Secrets to Running a Successful Web Design Agency in 2024
Summary
TLDRThis video outlines the 9-step process used to run a successful web design agency and keep clients satisfied. It starts with lead generation through referrals and YouTube content. Leads fill out a form to provide project details, which is assessed to determine if it meets budget and expertise. An initial call establishes project needs, budget, deadlines and contracts. If approved, 50% is collected upfront before starting. A kickoff call allows deeper discovery of client needs. The agency uses Notion to manage projects across an internal dashboard and a client-facing dashboard to allow transparency. As projects wrap up, clients are pitched ongoing maintenance and development retainers to nurture relationships beyond a single project. The goal is continual growth through connections with other successful agencies.
Takeaways
- 😊 Lead generation happens through referrals from happy clients telling others about the agency, and through content creation on YouTube
- 💡 The intake form allows clients to provide details upfront, saving time and helping vet good-fit clients
- 👍 Starting calls by aligning on price range and expectations sets things up for success
- 🤝 50% payment upfront before starting work is critical
- 🎯 The kickoff call focuses on deeply understanding client needs and project possibilities
- 📝 Notion CRM tracks internal progress and provides a client dashboard for transparency
- 🛠 Typical tools used are Figma, Webflow, Framer and Loom
- 💰 The minimum project size is $10,000
- 🚀 Continuously learning from and collaborating with other successful agencies fuels growth
- ❓ The script offers helpful specifics - feel free to ask questions!
Q & A
What are the two main ways you generate leads for your agency?
-The two main ways of generating leads are through referring clients, when a happy client tells their friends and contacts about the agency, and through my YouTube channel, where I create web design content that attracts potential clients.
Why is having clients fill out a form on your website so helpful?
-The form allows clients to provide details on their project needs, budget, timeline etc. This saves time, helps vet suitable clients, and sets clear expectations upfront before meetings.
What three key things do you aim to discuss in the first client call?
-In the first call, I aim to discuss: 1) The client's needs 2) Deadlines, contracts and budget 3) Expectations and pricing range
Why is receiving a 50% upfront payment so critical before starting a project?
-Getting a 50% upfront payment before starting work is critical because it ensures the client is invested and prevents issues if payments fall behind later on.
What is the purpose of the internal Notion dashboard you use?
-The internal Notion dashboard helps us manage projects by tracking tasks, resources, and info like meeting notes in one place, so the team has visibility on what's going on.
How does the client dashboard in Notion benefit the customer?
-The client Notion dashboard allows customers visibility into the project status, upcoming tasks, and progress, so they can check in without having to disturb the team.
What apps do you typically use for agency projects?
-We use Figma for design, Webflow for development, Framer for simple sites, and Loom for video feedback and updates.
Why is it so valuable to get clients on retainer services after project completion?
-Getting clients on retainer for maintenance and support provides ongoing revenue and allows us to leverage existing relationships vs. always seeking new clients.
What can you share about the minimum and maximum project sizes you take on?
-Our minimum project size is $10,000. We aspire to work up towards $100-200k projects that some established agencies work with.
You emphasize continually learning and growing - what's an example of that?
-We regularly meet with owners of larger agencies to get advice on growing our monthly revenue and improving processes.
Outlines
😊 Lead Generation and Client Onboarding Process
The paragraph discusses the lead generation process for the agency through referrals and YouTube content. It then covers the client onboarding process using an intake form to understand project details and expectations. This is followed by an initial call to align on budget, timeline, and contracting before accepting a 50% upfront payment to proceed.
