r/agencynewbies

I started a small agency called upfigure about a week ago.
The biggest thing I’ve learned already is that being able to do the work and getting someone to trust you with the work are two completely different things.
We can handle websites, landing pages, design, SEO, content, video editing, lead generation systems, and AI/automation.
I know that sounds broad. The reason is that I originally built upfigure around being an execution partner rather than forcing every client into one service.
In the last week, I’ve done 700+ outreach attempts across LinkedIn, Instagram, email, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Almost nobody replied.
I tried personalized messages, short messages, pain-based outreach, permission-first outreach, and even building working concepts before approaching prospects.
Still, nothing meaningful.
So I’m trying to understand whether I’m approaching this the wrong way.
Maybe the first opportunity doesn’t have to come from convincing a cold business owner to trust a one-week-old agency.
Maybe it comes from:
a business that needs one problem solved first and, if it works, wants ongoing help;
an agency that already wins clients but needs reliable white-label execution behind the scenes;
a consultant, salesperson, or well-connected operator who can open doors while someone else handles delivery;
or a company that doesn’t want to hire multiple people and would rather work with one execution partner on an ongoing monthly basis.
I’m comfortable being behind the scenes. I don’t need my name on the work. I care more about doing good work, communicating properly, and becoming useful enough that a one-off project can turn into a long-term working relationship.
I’m not asking for free work, sympathy, or shortcuts.
I’m trying to understand how people here got that first real opportunity when they had the ability to deliver but no established client base yet.
For agency owners, consultants, and business owners here:
What would make you trust a new team enough to give them one small paid project or overflow task as a test?
And if they delivered well, what would make you keep them around as a white-label partner, referral partner, or ongoing monthly execution team?
I’d genuinely value specific answers from people who have hired, outsourced, partnered, or built agencies themselves.

Please drop suggestions or recommendations on how to fine the right person?

I launched my Data & AI consulting business two weeks ago. We’re offering Data Engineering, AI Automation, BI Dashboards, and Modern Data Platform services.
I’m actively doing LinkedIn outreach and cold emails, but I’d love to hear from people who’ve been through this.
Where did your first 10 clients come from? What lead generation strategies actually worked for you?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I’d really appreciate advice from agency owners who’ve worked with hotels, hospitality, or lifestyle brands.

I’m building a luxury hospitality branding agency, and before I start doing outreach at scale, I want to sanity-check my offer.

I haven’t done a lot of outreach yet. That’s intentional.

The reason is that I’m worried I might spend months selling the wrong thing.

Right now, my offer revolves around brand strategy, positioning, and helping hospitality brands build a more distinctive brand.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether this is simply too abstract for a hotel owner or general manager.

If I tell a hotel:

“Your digital presence doesn’t reflect the quality of your physical experience.”

…it’s a fair observation, but I’m not convinced it’s compelling enough to make someone book a meeting.

So my question is:

Should a new agency even lead with brand strategy?

Or should the first offer solve a much more immediate business problem, with branding becoming part of the process afterward?

If you’ve built an agency in hospitality or lifestyle:

\* What was your first offer?
\* What actually got you your first few clients?
\* Looking back, would you still start by selling branding?
\* Or would you package something much more specific and outcome-driven?

I’m not looking for motivational advice or “just do more outreach.”

I’m trying to avoid spending months selling an offer that experienced agency owners already know is difficult to sell.

I’d really appreciate honest opinions from people who’ve been through this.

I launched my Data & AI consulting business two weeks ago. We’re offering Data Engineering, AI Automation, BI Dashboards, and Modern Data Platform services.
I’m actively doing LinkedIn outreach and cold emails, but I’d love to hear from people who’ve been through this.
Where did your first 10 clients come from? What lead generation strategies actually worked for you?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I think one of the biggest reasons new agencies struggle is because they’re selling deliverables instead of solving problems.

Nobody wakes up wanting a new website or a CRM. They want more calls, more appointments, and more customers. If you can’t show them how what you’re building gets them closer to that, you’re making your own job harder.

Once I stopped talking about features and started talking about outcomes, sales conversations got a lot easier. Clients don’t really care how something works. They just want to know why it matters.

Hi guys, how to handle sales objections without sounding like a sales man chasing the prospect's money, and how to have better tone or not sound unsure? (I still don't have results on the niche i am working with)

My leads are warm from ads, i try to listen more, talk less and let silence do the work but when they give me objections or something i am not expecting i suddenly start talking differently like begging for their time.

I try to listen to all my calls and fix the issue, but once i am back on the phone everything vanishes from my mind.

Thanks.

