We halved our headcount. And doubled our profit.

December 2024.

£35,000 in revenue.

And profit? A flat zero.

I called our accountant, thinking something was off.

“Mate,” he said. “You’re spending £30K a month just to keep the lights on.”

That moment was a wake-up call.

 We weren’t running an agency.

We were running an expensive experiment in inefficiency.

So we made a bet:

What would happen if we ran leaner? Smarter? Meaner?

Turns out, it was the best call we’ve ever made.

 Here’s how we cut headcount in half and used AI + better systems to double our profit without touching revenue.

Where We Started

By January, we had a team of 10, a bloated tech stack, and a patchwork of contractors. 

We were breaking even on record months. 

So we set one goal:

Every cost, every role, every tool had to justify its existence. 

The 5 Moves That Changed Everything

1. We burned the tech debt

 Mohit (Ops) and John (Finance) did a full-stack teardown.

 We were spending £2,500/month on software.

 After a proper audit, we scrapped £1,500 worth of overlapping or unused tools.

Zero disruption. Immediate impact.

2. We rebuilt the content team from scratch 

Old setup: 

• The account manager handled the client

• The contractor handled the writing

• £2,000/month in costs

• Sloppy execution between the idea and the output

New setup:

• One in-house writer who’s also a strategist

• Cleaner, faster, sharper delivery

• £1,500/month saved

• MQLs hitting all-time highs

Connor’s now running the show.

And it shows.

3. We replaced SDRs with AI

We had a full-time setter doing cold outbound for £20K/year.

When they left, I jumped back into my own DMs.

It was brutal.

So, Mohit (my director of ops) spun up our internal SDR-as-a-Service system with AI agents running campaigns with minimal oversight. 

Now, we send thousands of hyper-personalized messages a month. 

And our connector campaign is pulling a 30% response rate. 

4. We ditched ego hires 

Every role we thought we “needed” got re-evaluated. 

Anyone who wasn’t directly impacting client results or revenue was cut.

We restructured around five high-performers.

The result?

Same output. Half the team.

5. We enforced a new rule: No hires without hitting £15K profit/month

Anytime hiring comes up, we ask: 

Shopify’s CEO said something similar in his memo recently.

We’ve taken it to heart.

What Changed 

• Fixed costs are down by a third

• Profit is trending up by £10,000/month

• Team morale is higher

• Client results are better than ever

• And we’re doing it all with 12+ retainers and no chaos

We didn’t scale back.

We scaled smarter.

The Mindset Shift

It’s easy to believe more people = more progress.

But the real leverage in 2025?

Lean ops.

Small teams.

AI agents.

And ruthless focus on what actually moves the needle.

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What changes are you making to adapt in 2025?

Hit reply.

I’d love to see how others are navigating this shift.

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