What I Learned as an Agency Copywriter, Freelancer, and 2X Agency Founder
This is for freelancers or owners/partners of small agencies. It summarizes what I learned through years working for agencies as a copywriter/creative director, freelance copywriter, and founder of two successful agencies.
I did some of this deliberately and some by habit. All of these paid off for me.
Start Building Your Network Early
Your world keeps changing. People come in and out of your life. You might have intense relationships with clients and other creatives, and when they end, you lose track of them.
Ideally, stay in touch. Social media, especially LinkedIn, has made it easy. Clients, or ex-clients, change jobs. You want them to think of you if they need the services you provide.
Make clients your “business friends” I wrote about How to Make Business Friends to Grow Your Company.
Stay in touch with other creatives. You might want to form a virtual agency with them. I wrote about How to Create a Virtual Agency here.
Do Not “Follow Your Passion”
Some people advise you to follow your passion, but unfortunately, there’s likely no money in it. Many of us have passions like music, film, theatre, fashion, travel, or design.
And that’s the problem. Too many people think they want to work in those areas because they seem like fun and often feel glamorous.
These industries can be very exploitative. There are lots of “unpaid intern” positions available. Only a few people at the top make a good living.
Instead, find sectors you find interesting, have an ongoing need for your services, and have serious budgets to pay for their projects.
I wrote about Working for Ideal Clients here.
Will Your Business Serve Few Clients or Many?
Many creators don’t think about this, and it’s a mistake. What kind of clients will you serve? A few big clients or many smaller ones?
My choice was fewer big clients. They tend to be more professional, have bigger budgets, and have an ongoing need for work. Working for them, you become an expert in their field, which could lead to similar clients.
However, you must learn how to handle their admin and approval processes. Once you know, it gets easier.
You might choose many smaller clients. The variety can be interesting, and you learn something from each client. This is a typical model for front-end developers building websites. Once the site is done, you’re finished with that client.
There are risks for both approaches. If you have few big clients, losing any one of them can put a big hole in your revenue.
Having many small clients means you need a sales funnel that always brings you new business.
Decide which kind of business you want—fewer clients who give you lots of business or many clients who each give you a little. Plan accordingly.
I wrote about Vertical Niches (you need just a few clients) and Horizontal Niches (you need lots of clients) here.
As You Grow, Build Expertise In a Few Niches
When you start, don’t worry about your niche. Get broad experience and make enough money to keep going.
But after a few years, you should notice a niche starting to form. You’ll see that you have clients in similar industries. This often happens because a client refers you to another one.
For me, this happened with electrical utilities. I started working for one (luckily, the largest one in Canada), which kept me very busy. That led to work with other utilities and related clients.
Soon, that, along with government-related work, became the niche of our agency. It wasn’t the only area we worked in, but it accounted for 75% of our billing.
I Interviewed 13 Freelancers About Their Niches.
Define Your Core Services And Communicate Them Clearly
What do you want to do, and for whom? Write it out. Get clarity on this. Your goal should be not just “stuff for anyone with money”.
However, when you’re starting, you may do many projects that fall outside of your definition. Why? Because you need the work and the money.
But if you have clarity around your ideal services and clients, your business will bend towards your goal.
Having a defined target will help you market yourself and attract the clients that are right for you.
Read Take Control of Your Freelance Business
Logically Expand Your Services From The Core
For me, expanding meant finding a design partner to complement my writing services. Together, we could take on complete projects.
For others, expanding might mean growing in the same field. As a dev, you might add expertise on similar platforms.
Or, it could be, adding more of the same. A busy senior designer might partner with a junior designer to hand off less important tasks and focus on higher-level design concepts.
One way or another, this kind of expansion often happens after a few years in business. Think about how you would do this.
Some say they don’t want to grow, but it’s a mistake. I don’t believe “staying the same” is an option. You’re either growing or contracting. Even if your billing were the same year after year, inflation means you’re shrinking.
The challenge with growth as a solo freelancer is that there’s a limit to how many hours you can work and how much you can charge. For me, growth meant growing a larger team, and that started with one partner.
I wrote about Finding a Business Partner and how I did it to launch my first agency.
Pursue Professional Clients, Avoid Amateurs
What are professional clients?
They have dedicated corporate budgets
They have a primary focus in their jobs: marketing, communications, or IT. They don’t wear ten hats.
They’re trained in how to run a project, how to give complete briefings, evaluate work, and provide feedback
They’re professional in how they deal with vendors, providing timely approvals, and meeting payment terms
What are amateur clients?
