Balance, Boundaries, and Burnt Waffle Marketing: Why Agencies Should Embrace the Human Side of Hustle

In early 2023, Sarah Achler decided it was time for a revamp.

The founder of Burnt Waffle Marketing had spent four years growing her Chicago-based agency with empathy, grit, and a gut-level belief in compassionate leadership that celebrates people over profit. 

After experiencing significant life shifts, she decided to prioritize her well-being, not as a retreat but as a reaffirmation of her strength and humanity. The agency’s momentum slowed, but in that pause came perspective, clarity, and a reminder of her original vision as an agency leader: We’re humans first, not machines.

For Sarah, Burnt Waffle Marketing was always more than a business. From the start, she built a women-centric agency where people could thrive without running on empty. That culture has become one of the agency’s strongest assets. Its fully remote structure, emotional openness, and come-as-you-are energy have shaped how the team works, grows, and connects with clients.

When Sarah was back at full strength, she didn’t just restart—she rebuilt. She added a director layer, hired a project manager, and aligned operations around a culture that works. 

Since the reset, Burnt Waffle has grown with intention, and Sarah is leading with clarity, better boundaries, and more joy than ever before.

How Burnt Waffle Became a Brand That Sticks

Burnt Waffle Marketing’s origin story is as quirky as its name. Before officially launching her agency, Sarah worked evenings and weekends as a restaurant hostess while holding down a day job as a marketer in Chicago. One day, a breakfast mishap sent a tray of waffles straight to the trash.

What started as a joke—“I’m going to call my new agency Burnt Waffle Marketing”—stuck. And when she connected it to the idea of creating content so compelling you forget what’s on the stove, the brand found its story.

It’s weird enough to be memorable, and it sparks a conversation every time. If you can call tissue paper “Kleenex,” you can call an agency anything—just don’t make it bland.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing 

Behind the name and the humor was real encouragement. Her father, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, pushed her to take the leap. 

“He really gave me that little nudge,” she says. “I’m so glad he did.”

Creating an Agency Women Want To Work For

By the time she formally founded her agency in 2019, Sarah was already well-acquainted with Chicago’s agency world—and she was tired of it. She’d sat on massive marketing teams, held in-house roles, and been the lone digital specialist at more than one company. 

The common thread? Too many rooms where she was the only woman, and too many leadership styles that felt transactional, rigid, and out of sync with her values.

I really wanted to create a safe space for women in marketing. I wanted more say over the projects I was working on, who I was working with, and the kind of environment we were building every day.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

From the beginning, Sarah built Burnt Waffle Marketing around empathy, trust, and values-first leadership. That meant hiring people she believed in, saying no to work that didn’t feel right, and putting team well-being ahead of short-term revenue.

We look for nice people. That sounds simple, but it’s non-negotiable. We’re not here to be in toxic client relationships, no matter how much they pay.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

That conviction got tested when the agency took on a high-paying client in the CPG space. The scope was healthy, the invoices were paid on time, but the working relationship wore the team down. 

“In the six years I've been running this business, we have only ever fired one client,” Sarah says. “They were paying a good amount—why would we walk away from money on the table?”

Ultimately, however, the client didn’t fit the agency Sarah had built.

This client wasn't really aligning with our values and wasn't communicating with us in a respectful way or a way that felt good to us, unfortunately. The mama bear inside me sort of came out. I will always put the team first and protect them at all costs.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

Sarah made the call to let the client go. It was painful in the short term, but it sent a message that stuck: The agency’s values are the main business drivers. And when you back them up with action, you build the kind of culture people want to stay in.

Today, Burnt Waffle Marketing works with mission-driven startups, small businesses, and community-focused organizations—many in tech, retail, and consumer services. Most are in the early stages and looking for long-term agency partners who will scale with them. What they have in common isn’t an industry or vertical; it’s intent.

Making Agency Culture a Hiring and Retention Hook

Burnt Waffle Marketing has continuously operated as a fully remote work environment, with team members in Illinois, California, Colorado, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

“We’ve always been fully remote, even pre-COVID,” Sarah says. “That was intentional. I wanted people to be able to work how they work best.”

That flexibility shows up in the agency’s day-to-day operations. Core hours are fluid, cameras aren’t mandatory, sick days are encouraged, and emotional honesty isn’t something people have to hide.

I always say, “You might not feel great, but you can still do great work.” You don’t have to show up as your best self every day to be valued.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

If that kind of culture works wonders for morale, it’s also a fantastic retention tool. Burnt Waffle Marketing hasn’t experienced the high turnover that plagues much of the agency world. Most of the team has been there for years. They know the clients, they know the work, and they know each other.

The talent acquisition process has matured along with the business. For years, Burnt Waffle Marketing filled open roles through referrals—trusted networks, shared values, and soft skills that didn’t need a resume to show up. 

But as the agency grew, Sarah knew they needed to cast a wider net. Recently, they opened up hiring to public applications for the first time. “We had so many people apply. It was kind of overwhelming,” Sarah says. “But it also showed us that what we’ve built resonates with people.”

That kind of visibility isn’t just attracting talent—it’s attracting clients. Culture has become a reason people want to partner with Burnt Waffle Marketing.

“We’ve had clients say, ‘We love working with your team. They’re kind. They’re responsive. They actually care,’” she says.

In an industry where burnout and churn are often baked into the model, Burnt Waffle Marketing’s culture has become its most powerful asset.

Rebuilding With Purpose: The Shift That Changed Everything

From 2019 to 2023, Sarah worked feverishly to build a business that cared for every team member and fostered a culture of inclusivity and mutual respect.

