Four Takeaways from Finish
We Finished Finish for You and Here’s What Marketing Agency Owners Need to Know
Finish is not a book about finishing.
It is a book about perfectionism.
Jon Acuff’s Finish, published in 2017, breaks down perfectionism as a universal problem that keeps people from completing meaningful work. He methodically labels the signals of perfectionism and then provides practical strategies to prevent it from quietly derailing progress.
For marketing agencies, this problem shows up everywhere. It shows up in over-scoped retainers, endlessly revised decks, services that never quite launch, and leadership teams that keep “planning” instead of deciding.
Finish is a fast, conversational read that sneaks up on you. Acuff manages to call out perfectionist behavior without shaming it, which is exactly why it works. Most agency leaders are trained to chase excellence but are rarely taught how to recognize when excellence quietly turns into avoidance.
We chose this book at Learn to Scale because marketing agency owners, especially those in the early or scaling stages, are at high risk for perfectionism. As agencies grow, perfectionism often hides behind good intentions like “quality control,” “brand standards,” or “not ready yet.” Learning to identify those patterns is part of the transition from operator to leader.
Below are four key takeaways from Finish, reframed to help marketing agency owners recognize and subvert perfectionist habits that stall growth, strain teams, and frustrate clients.
1 - Supersized Heroic Goals
If it is not impressive, it is not worth pursuing, right? The first trap of perfectionism is setting goals that are so epic and ambitious that failure is almost guaranteed.
Marketing agency owners fall into this constantly. They try to launch a perfectly packaged new service, overhaul positioning and operations at the same time, or redesign the entire client experience in one sweep. The result is often stalled execution and quiet burnout.
There is nothing wrong with a BHAG, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal, but the milestones required to reach it must be attainable. Most agency leaders dramatically overestimate how quickly they can execute while underestimating the operational friction involved.
That is not pessimism. It is statistics.
Perfectionism drives agency leaders to set high bars because anything smaller feels inconsequential. It also conveniently ignores the reality that execution will be messy. Social media reinforces this illusion. For every polished case study or confident LinkedIn post, there are countless drafts, internal debates, and near-misses you never see.
Antidote: Cut your goals in half. Reduce the scope by fifty percent or double the timeline. Accept imperfect results in pursuit of a modest, shippable outcome. In agencies, progress beats polish. You will improve through repetition, not refinement alone.
2 - Your Goal Is Lame
A goal that looks good to other agency owners may not actually matter to you. If the goal is not something you want both logically and emotionally, perfectionism will find a way to sabotage it.
In marketing agencies, this often looks like chasing growth metrics, service offerings, or operating models because they sound impressive, not because they solve a real problem you care about. When motivation is borrowed, execution suffers.
If you choose a goal that you intrinsically value, your likelihood of finishing it increases dramatically. Even when the end goal is long-term, the milestones along the way should be motivating and, ideally, enjoyable.
In short, the path to the goal should not be miserable.
Antidote: Leverage both reward motivation and fear motivation.
Reward motivation pulls you toward something desirable, such as recognition, financial freedom, or building a reputation you are proud of.
Fear motivation pushes you away from something painful, such as stagnation, burnout, or being stuck running the agency forever.
Acuff does not rank one as better than the other. Both are valid. In agency life, you often need both. If the goal is not rewarding enough, you will procrastinate. If the downside is not painful enough, you will rationalize delay.
The key is honesty about what actually motivates you.
See also: temptation bundling.
3 - You’d Rather Clean Than Do That Hard Thing
Have you ever found yourself obsessively organizing folders, tweaking templates, or refining documentation when a difficult decision is looming?
Acuff labels two perfectionism-driven avoidance behaviors: Hiding Places and Noble Obstacles.
A Hiding Place is where you sink time to avoid the risk of failure. In marketing agencies, this often looks like reorganizing project management tools, rewriting SOPs, or endlessly researching tools instead of addressing the real problem.
This is also called the Eisenhower Matrix.
These tasks usually sit in the “not important, not urgent” quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix. They feel productive, but they are avoidance tactics.
A Noble Obstacle is more subtle. It looks like smart preparation. It feels responsible. It often masquerades as “doing things right.”
Examples agency leaders will recognize include:
Creating a flawless service framework instead of selling the service.
Building a comprehensive project plan instead of starting the project.
Comparing tools, pricing models, or positioning endlessly instead of committing to one.
Antidotes: Hiding Places lose power when they are made contingent. For example, deciding that you will wait to reorganize the agency wiki until you have had the hard client conversation.
ProTip: Noble Obstacles can be useful if they simplify execution, not if they aim to improve outcomes before execution begins. If a tool or process makes starting easier, it can help. If a tool or process makes better outcomes, it is just another form of avoidance.
4 - Tangled Up In Unofficial Rules
Perfectionism often hides behind Unstated Success Criteria. These are the secret rules about what “real” success looks like that are never spoken out loud.
In agencies, they sound like:
“I want to grow revenue, but I do not want to manage more people.”
“I want to delegate, but I still want everything done my way.”
“I want strategic clients, but I am afraid to let go of safe retainers.”
“I want to lead, but I do not want to give up control.”
When these criteria remain unspoken, perfectionism offers an easy escape. The goal gets abandoned not because it was wrong, but because it was never honestly defined.
Antidote: Regular reflection. Before starting a new campaign or project, ask yourself:
Do I actually like this goal?
What am I really trying to achieve?
Does this method fit who I am and how I want to lead?
Is quitting the right move, or am I avoiding discomfort?
Then challenge the answers by asking:
What does that really mean?
Who says that rule exists?
Once the unstated criteria are made explicit, they can be evaluated instead of obeyed.
Now, Go Finish Something
Most of the strategies in Finish revolve around surfacing subconscious perfectionist tendencies into your conscious awareness. When the problem is named, it becomes manageable.
If you are a marketing agency owner who feels stuck, plateaued, or exhausted by work that never quite feels done, perfectionism may be quietly undermining your progress.
Many agency leaders struggle most with perfectionism when it comes to delegation, letting go of day-to-day control, and choosing progress over polish. As the agency grows, the habits that once protected quality can become the same habits that limit scale.
If this feels uncomfortably familiar, it is usually not a motivation problem. It is a structural one. Understanding where perfectionism is being reinforced by roles, expectations, and incentives is often the first step toward finishing what actually matters.
That is exactly what a Talent and Culture Audit is designed to uncover.
