A little more reading.

You are not failing. Even when it feels like it. You’re just in the thick of it. And the thick of it is where most of us spend most of our time - but no one tells you that. You’re told to pick a niche, find your purpose, raise your prices, write a personal brand strategy, become a thought leader, optimise your funnel, outsource your admin, scale faster, scale smaller, scale something. There’s a formula, apparently. But no one seems to want to tell you what it is without paying £27.99 a month and let’s face it, you know it’s crap! Meanwhile, you’re doing strategy one minute and chasing an unpaid invoice the next. You’re fixing the printer. You’re covering reception. You’re trying to forecast VAT payments that land like a piano falling from a window. You feel like you work for HMRC more than you work for yourself. You look around and everyone else seems sorted. Confident. Clear. Making money. You’re wondering if they’re faking it. You’re wondering if you are. And it’s lonely. Deeply, quietly lonely. Even when you have people around you, even when you have a team, even when things are ‘fine’. Because no one else really sees it the way you do. The weight of it. The relentlessness of it. The thousand things a day that pass through your mind that don’t pass through anyone else’s. The pressure to keep it together for everyone else while wondering how long you can do that for. But also: the moments. When it’s flying. When you win something unexpected. When you say something that makes a client’s eyes light up. When you see someone on your team grow. When you remember why you started. When it feels like maybe, just maybe, you’re on to something. Feast and famine. Elation and fear. Boredom and adrenaline. The cycles are weird, and unfair, and rarely make sense. But they’re real. If you’re in a hard patch right now, it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. It doesn’t mean you’re not good enough, or smart enough, or ambitious enough. It means you’re doing something difficult and you’re still here. Maybe you don’t need to pivot. Maybe you don’t need to burn it all down. Maybe you just need to take a breath. Look again. Reassess. Strip it back to what matters. And know that this stretch won’t last forever. Running a business is the best and hardest thing you can do. It will teach you more about yourself than you ever asked to learn. And it will stretch you in ways no job ever could. If you’re tired, you’re not weak. If you’re stuck, you’re not broken . If you’re still trying, you’re already doing more than most. We see you. You’re not alone. And even if no one’s said it in a while - you’re doing brilliantly. Love Equipt x

Most writing about client service follows the same well-trodden path: say yes more. Smile more. Show up and serve. Think Nordstrom, Ritz-Carlton, or any other brand that made its name on “the customer is always right.” And while that works beautifully in retail or hospitality, in a strategic consultancy or marketing agency, it’s completely the wrong model. The best client service doesn’t come from being agreeable. It comes from being useful, honest, commercially aware, sometimes awkward and a little bit brave. SME News just named us Most Innovative Brand Growth Consultancy and gave us an Excellence in Client Impact & Service award, and it’s not because we do whatever we’re asked. It’s because we always try to give the best advice, even when it’s uncomfortable. In honour of our win and for anyone working in or looking for a crack client services team, here’s what we think great client service is really about. Clarity, Not Pleasing Clients don’t need us to agree with them. They need us to make things clear. Clarity is one of the most underrated skills in client service. It means being able to say: here’s what’s in scope, here’s what’s not, here’s what will move the dial, here’s what’s just noise. But to do that well, you need real marketing knowledge and that’s something not every client services person starts with. If you didn’t come from a marketing background or have formal training, it’s on you to learn. Read. Ask questions. Understand the why behind the work. Because without that strategic depth, you risk becoming a project manager, just delivering what the client asked for, rather than what they really need. And right now, that’s a dangerous place to sit. If you’re only executing instructions, AI can do that faster and cheaper. Your value comes from seeing what’s not being said. Reading between the lines. Knowing the market context. Spotting the bigger picture. That’s what clients will pay for and what will set you apart. A brilliant client service lead sets the pace, defines the shape of the work, and keeps everyone pointed in the same direction especially when things get busy or messy! Challenge with Care Good client service means being able to say, “That’s not right.” Internally and externally. Because if we don’t challenge the work, the strategy, or the thinking – who will? Inside the team, that challenge needs to come from a solid place. Not just “the client won’t like blue,” but grounded commercial thinking. If there’s no strong reason to push back, then creative and strategy teams deserve the freedom to be bold and radical. Externally, it’s about equipping the client to be brave, with proof points, with clarity, with the kind of rationale they can use to fight for great work inside their organisation. This is where Radical Candour comes in: care personally, challenge directly. You challenge because you’re invested, because you care enough to stop something going out into the world that isn’t good enough. Junior team members often worry that challenging might upset someone, but real client partnership is about honesty, not harmony. Creative work is a classic example. A client likes two ideas, asks to blend them, and the result is a compromise that feels inoffensive – and completely forgettable. It’s our job to ask the uncomfortable question: “Does this make anyone feel anything?” If it doesn’t, then it’s not doing its job. The role of client service isn’t to protect the relationship at all costs, it’s to protect the impact of the work. When we avoid challenge, we don’t just risk bland output, we also waste time, money, and momentum. Clear, brave, respectful challenge is part of what builds trust. And without it, the work – and the relationship – suffers. Commercial Awareness We’re here to create impact – not just output. For years, agencies have run on time and materials – a model that’s increasingly hard to defend. Not just because it’s clunky or hard to forecast, but because it’s reductive. If someone with 27 years of experience can crack something in a few hours, is that worth less than someone who takes three days? Of course not. But time-based pricing suggests it is. And that’s dangerous – because it erodes the value of experience, judgement, and the very thing clients come to us for. Add to that the fact that most people genuinely don’t know how long things take – a known issue in behavioural science, where planning fallacy and optimism bias skew how we scope, quote, and plan work. And now we’re in a world where systems can do things faster, briefs are changing mid-flight, and the “just get it done” mindset puts pressure on people, not quality. If we don’t reframe how we talk about value, we’ll end up getting cheaper – not better. Commercially aware client service isn’t about becoming salespeople. It’s about getting braver at talking about value. Because yes, clients might say something’s “expensive” – but ask whether it’s worth it, and you’ll often get a different answer. When you can explain why something matters, where it moves the needle, and how it creates return – that’s when trust deepens, budgets unlock, and relationships shift from transactional to strategic. And in marketing especially, this matters more than ever. Because everyone thinks they’ve got a good eye or can use a Canva template, but brand, positioning, strategy and creative direction are serious commercial tools. And when we don’t treat them that way, we end up underpriced, undervalued, and under pressure.

We’ve spent the last few years analysing SMEs across ten critical areas of growth – from strategy and brand to operations, finance, people and customer experience. It’s part of a tool we built called Perspective Analysis, designed to help businesses grow and build in a more agile, intentional ways. Now that we’ve used it with dozens of founder-led teams, agencies, charities and commercial ventures, the data’s starting to speak. And the same themes keep showing up - they cut across sector, size and leadership style. What’s most interesting is that what holds business back isn’t always obvious, even from the inside. Here are seven of the most common blind spots we’ve uncovered – and what they mean for growth-minded organisations today.