I firmly believe that creative companies should be run by creative people. (Caveat: some of the most creatively-centred people I’ve worked with have been account people and strategists. This is not necessarily about titles.)

So naturally, I’m loving seeing the rebirth of the indie agency. This can only be good for our industry, for a whole bunch of reasons I won’t go into here. But what I do want to talk about is a brutal truth that anyone who’s started their own agency comes up against on day one: that creativity is beautifully inefficient, chaotic and utterly human. And running a business is very much not that.

Which is why agencies have traditionally kept their creative people away from the business side of things. Let them focus on their core responsibility. Which makes perfect sense. Until that creative person decides to start their own agency. And then they have to ask themselves how the hell do you run a creative business when it feels like you’re trying to combine two things that the universe clearly never wanted together?

I think the answer is, you don’t try to combine them at all. I think the day a creative person starts their own agency is the day they have to accept the reality that they’ve done a really stupid thing, but it’s going to be great.

Warning: you may have to rewire your brain a little. This will mean that you have to figure out how to give zero fucks, and all the fucks at the same time

I had my own agency with two wonderful partners for a decade. Worked in a big network. And now I’m leading a global network of independent agencies. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that the key to success and happiness in this business, whether running your own agency or working for someone else, is to embrace the absurdity of it all.

The chaos of creativity and the ordered nature of business don’t belong together. So don’t fight it. Instead, realise that you are doing two very different things at the same time.

Because in order to make this work, you have to treat this whole thing as if you have two children: one that was born to be an artist, and one who was always destined to be an actuary for an insurance company. One is neither better or more worthy than the other, and you have to make space for both of them to thrive. But unlike children, it’s OK to love one more than the other.

So how do you do this? I don’t have a long list of tips and hacks and tricks. This isn’t a LinkedIn post. But I do have a simple philosophy that’s worked for me. Warning: you may have to rewire your brain a little. From being hyper focused on one of the two key facets of the business, to being able to bounce between the two at will.

This will mean that you have to figure out how to give zero fucks, and all the fucks at the same time. By this, I mean you will always care about the financial health of your agency, but when you are focusing on the creative product, you will also need to give zero fucks about the financial health of your agency.

Congratulations. You are now living a double life. It’s weird, but it’s what you signed up for. You will have to accept that money and creativity have always needed each other. They have nothing in common, but they’re not enemies either. With this acceptance comes a little less resistance to having to look at Excel files on a regular basis.

Try to achieve balance, but not through constant compromise. You don’t want to create an energy in your agency where business and creativity are always in the same conversation. Quite the opposite.

Some days, creativity wins and you’ll do that thing that you know in your heart you need to do for the good of the work, even if it costs you money. Because if you don’t, it’ll cost you your soul and ultimately your agency. And some days, the business will have to win. And that’s OK. But hopefully, there are more days where creativity wins. But don’t beat yourself up either way. This isn’t easy.

One thing you need to have is a very good sense of humour. Use it as a weapon against all enemies, especially those dark thoughts you’ll have on the sleepless nights you’ll most definitely have.

Try to achieve balance, but not through constant compromise. You don’t want to create an energy in your agency where business and creativity are always in the same conversation

Finally, you can never forget where the money comes from. Even if you started your agency to make a bag, you are guaranteed to fail if your focus is revenue and growth. Microsoft created Office nearly 40 years ago and makes over 50 billion a year from it. Unfortunately we are not Microsoft. We wither and die if we’re not constantly producing great new work.

And while I’m talking specifically about startup agency life, this has always been the existential dilemma for creative companies, both big and small: how can a company be both highly creative, while also being highly attuned to the realities of running a business?

The solution which too many businesses select is to pick a winner. Water down the creativity and the necessary risk and chaos that entails, in order to be more focused on the business. Or (less commonly) focus almost entirely on creativity in the belief that if you get that right, the business will magically take care of itself.

To my mind, the only way to do this is to lean into the utter lunacy of what you’ve decided to do. You’ve decided to build a creative business. You’ve decided to do something that, like the bumblebee, shouldn’t fly. You have no choice but to go all in on creativity. And also take the business side of things very, very seriously. Sounds crazy, and it is. But it isn’t.

John Mescall is creative chair of by The Network; bythenetwork.com; Images: Shutterstock