Session: Evolve From Freelancer to Agency

Are you a seasoned freelancer? Is the amount of work on your desk bursting at the seams? When you have more work than you can handle, it becomes clear that it’s time to expand.

This Session, written by Thursday Bram, will assist you with the growth of your business. There is a clear path to take from freelancer to agency, many have walked this path before, and you can too. Learn how to draw more clients, structure your agency, keep your team busy, market to the right clients, and set your agency up for the long run.

How to Evolve from Freelancer to Agency

Building an agency allows you to keep working on the types of projects you like in a much larger quantity and raises your earning potential dramatically. Running an agency isnt exactly something to jump into without prep work, but if thats the direction your freelance career is evolving into, its a surprisingly practical option.

How to Structure a Creative Agency

One of the key decisions in establishing a creative agency is how to structure it. Putting a solid structure and clear workflow in place that shows how different tasks pass through your business processes are necessary for an agency to grow.

How to Find Enough Work to Keep an Entire Agency Busy

When youve got a whole team working at your agency, you have to make sure that you have enough projects to keep them all busy. Youre going to have to shift your client attraction strategies to bring in big work. Let’s look at targeting the quality customers and commissioning the right amount of work for your agency.

How to Decide Who to Send Your Agencys Work To

Depending on how you choose to grow your agency, you may continue to rely on contractors well into the future. But that means that youre going to have to take on the role of client: youre going to have to decide who you are comfortable sending your agencys work to.

How to Manage an Entire Agency and Still Get Work Done

When you establish an agency, you need to be on top of getting the creative is on target, keeping clients happy, you also need to assign work to everyone else at the agency, if not keep checking to ensure everything gets done. It’s important that theres a good system in place and that you know what your priorities are. Provided you feel comfortable with a little management responsibility, getting everyone organized is very doable.

The Differences Between Marketing Yourself Solo and Marketing an Agency

When youre first marketing yourself as a freelancer, you have to make sure that your clients trust you. The entire point of your marketing is to convince each prospective client that you, personally, will do an awesome job on their project. But that approach doesnt work when you wont be personally doing every piece of work that passes through your agency. Youre going to have to make some major changes in how you handle marketing in order to get your agencys name out there.

How to Decide Your Own Role in Your Creative Agency

While you do get to define your teams roles at the agency, youll still have your hands full with work of your own. The big question becomes what work youre going to take responsibility for at your agency.

How to Keep Your Creative Agency Growing in the Long Run

Exactly how far you want to grow your agency is a question of your own goals. You may have modest ambitions, like building up enough business to be able to afford some great health insurance. You may have bigger plans, like being able to bring home six figures a year, beyond what you need to pay everyone working for you. No matter your goals, however, youll need to keep growing your business to meet them.