📝 Using Notion and Other Tools to Manage Projects
The paragraph explains how the agency uses Notion as a CRM to manage projects internally. It provides a public dashboard for clients to self-serve project status updates. The agency uses Figma, Webflow, Framer, and Loom as needed for design, development, and communication. When a project wraps up, they aim to retain clients on ongoing maintenance or development retainers.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡lead generation
💡project manager
💡notion
💡figma
💡webflow
💡framer
💡loom
💡retainer services
💡minimum budget
💡growth
Highlights
I use a 6-step process to ensure clients are satisfied and loyal
Lead generation happens through referrals and YouTube content
Email form on website saves time vetting leads
First call covers needs, deadlines, contracts and pricing
Get 50% payment upfront before starting project
Kickoff call aligned client needs with team expertise
Use Notion as CRM to manage projects and client dashboards
Typical tools are Figma, Webflow, Framer and Loom
Minimum project size is $10,000
Average project pricing compared to other agencies
Always be learning and growing your agency
Meet with other successful agency owners regularly
Offer value to other agencies to get mentorship
Redirect questions to YouTube comments
Stay tuned for upcoming agency launch
Transcripts
today we're going to talk about how I
run my agency and the process that I use
to ensure that all my clients are always
satisfied and come back for more now
it's taking me over 6 years of
freelancing and mistakes to create this
method So today we're going to cover the
nstep process that I use in my projects
so you guys can skip all of the time and
money it took me to get here now the
first thing that has to happen is going
to be lead generation now lead
generation happens in two ways in my
Agency number one which is the best way
is going to be referring clients now
this happens organically when a client
is Happy they'll tell their buddies
about it their other business business
owners about us and then we get more
clients through that way now the second
way that we're going to generate leads
is going to be through this YouTube
channel now creating content for over 3
years of web design is going to generate
some sort of leads for web design now
before starting YouTube I didn't have
that many leads so creating something
like this has help me generate that
amount of leads now when we generate
this lead clients go directly through an
email form now this email form is found
on our website and we found that doing
this helps save us a lot of time clients
can add their details directly to the
form including the their pricing their
deadlines their expectations how many
things that they need if they need web
app design development writing whatever
they need they put it directly on the
form and this helps us vet that the
client is worth our time and also that
we're a good fit now this has helped to
save a lot of time a lot of back and
forth a lot of unnecessary meetings just
having this very simple form on our site
now the second thing that happens after
the client comes through the door is and
we make sure that okay this is within
our budget range this makes sense we
have that very first call with the
client and the project managers now when
this happens we have a general
understanding of how long a project
should take based on our previous
experience now if the client says I have
6 weeks to do this massive massive
project then we're say okay then it's
going to be a lot more money than you
have available so that's something that
we need to know with our past experience
if it can match our expertise or not now
on this very first call we're always
talking about the client's needs now
talking about the client's needs is
going to be the most important thing of
the entire call it's the reason why
you're there so make sure that you're
always listening to what they have to
say next up the second most important
thing is going to be talking about
deadlines cont contracts and money now a
lot of people don't talk about all three
of those or even any of those but that's
just what I like to do with my call to
give myself some peace of mind and also
the client if the client knows directly
coming into to the next couple meetings
that this is what they should expect
that this is the kind of price range
that we are thinking about then there
are a lot more chill about it and
they're not worried that we're going to
shove a $50,000 bid in their face and
they say okay well we can't afford that
it's better to get the pricing the
budget in the very first call out of the
way say this is the range that we're
thinking are you okay with that is this
within your range if they say no no
problem there's other methods to go
about it but if they say yes then that's
it there's no more heartbreak and you
just you just get on with it right so
the next steps after the call ends is
that we talk with the team make sure
that this is something we can do within
the time and the money that is available
and If that is good because we already
talked about the money and the budget
then we can say Okay handshake deal we
can start with it next week or two weeks
whatever the process is like but this is
great because we already talked about
expectations and we can agree on what we
talked about in the first call during
another second call or just straight up
on email now this is something that we
like to do it's our process it's not
necessarily the best process in the
world I'm guessing if you guys have any
suggestions then please let me know in
the comments but once we agreed on
everything and we have contracts signed
and ready to go we will then accept 50%
of the project upfront now this is
absolutely critical if we don't receive
this money we do not start the project
number four is going to be the kickoff
call now this is going to be where the
client and the team finally meets and
they can talk about it's kind of like a
discovery session if you want to call it
that this is where we just find all of
the things that need to be done so this
is one of the most important parts of
the entire meeting and we're going to
take a look at a real life kickoff call
in The Next Step but this is going to be
where the project manager can really
understand the needs of the client and
they can talk to the designers and say
okay this is something that we could do
couldn't do with the time available okay
so once the project begins we then move
on to notion now notion is what we use
as a CRM this is what we use to manage
all of our projects and I covered this
in a previous video I'll link it down
below but this is a opsis by the future
this is kind of their dashboard that we
use to manage clients now here we have
an internal view of everything that's
going on we have a couple of sentences
about the project we have some resources
like our figma files and then we have
some tasks that we have already
completed are in progress or not started