Quick question for agency owners 👇

When you get a web/app/software project but your internal team is already full…
Do you usually hire freelancers, build an in-house team, or quietly partner with a white-label tech team to deliver under your own brand?

I'm looking for advice from agency owners who've managed to solve inconsistent client acquisition.

My agency specializes in high-end 3D & CGI videos. We have a strong portfolio, solid client results, and our work quality isn't the issue. We mainly target businesses in the Middle East, which I know is a more challenging market.

The biggest problem is consistency.

Some months we're fully booked, then we go 2–3 months without signing a single client. That's the phase we're in right now, and it's becoming difficult to build a predictable business.

I'd love to know:

• How are you generating clients consistently every month?
• What acquisition channels have worked best for you? (Cold email, LinkedIn, referrals, paid ads, content, partnerships, etc.)
• Do you rely on one primary channel or several?
• If you've experienced these "feast or famine" cycles, what changed that helped you build a more predictable pipeline?

I'm not looking for quick hacks—I'm trying to build a reliable client acquisition system that keeps the pipeline full.

Any advice or lessons from your own agency would be greatly appreciated.

Recently started a website dev agency. Finding it difficult to find leads - my target demo is trades people who I guess are not very technical. I send the messages via DM with a pre recorded vid of me showcasing their websites but no responses at all.

Have not tried cold calling (not sure how to)

Any advice for a newbie?

Running a small agency and reviewing our finance stack. Curious what everyone else uses — Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent, something else? And do you bolt anything onto it (for expenses, reporting, chasing invoices, etc.)?

Mostly trying to sanity-check whether we're on the right setup or overpaying/overcomplicating. What's working for you, and what would you change?

I'm trying to start my career in web design and I'm feeling a bit lost about what path I should follow next.

I recently created my portfolio website and included two conceptual projects/case studies that I designed myself (I know two projects probably isn't much). My process right now is usually designing in Figma and then building the final website in Framer or Webflow.

I've already sent some CVs with my portfolio to agencies here in Greece, but I haven't received any responses yet.

I have a few questions:

• How do people usually land their first job at an agency?
• Am I maybe missing important skills that make me get rejected?
• Do agencies ever hire juniors and train them, or are they mostly looking for people who already have experience?

I'm also confused about positioning myself.

Should I present myself simply as a web designer? Is it valuable that I can take a project from design to implementation using Framer/Webflow, or is this "no-code" not even considered a skill?

Should I invest heavily in learning HTML/CSS, JavaScript, React, etc.? I currently only have a basic understanding of HTML/CSS from classes I attended at school.

And one more thing:

Would it be worth trying to find a few clients and start freelancing now, or would it make more sense to gain experience in an agency first and learn how the industry works?

I know this is a lot of questions, but things feel a bit chaotic for me at the moment and I'm trying to understand where I should focus my energy.

Also, I feel that in Greece this career path isn't always very clear or structured, so I feel a bit on my own trying to figure everything out.

I'd really appreciate advice from people with experience in the field.

Thank you in advance.

Hey everyone! Excited to share that I officially launched Francis Web Agency — I build websites for small service businesses in South Georgia (Hinesville, Valdosta area). I’ve been coding since 2011, self-taught, and this is my first real push into running it as an actual business rather than freelance-on-the-side.

Site: franciswebagency.com

Would genuinely love this group’s eyes on it — I’m close to it after months of building, so an outside perspective would help a ton. Specifically curious about:

Does it feel trustworthy for a small business owner who’s never had a website before?

Is the pricing/service page clear?

Anything that reads as “developer-brain” instead of “customer-brain”?

Thanks in advance — happy to return the favor on anyone else’s site too.

Hi I started my lead generation agency 8 months ago and had the hardest time selling a 5k offer to a very wide range of people with zero testimonials. You may not want to hear this but this is how I solved my issues.

(FYI my main client acquisition channel was Cold calling.)

I would make 100 dials a day trying to get home service business on my meta ads offer for lead generation. I quickly figure out with absolutely no social proof there was such a small chance that I could actually close someone. I was able to book probably 10 meetings in my first 3 months and it was absolutely grueling work.

I ended up signing my first client in 3 months and always thought this sit he point where the dominos start to fall and with his testimonial I would be able to close twice as fast. (I would not be able to deal with another 3 months of trying to get one client)

What people don't tell you that is if your product isn't polished you will have a churn machine. Obviously after 30 days when I under delivered because I was a beginner my client did not sign up the next month.

I ended up saying screw it I will run these ads for free just to figure out the actual product I was providing. To my surprise I started closing a lot more. People are so much more receptive to the truth. I would tell people that I was just starting out and would trade my hard work and time for a testimonial and if all went well after 30 days I would charge full price for month 2.