However, life has a way of throwing unexpected curveballs, and sometimes personal matters need to take priority. Faced with one of those moments, Sarah made the courageous decision to step back and take time for herself. Thankfully, she had built a strong, trusted team—one capable of keeping the business running smoothly while she focused on what mattered most.

While Sarah took some time to focus on herself, Burnt Waffle Marketing’s marketing director stepped up to handle client accounts and help keep things running internally. Sarah stayed in the loop with weekly check-ins and stayed involved in the bigger decisions.

It worked for a few months, but over time, things slowed down—some clients wrapped up, growth plateaued, and the team got a bit smaller to match the agency's current size. 

It was then that Sarah received a fateful call from her marketing director telling her the agency needed her energy back. That pivotal conversation jolted her—and it worked.

Every time I talk about it, it gives me chills because I just think, “Thank God that she cared enough to say something, that she cared enough about my business and about the team and our clients.”

I think about that moment all the time, I'm not gonna lie. If it wasn't for her saying something to me, I don't know how long it would have gone on with me being on the sidelines.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

However, jumping back in didn’t mean returning to the same structure. Sarah knew that if Burnt Waffle Marketing was going to grow, the agency would have to change from the inside out.

The first change was pace. “I didn’t try to jump back in at the same level,” she says. “I started with a few meetings a week, and then slowly built my way back in.” That gave her space to regroup and gave the team room to step up.

Then came the structural shifts: Burnt Waffle Marketing started delegating and promoting from within, giving longtime team members more director roles. For the first time, junior staff had day-to-day guidance that didn’t come directly from Sarah. 

“It allowed the rest of the team to give better feedback,” she says. “Not everything had to go through me.”

The agency also hired a dedicated project manager to take the weight of timelines, deliverables, and scope off the client-facing team’s plates.

Account managers were doing all the backend project management. We got to the point where we couldn’t grow unless we took something off their plates.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

Scaling the Business With Automated Reporting

Personnel changes unlocked capacity. But that structure alone wasn’t enough. The agency also needed better tools. 

Before she launched Burnt Waffle Marketing, Sarah had worked across in-house teams and agencies, including a role at Marketo, where she was part of a 75-person marketing department. 

She knew how big teams ran, what tools they used, and how much pressure came with proving ROI. But starting from scratch was different.

Burnt Waffle Marketing was bootstrapped from Day One. No outside funding. No safety net.

“I had to do a lot of research and be really careful about where we were spending the few dollars we had at the time,” Sarah says.

Early on, that meant pulling performance data manually wherever the data lived—Google Analytics, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. But it didn’t scale, and it didn’t stick.

There were a couple instances where, due to limitations on client budgets, reporting got cut. And those clients unfortunately didn’t stick around as long as we would have liked.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

Sarah found AgencyAnalytics after a string of Google searches and a well-timed Instagram ad. 

“I was like, ‘We’re an agency. We need this.’”

Setup took less than a week. It plugged into everything they already used—no complicated onboarding, no long ramp-up.

AgencyAnalytics is the only marketing reporting software built specifically for agencies. Try it free today to find out why more than 7,000 agencies like Burnt Waffle trust AgencyAnalytics.

The first report went to one of Burnt Waffle Marketing’s longest-standing clients: a commercial real estate group with nine shopping centers and six active social accounts. Before that, tracking multi-location results took hours. AgencyAnalytics gave them a unified view of performance in minutes.

“They were like, ‘Whoa. You guys have really leveled up,’” she laughs.

Need to simplify reporting for multi-location clients? AgencyAnalytics brings all their data into one clear, client-ready dashboard—no spreadsheets, no workarounds. Start your free 14-day trial today!

Today, every retainer client gets a clear, visual report and an executive summary that highlights what matters. No fluff, no filler—just proof.

I’m not really a numbers person—I’m more on the creative side. But even I can look at these visuals and say, “This looks good. We’re doing our job.”

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

After careful consideration, Burnt Waffle Marketing implemented a stack to support real-time collaboration, time tracking, and scalable client delivery:

• Asana for project management

• Harvest for time tracking and budgeting

• Gain for content review and approvals

• AgencyAnalytics for client reporting

Each tool was selected to solve a specific friction point, and each one was integrated deliberately. 

We actually do a tech stack audit every year now. We look for redundancies, pricing changes, and places where we’re missing functionality.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

Revamping the agency’s leadership structure, project workflows, and tech stack allowed Sarah to focus on what she does best: business development, sales, and vision-setting.

Since the shift, Burnt Waffle Marketing has expanded its team, signed on new clients, and deepened its services with existing partners. The agency’s most ambitious growth has happened in the past 18 months, not despite personal challenges, but because Sarah faced them head-on.

There’s a takeaway for every agency founder who’s exhausted but still trying to carry it all: Sustainable growth doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from building a team you trust enough to do it with you.

Building a Business Worth Keeping

In the early years, Sarah held on to Burnt Waffle Marketing tightly—doing it all, making every call, knowing every detail. Over time, she built the kind of team she could trust. She got clear on values. She built structure. And she learned what it means to delegate.

Burnt Waffle Marketing is my baby. It’s really hard to let go of control, especially when you’re a founder. But I’ve learned to trust the team. I’ve done enough to make sure our values are clear, and now I get to focus on what I love.

Sarah Achler, Founder & CEO, Burnt Waffle Marketing

Sarah now leads with focus. The team owns their work. The business runs with clarity. She also has space to do what energizes her most: build relationships, grow the agency, and plan for what comes next.

For other agency leaders, her journey offers a simple and powerful lesson: It’s possible to build a business that runs with you, not just because of you.

And when you do, the work gets lighter. The vision gets clearer. And the business becomes something you’re proud to grow for years to come.