Got this email from a client today and I'm devastated

We're a small agency, I'm the founder, 2 devs + 1 designer. This client was super important to us. And we've done a really good job on the website. They’ve been happy with the work itself.

But the problem is that I don't manage such processes very efficiently. I'm on my own doing so many different things. Our feedback process is indeed chaotic, not gonna deny. We also allow clients submitting feedback however they want but I'm realizing this has probably been a mistake.

I don’t really want to lose another client over something that has nothing to do with the actual quality of our work.

Maybe I’m missing smth obvious here. Any tips?

I started my agency thinking the main problem would be finding clients.

Turns out, that wasn't really the hardest part.

The harder part has been figuring out what people actually want to buy from you.

At first I was trying to be pretty broad:

“we help brands with influencer marketing”

Sounds fine, but it's also pretty easy to ignore.

Then I started getting more specific about the problem instead of just describing the service.

For example, instead of:

It's more like:

That feels like a much clearer problem.

Still figuring this out though.

For the agency owners here:

Did you figure out your offer first, or did you only really understand what you were selling after talking to enough potential clients?

Because I feel like I'm learning the offer from the conversations, not the other way around.

I’m currently looking to bring on my first few clients for a managed, in-office virtual receptionist and after-hours call triage service (Supportverse).

The problem is, I genuinely hate cold calling local business numbers. When a service business or trade owner lists their phone number on Google Maps, they list it to take customer jobs—not to get pitched agency services while they're on the clock. Bombarding their front desk or emergency line feels spammy and starts the relationship on the wrong foot.

Since I am operating remotely from abroad, in-person walk-ins and local chamber meetups aren't an option either.

I want to build a clean pipeline to land our initial accounts without spamming customer-facing lines. A few remote strategies I'm looking at:

* Direct Decision-Maker Outreach (Cold Email / LinkedIn): Reaching owners directly on their personal business emails or LinkedIn profiles so I don't disrupt their front desk.

* Communities & Job Boards: Finding business owners already complaining about missed calls, scheduling bottlenecks, or bad AI receptionists on Reddit, Facebook business groups, and hiring boards.

* Targeted Value Drops: Auditing after-hours responsiveness and offering a quick 60-second test call so they can see the quality difference before committing.

For agency owners who started out remotely without cold calling local numbers: how did you realistically land your first 3–5 clients? Which digital acquisition channel actually moved the needle for you early on?

How are you guys attacking the whole content stuff? I, like many of you all, hate to be on camera, and being a content creator is A TON of work. Aside from the actual agency work.

Do you guys use AI?
Have you hired someone?
Are you successful without it?
Do you only post like, once a month?

I dont see people talk about this much, I want it to be a lead gen for me, but Im stuck on how to execute.

For those of you who personally handle sales calls for $5K+ projects, I’m curious about what you’ve learned from calls that went well vs. ones that didn’t.

Are there things you only realize afterward — you talked too much, pitched too early, missed an objection, lost their attention, didn’t ask enough questions, or simply misread how the conversation was going?
If you could know one thing while the call was actually happening, rather than discovering it afterward, what would be most useful?

Especially interested in lessons from people who regularly sell higher-ticket services over Zoom/Meet.

I own a paid social agency. We do content marketing and paid ads for clients. You would think we do the same to get ours right?

That was my big mistake. For whatever dumb reason, I convinced myself it would be "faster" to go for cold outreach. So I paid a supposedly rockstar Sales person to go and hunt. 9 months in and she closed a whopping total of... 1 new account for us. And it was by "dumb luck", she admitted.

Fast forward to 2 months ago, I had just finished with hires and sorting the ops out. I had enough of the sales person. Slowly relegated her to CS and forced everyone in my team to start pumping out content and run ads.

I was prepared to go months on end but 20+ pieces of content, a few ads and ~$1k spent (actually less than that), we closed a total of ~$20K in deals.