so here we have the meeting notes from
our kickoff call we have the date where
it took place the objectives we have
some notes so this is something really
really important that we do and look
back on often to see what was talked
about and we also have a recording of
this so we can always really just make
sure that what was being said is
actually being worked on right now this
is not what we send off to the clients
they don't see all of this what the
client sees is their own little
dashboard So within the client dashboard
we have a very similar view to what we
see internally only the difference is
that we have this kind of public view of
what's going on in the project now this
is shared directly to the client as a
page so they can always check in and see
okay this is what's going on this is
what's in progress this is what's not
started yet and as as I can see here
we're a little bit late on these next VI
pages so we'll have to get started on
that but this is what the client sees
and this is great because they can see
okay this is what's coming up this is
kind of what I should be expecting maybe
it's a little bit sooner a little bit
later so we can play around with that
just going to undo what I just the mess
that I did there but this is what the
client can check in with themselves they
don't need to feel like they're
bothering us it's just a very simple
thing to check in on their own so in
terms of apps that we use in the agency
is going to be the very typical ones
figma for design always and forever web
flow for development if it's a big
project framer for a smaller project or
just a very simple landing page if it's
just maybe even a template it might not
even be worth wet flow and then loom for
recording so within notion we also have
these looms for feedback rounds let me
click that so you guys can see what that
looks like but here is where I kind of
go through the project and I explain all
right this is what's going on right now
this is what we're doing so this is a
real life project that we've got going
on Art typography and I'm just
explaining to them the process the
buttons everything that we've got going
on and then the next few projects that
are going to be happening so as the
project develops we create more and more
looms for them here we only have two
because this is a pretty short twomon
project as we can see here we only have
a couple weeks left so we better get our
skates on and and start working a little
bit faster there but that way they can
see everything they can see the Looms
they can see anything that's ever been
posted and in terms of communication
we'll either use slack Discord email or
in this case we're using teams because
that's just what they use directly so
we'll go into their company's contact
form if that makes sense but step seven
is going to be when the client or the
project is over we then move on to the
retaining Services Mission when the
project is over it's not over it's not
over till it's over right but we always
try to get clients on a retainer
Services that's either for maintenance
or either ongoing development or then
web design and development so this is
something that we started doing recently
and it's completely changed the way that
we work because now we're not always
relying on brand new clients we can use
this huge library of past clients that
we've worked with to generate more
income for ourselves and this is
something I recommend every single
person watching this to do if you have a
list of clients that you've worked with
in the past either on notion on notes
even in your email if you haven't sorted
that out yet send them a message and
saying I am now doing maintenance
services if you guys need help ongoing
this is my price this is what I do my
services blah blah blah let's get on a
call if you do that someone's going to
say yes and it's going to completely
change the way that you work so I
recommend that you guys get into that
now that we talked about how project
management is set up let's talk about
the juicy bits which is going to be
money how much money are we making per
project what's the average price what's
the average income for this stuff now
our minimum run is going to be $10,000
per project now there's going to be
agencies that say that that is
absolutely laughable it's not even worth
opening the door for that amount of
money and then there's going to be
Freelancers and other agencies that say
that's my dream project where do I sign
well one thing to keep in mind is that
there are agencies in every single
metric of the world right there's going
to be agencies doing $10 million Web
projects web apps and apps and stuff and
there's going to be agencies doing $100
websites so whatever right there's
there's room to grow there's room to to
do whatever I'm happy where we are right
now just because this is a brand new
agency we only very recently got
accepted into the we flow experts
program so thumbs up there we haven't
even launched it yet so that's kind of
where we're starting off at is a 10K
minimum now I'm very very happy with
that and I know that there's multiple
multiple agencies that have a 200 100K
minimum project now I'm going to add
some screenshots here of another agency
that I really really love that has I
think a a similar Max which is around
200k so that's something very
interesting to to the think about but
there's always room to learn and grow
and that's going to be step number nine
step number nine is going to be don't
ever for the love of God just stay
stagnant and say this is good enough I'm
just going to sit right here with my
$500 project because I was like that and
then I had snapped out of it and said
okay I need to keep learning keep
growing what we're doing now as an
agency is that every two weeks we're
meeting with other agency owners and in
two weeks we're meeting with an agency
owner that is making $200,000 per month
with only retainer Services that's kind
of their main bulk of projects so that's
just something super super valuable the
information and knowledge that this
person has that can help us grow and
maintain our agency is invaluable so if
you can offer something to them and they
can offer something to you I recommend
that you set up this meeting just a very
quick coffee just something simple go
ahead and try to set that up so we're
almost launching this agency if you have
any questions down below about anything
about it let me know and I'll try to get
to your comment thank you guys so much
for watching and I'll see you guys on
the next one
Ver Más Videos Relacionados
Fluxo de trabalho para projetos de IDENTIDADE VISUAL
How to Start an Ai Automation Agency with $0 in 2023
How To Make $23,856 Per Month As Easy As Sleeping (Full Walkthrough)
FREE PMP Project Management Training! WHAT IS A PROJECT
How to Differentiate Your Marketing Agency & Destroy Your Competition in 2022
Unir un cliente Windows 10 a un dominio en Windows Server 2019
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)