They don’t have dedicated budgets. They want to know “how much?” and then decide where they’ll find the money
They may be the owner of the company, and they’re in charge of everything
They don’t usually do much marketing, so there’s a big learning curve. They question costs, deadlines, and creative solutions.
They may mean well, but in general, their inexperience means they’re a challenge to work with
Are all small clients amateur clients?
Not necessarily. They may have studied marketing or have previous experience. They may be disciplined in how they run their company and have created a dedicated marketing budget.
Most of all, they’re willing to learn. They’ll accept your guidance and learn how to become a good client. They’ll follow timelines for feedback and approval and honor the payment terms.
In fact, some small clients are very professional and are a joy to work with. They’re the ones you want to keep for years.
I wrote about Choosing the Right Clients here.
Here’s a Hierarchy of Client Types, From Best to Awful.
To Work With Big Companies, Learn How to Get on Their Vendor Lists
Most big companies use vendor lists to pre-qualify who they will work with. In other words, if you’re not on the list, they won’t consider you. You have to qualify first, and then get chosen from that list.
Many freelancers and small agencies aren’t on these lists. Why? Either they don’t know about them, or they believe it’s too much trouble to qualify.
For us, being on a few vendor lists meant millions of dollars of billing over the years.
Here’s what you need to know about getting on vendor lists for corporate and government clients. Yes, it takes some work, but once you’ve done one, it’s a lot easier.
Make Rules For Your Business—Adapt As Necessary
Even as a solo freelancer, you’re running a business. And like any business, you need rules and procedures for how you operate.
Your most important rules are your terms of service. That means how you get paid and how you define your project. Your terms might include the deposit for a project, progress payments, or retainer agreements. You’ll want to be clear about how you define your projects. How many rounds of revisions do you include?
Other rules could include your onboarding process and how you finish a job. Internally, it’s how you manage your files, how you track revisions, and the tools and platforms you use.
These can change over time, but at a certain point, you have to be clear on how you do things.
Learn more about Terms & Conditions for Freelancers here.
Get An Accountant—Become Financially Literate
I hired an accountant as soon as I started freelancing. I was lucky to get a good recommendation for an accountant that seemed to handle much of the city’s creative workers: ad agencies, freelancers, novelists, painters, filmmakers, etc.
Not only did he do my books and taxes, but he also offered valuable financial advice. This became even more critical when I formed my first agency. Together with my new partner, we went to see him to agree on how we should each get paid and how to make decisions.
His advice was simple. Pay yourselves the same. One day one of you might bring in more work, the next day, it will be the other. Decisions? They have to be unanimous. If you can’t agree, you have to talk it out so you can. Learn how to get along and move forward.
For me, this kind of advice was gold. Later, he would also take us through our financial statements, asking questions like, “you seem to do well on these types of projects but not so well on another type. Why is that?”
That led us to examine why some projects are more profitable than others. Did we do something differently? Maybe we shouldn’t do the less profitable jobs.
Why Freelancers and Creative Agencies Need an Accountant.
Get Admin Help—You Can’t Do It All By Yourself For Long
Even as a solo freelancer, you can get admin help with a Virtual Assistant (VA). Find the right one, and a big admin weight gets lifted from your shoulders.
Think about your work. If someone else could do your admin, could you fill that time with billable work?
When I started our first agency with a partner, our first hire was another designer, but our second was an admin person. She answered the phone (we seemed much more professional with a receptionist now!), but more importantly, she kept us organized and did the 101 things that made our lives easier.
It was an exciting time. We were a small, efficient team with the support we needed to generate a lot of client billing. It was much better than trying to do it all ourselves.
Thinking about growing? There’s much more in my book, How to Start a Successful Creative Agency. It’s the essential business guide for graphic designers, copywriters, filmmakers, photographers, and programmers.
Buy the Book Here
Over 300 pages and 23 chapters, available at Amazon (Paper & Kindle), Kobo (ebook), Apple Books (ebook), and Gumroad (PDF).
The book is packed with useful information to help creatives start and grow their business.
Extremely Clear and Helpful
“The book was extremely clear and helpful – I've already put a lot of your advice into action and have started thinking about the future of the business — what's my exit plan? When should I hire? All of the fun stuff!
Thanks so much again for writing the book.”
Bethan Vincent, Consultant
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This chapter covers essential areas such as Clients vs. Projects, Corporate Clients vs. Small Business Clients, How to Create an Opportunity Document, Benefits of Finding a Niche… and much more.
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