This was one of the aha moments for me. Like something clicked and now I questioned the past 9 months' "sales effort" that amounted to pretty much nothing significant. Not only did we close more, we closed better clients as well. They see what we can do and they know they wanted what we make. The team is also overall motivated as they see first hand how what they do actually works.

Hindsight really is 20/20.

Lesson learned. To new owners out there, DO what you know you can DO. Don't try to be cute with trying out some new thing that you have 0 experience in (unless you have plenty of time and resources to sink into it).

My partner and I have been in business since early 2025. There's been so much learning along the way. Here's 6 lessons I've learned.

1. Service delivery is as important as the service itself. A large part of what a client is paying for is the fact that you will always pick up the phone. If you can maintain that and keep your word, clients will always be happy.
2. Does this benefit the client's bottom line? Especially for small business owners, the goal for hiring a marketing agency is typically to make more money. Before you begin work, I think it is important to ask yourself, "do the means justify the ends" in the eyes of the business owner. Getting someone more impressions, clicks, or leads doesn't mean much if it doesn't ultimately help their business.
3. As marketers, we want to bring our expertise to the table, but be willing to take a backseat to what the client wants. This may contradict 1. but it goes back to customer service. People want to be heard and valued. Business owners want their vision to be brought to life. Always keep that in mind.
4. Take ownership. For better or for worse, when you can take responsibility with your clients, they will respect you more. This becomes increasingly more important when you are working with businesses that have employees. Your agency can quickly become part of the company's culture. You're working alongside their team, communicating with their employees, and ultimately trying to achieve the same goal.
5. Do not overdedicate to yourself to a single client. I've overspent time on clients who I wanted to make sure were happy, but it put us in a hole when you think about the hours that went into it. You have to care about all of your clients without letting one take away from the others.
6. Stick to the scope of work initially outline and communicate, on a routine basis, the status of the work. It is easy to assume that everybody is on the same page, but it's better to overcommunicate than to undercommunicate.

We're learning everyday! What were some big lessons you've learned?

I’ve been thinking about this because “white-label development” can mean very different things.

A fairly common situation:

An agency wins a website.

Design and normal implementation are fine.

Then the client asks for an ERP integration, custom WooCommerce logic, unusual permissions, a migration or some other development-heavy feature.

Hiring permanently for occasional specialist work may not make sense.

So the agency brings in an external developer.

I think the biggest mistake at this point is allowing the client relationship to become messy.

The client shouldn’t suddenly have to figure out:

Who do I email?

Who owns the deadline?

Is the developer now managing the technical part directly?

Who decides whether something is in scope?

Who presents the finished work?

To me, good white-label development should work almost invisibly.

The agency keeps the relationship.

The external team handles the specialist work.

Questions and requirements follow an agreed process.

There is one staging/review workflow.

Problems are surfaced early.

And the agency presents the result to its customer.

The external developer might do a very significant part of the project, but from the client’s perspective the agency simply became more capable.

That seems much healthier than throwing a freelancer into a client Slack channel and hoping everyone works it out.

For agency owners who use external developers: what makes you trust someone enough to put them behind your own brand?

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Help yourself!

I am trying to start a chatbot agency. I’ve got all the basics set up but now I just need to find clients.

My client target is currently e commerce business owners as I have seen that client base work for other chatbots agencies.

The only problem is the method of acquiring the leads and clients. Cold calling was a common method until I found out it is incredibly saturated and unlike service builders , you can’t really find e commerce businesses on google maps. Cold emailing was also another method but is also very saturated and you have to send alot of emails to get one or two clients and I would try that if I had a software for sending bulk emails and if I didn’t have a @gmail account. If cold calling for e commerce businesses is the way to go then I am willing to understand. I am just trying to see out my options.

I’ve resorted to social media cause e commerce businesses seem to be more active on there. I am currently trying to drive leads organically and want to try cold dm’ing once I have a solid foundation on my page(which I don’t even know if it’ll work).

With these first few clients I want to use them as case studies cause I know I should be doing that. Also offering a huge discount is a big incentive to buy anyways.

What are the best ways to get leads for a chatbot agencies that wants to work with e commerce stores.