What I didn't realize is that social proof is half the battle when you are pitching to somebody. My closing rate jumped tremendously once my prospects saw so many results from my other clients.

Also one other nugget if you really want to start selling and don't want to go through working for free for a couple months. I would suggest finding a product that already has social proof and reaching out to white label it. A lot of owners are willing to let you sell their product under your name and price it where you want. Thats way you can leverage their social proof and have an already established service/product.

Hope this helps. Let me know how you guys got over that hump of getting your first clients!

I’ve been looking into what happens to contact forms after an agency finishes building a website and hands it over to the client.

Building the form itself is usually straightforward.

The messy part seems to begin after launch.

One client uses a WordPress form plugin. Another uses Webflow forms. Another sends submissions through Formspree. Some leads go to email, some to Google Sheets, and others are pushed into a CRM using Zapier.

Then, months later, a client says:

“We haven’t received any enquiries recently. Is the form still working?”

Now the agency has to figure out whether:

• The website stopped submitting the form
• The notification email went to spam
• An integration expired or broke
• The client changed an email address
• The form worked, but nobody followed up
• There simply were no new leads

And unless the agency is actively monitoring every client website, they may only find out when the client complains.

I’m curious how agencies actually handle this in practice.

For those managing several client websites:

How do you process and monitor contact-form submissions after launch?

Do you keep managing everything, include it in a maintenance plan, or hand it over completely to the client?

And has a client ever blamed the website or your agency because a lead notification was missed?

I had spoken to g2 recently and they had told me that it is good for lead gen for marketing agencies, but idk i feel like g2 is more of a directory or platform for Saas companies?

I’m looking for honest feedback, not clients or promotion.

For the past few months, I’ve been building a productized video editing service for creators and businesses, with an app/dashboard behind it instead of handling everything through email, Google Drive or random messages.

The basic idea is:

• No sales calls
• No subscriptions or retainers
• Clients order through a dashboard
• They upload footage, add notes, track progress, request revisions, and download final files in one place
• Pricing is transparent, and they only buy edits when they need them

The thing I’m trying to figure out is whether this model actually makes sense from the customer’s point of view.

A few things I’d love honest feedback on:

1. Does the “no calls” approach make this feel easier, or less trustworthy

2. Is the dashboard/order system actually a real advantage, or would most people not care

3. Would you rather hire a freelancer directly instead? Why?

4. What is the biggest weakness you see in this model?

5. If you landed on the website, what would stop you from buying?

Please don’t hold back. If you think this is a bad idea, I’d rather hear it now than keep building in the wrong direction.

I’ll add the website in the comments

Do you send clients proper white label reports with your branding on them or just export raw data and send it in an email?

And do your clients actually care either way or is it something you do more for yourself to look professional?

How big a part of your workflow is it really? Is it a monthly thing, every campaign, or something you only pull out for bigger clients?

I don’t like to use the term fractional CFO because I feel like it seems to be thrown around online and there is no barrier for entry.

I am a chartered accountant with 13years experience in commercial finance, focusing on budgeting/forecasting, KPI reporting, cost analysis, cash flow management, strategic reporting and advisory etc.

I want to move into helping SMEs on a monthly retainer for these types of services and more. But because I haven’t worked in practice I don’t really have a network of people to contact for warm leads. How have others found clients? Other than referrals and introductions.

My only plan right now is to find companies which fit me and reach out to them, I am just concerned that this is a huge numbers game, I could contact thousands of businesses offering to solve finance problems and not get any responses.

People massively over-index on lead generating tactics and ignore the part that reputation has to play.

And that's why we have so many people coming to this sub saying, "How do I get leads? I tried the tactics, and they didn't work. What am I doing wrong?"

And the answer is, there's two parts to getting a lead. One is getting the click or the eyeballs or the ears. And the other is having the credibility and reputation required for someone to be interested in working with you.

The less you know someone, the more that reputation matters and the road to building reputation is a long one.

The good news is that if you really want to start an agency and are prepared to make that slow progress, then you can know a huge proportion of your competition is trying for a couple of months, posting on here about how they can't get anywhere, and then disappearing, leaving the road clear for you.

But you've got to focus on the long game. And if you're spending your time on tactics that require an established reputation when you don't have one then do we think that's going to work?

I can forgive you that, given the amount of advice and manipulation and influence that you're going to come under every day on this mess we call the internet.

But those people are just trying to create a closed system where there are no variables except their tactic.

No one sells courses on how to improve your reputation, because it's much harder, and takes much longer, and you can't really put it in an ebook.

But it's a bigger factor then how much attention you get.

And you need to be working on it.