How We Built Agency Operations That Scale (And Why Most Agencies Struggle)

How We Built Agency Operations That Scale (And Why Most Agencies Struggle)

From the desk of Michael Cruz, Founder & Principal, Foresight Insurance 

Most agencies run on tribal knowledge, processes in people's heads, single points of failure, and chaos when someone's out. 

We fixed that. Now we run Foresight Insurance on a four-day workweek with the same production and service levels. 

On 7/31/25, I presented this approach at the first Scratch Agency Podcast meetup in Tysons Corner (near Washington D.C.), alongside Shawn on buying leads, Stephen on networking, and Ciara on digital real estate. Here's the short version of what I shared.  


The Shift: People → Teams 

We stopped assigning tasks to individuals and moved to team inboxes: 

  • Licensed Sales 

  • Licensed Service 

  • Non-Licensed Client-Facing 

  • Back Office Admin Support 

The Tools 

We switched to Help Scout for our Shared Inbox:  

  • Distributing emails efficiently (a challenge for most agencies) 

  • Visibility & Collision detection (avoids duplicate work) 

  • Automated routing by task type (saves human labor) 

The Foundation: SOPs 

Nearly everything is documented, step-by-step. If a process changes, the SOP is updated immediately. I said nearly everything, because this is a never-ending process.  

Quality Control & Accountability 

We spot check smart, not everything, calls, task completion, SOP compliance, and performance metrics. All teams see their own numbers every week.  

The Four-Day Workweek 

Rotating teams helps provide coverage daily. We've matched last year's production and tasks completed with 20% fewer hours and happier staff. 

Why Agencies Fail at This 

  1. Incomplete or non-existing SOPs 

  2. Inconsistent enforcement 

  3. No performance visibility 

How to Start 

One SOP at a time. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Create an SOP. Teach the SOP. Spot check the SOP. Repeat the process.  

Heroes burn out. Systems scale.