Nobody was happy.
Standing in the long security line at the Fort Myers airport, I wasn’t the only one worried that I might miss my flight.
The regular line was slammed. Wrapping around multiple times, it appeared like no one was going anywhere fast. TSA agents were short staffed, things were moving slow, and people were getting frustrated.
Right next to it was the TSA PreCheck line. It seemed long, but it was moving. The regular line was about four times longer and moving way slower.
Thanks to having PreCheck, I walked through security in just ten minutes. I felt bad for those in the regular line; I know that feeling.
I used to be the guy standing in the long line because I avoided getting PreCheck for years. I told myself I did not travel enough. I told myself it was not worth the hassle. I did not want to schedule the appointment, drive there, and deal with the process.
So I chose the easy option, to do nothing and roll the dice with the regular line.
And when I flew, sometimes I paid for that decision. I never missed a flight, but I sure as shit was stressed out enough by the long security lines that I didn’t want to travel more than necessary.
Then one day I almost missed a flight. That was the tipping point. I finally did the hard thing. Took the time, went through the process, got approved.
That decision has paid me back over and over again.
And that is exactly how running an agency works. Early on, I made one of the hardest decisions of my career, and it wasn’t quitting my job.
I didn’t just quit my job and hope it worked. I spent years freelancing after my day job, building a buffer, saving money, and lining up clients before going all in. It was slow. It required discipline. I sacrificed time with my wife, family, and friends by working so much.
But when the moment came, I was ready. That decision removed pressure and gave me a shot at building something.
Later, I hit a wall. Growth stalled. Things broke. The team was not aligned. It would have been easy to ignore it and keep pushing. Instead, I leaned into it. I changed our structure, upgraded people, and fixed how the business ran. It was uncomfortable. But it unlocked the next level.
I later learned this “wall” is common when building a company. In fact, it’s predictable, and it has a name. I didn’t hit a wall … I was in the Valley of Death.
Then came the biggest shift. I stopped living in client work and started building systems. Unglamorous behind-the-scenes work like creating processes, holding people anccountable, and requiring schedules and urgency from my team. Things most agency owners avoid because it feels slower or harder in the short term. Those shifts helped us to stop reacting and we started scaling.
Most agency owners are still standing in the long line.
This newsletter is about helping agency owners get out of the long line. I share how to build a more profitable agency, create systems that scale, and give yourself back time. Subscribe at businessofagency.com.
They avoid the hard conversations. They delay fixing broken processes. They tolerate team issues. They patch problems instead of solving them.
Easy Street feels easier today, but at what cost? Doing the hard work and staying disciplined is an investment today that compounds forever.
I also discovered a third line at my airport. Mostly empty, yet I saw a couple of people casually strolling down it, past the TSA PreCheck line and past the even longer and slower regular security line, only stopping once they got to the security checkpoint. I asked the TSA agent what it was. “It’s for first class.”
That is what it looks like on the other side. You do enough hard things up front, and eventually you stop waiting in lines altogether.
I hope that helps and gives you something to think about.
~ Erik