinar. (4) Buy an email list (lmao). (5) Ask Jenny for a referral.

Then we spray and pray while trying not to panic over payroll.

Perhaps we hook a couple wins, or perhaps not and deduce 'nothing works'. Then get fat and lazy again or give up and yell at the cat.

My sincere and non-facetious point is this: 

If you are not RELENTLESSLY pursuing a GROWTH ENGINE for your agency for a CONSTANTLY overflowing pipeline, you do not deserve more leads or clients.

The engine defined as an ongoing initiative you're putting effort into that, in time, should deliver leads in your sleep predictably and scalably.

Y'all know my story and some of my growth engines were: 

(1) Eventing: 2-3 major hosted events per quarter plus occasional guest spots.

(2) Partnering: equipping and incentivising an army of sibling agencies to share clients with us. 

Yours can be whatever you want. There are limitless options to attract interest to your agency once you're clear who you are and how you're appealing (a UVP).

Our growth engines were part of a long-term vision and business plan. They each took massive effort, some risk, and investment. 

Take eventing for example... have you any idea the effort required to make this work? (before anyone says "must be nice", we bootstrapped at the start).

Creating an event from nothing entails its theme, message, narrative, audience, content, logistics, speakers, tech, promotion, management, data analysis, constant iteration and optimisation and loads more. 

I went proper method-actor deep to become a world-class speaker to ensure their success. Our peak results took 6+ events to come after some REALLY challenging issues and outcomes.

Imagine I'd just half-arsed one or two and deduced eventing doesn't work and then moaned about not having enough leads??

NO! I gave it the respect it deserves and pesevered to the point I could throw a dart at a globe, storm into that city in 60 days' time and walk out with 200+ consultations booked for my team. An agency owner's dream actually lived.

My bottom line: you gotta commit. Sporadic spraying and praying will never get you out of this hand-to-mouth cycle. 

Losing a client should never be more than a mosquito bite because you should always be relentlessly filling your pipeline, no matter how fat you are.


Never forget: you, the agency, are disposable. There's only one solution to that. 

Rootin' for ya with love, 
Snacky 🩵

Untangling the infernally incessant noise of your mind and making use of the year's months effectively is a fun challenge and why I love the structure of an operating system.

As pictured, James and I spend a fair amount of time huddled together distilling thoughts and solving problems at Inflectiv Group.

We follow my weird version of EOS-lite (from Traction) and it helps a LOT. In one master document which is basically a business plan, called a V/TO, we have:

- Clear vision and values
- Clear brand identity, purpose, and focus
- Defined value prop and marketing strategy
- Clear 3-year aspirational picture
- Solid organizational chart
- Meticulous annual budget
- Flawless 1-year plan with meaningful goals, measurables
- Defined quarterly projects to execute the 3-5 things that will take us toward our annual goal
- An issue list we can make sense of and prioritise solving at the roots
- Useful weekly business health scorecard (micros leading to macros)

How in the world could anyone hope to turn their dream and vision into reality if they don’t have this laid out with regular accountability, measurement, and progress checks??

All my advisory clients also use it, as do the agencies in our group. 

EOS is obviously only a system of tools, making it as useful as the operator understands and deploys it (with some additional flavours...).


So if it feels like your agency’s taking you for a walk... it’s highly likely because you’re not running an Operating System of your choice (like EOS).

If this resonates I highly recommend you read Gino Wickman's Traction book and think about EOS. It’ll change your life.

Rootin’ for ya, 
Snacky 🩵

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Jack Porter-Smith

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The Battle

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