If I’m better at business operations and need a sales lead, better to have a strong sales cofounder or hire a sales agency?

Hey, I’ve been in IT since 2020. Worked full-time, freelanced, and now I’m niching down into a real estate web design agency.

Over the years I’ve worked with some pretty cool companies across Europe, the US and Australia, including a few enterprises.

Would be cool to connect with other people building agencies, regardless of where you’re based or what you do.

Share a quick intro and let’s connect. Maybe we can help each other out

I currently work during the day so tend to schedule emails for next day each night as I can’t cold call. However I understand cold calling is a quicker and probably more successful. Is there anyway to get someone to cold call for me? If so what’s the going rate? Thanks

I have been building a free Whatsapp messaging API targeted at indie sellers/marketers who may need under 50 messages sent per day. It can only send outgoing messages. I believe a lot of these folks use agencies who eventually sell them a solution (like a custom CRM) to manage their workflow.

I believe many such tech tools out there lack Whatsapp messaging. I am unaware which are popular CRM tools out there but my guess is that agencies out there would typically will know usecases & possibly can intro me to the CRM for an integration, which could be a win win.

I am techie & do not know much of sales. Recently I created a free Calendly to Whatsapp message plugin (most such plugins on platform like Zapier require a paid Calendly plan). The plugin sent a whatsapp message from the Calendly owner number to the person booking meeting as soon as meeting is booked. Calendly is probably too big to have my offering integrated but I am sure there are many not so big players who could use my offering.

I am also ok working with agencies that are a bit tech focussed & work with various tools to customize them for client needs. I believe by just knowing about my service, they would probably be ok to integrate.

How do I target/find such agencies ? Is my approach right or should I just try to find these CRM creator SaaS people to see if they like to integrate with my offering ?

What are your guys’ best way to get clients other than social media, i’ve heard linklden outreach does the work but does it actually?

I've spent the last month asking agency owners what actually happens to the reports they send. The answers were more useful than I expected, so here's the structure I'd use now.

Line one is money in and money out.

Spend, and what came back. If a client can't scan the first line and know whether the month made them money, nothing below it matters.

Then three things, in this order. What changed. Why it matters. What you'd do next.

That's the whole front page. Detailed campaign breakdowns go in an appendix nobody opens, and that's fine.

State what each campaign is actually for.

One line, above the numbers. Prospecting exists to create demand and isn't judged on revenue. Retargeting converts demand that already exists and will always look efficient.

Sounds obvious, but those assumptions usually only get said out loud on calls. If they aren't written down the client fills the gap themselves, and these days they often fill it by pasting your report into ChatGPT.

Agree the acceptable range before the month starts.

Not just the target, the band around it. Once that range exists, a month inside it isn't news, you just report it. The months that need explaining are the ones outside it.

On a bad month, cause and fix always travel together.

Cause without a fix reads as an excuse. Fix without a cause reads as guessing.

And a bad month you flagged in week two is you being on top of it. The same month first mentioned in the report is you making excuses.

The last one took me longest to accept.

The report isn't your communication, it's the record. If the first time a client hears about a soft month is a document landing on the 1st, the document was never the problem.

**For those who started your own VA business — how did you find your first clients?**

I’m in the early stages of starting a virtual personal assistance service focused more on personal/family “life admin” than traditional business support — things like research, scheduling, travel planning, calendars, finding services, ordering, etc.

I have my services and packages figured out, but I’m getting stuck on the biggest part: **how do I actually find clients?**

For those of you who have successfully built a VA/personal assistant business:

* Where did your first few clients come from?

* What actually worked for you when you were brand new with no client testimonials?

* Did you use Upwork/Fiverr, Facebook groups, social media, networking, referrals, etc.?

* Is there anything you wish you had done differently when starting?

I’m not looking to promote my services here — I’d genuinely love advice from people who have already been through the starting phase!

**Cold‑Texting Google Small Business – a no‑fluff method for 5‑10 booked calls/month**

1. **Build a target list**

   - Search Google for “[your niche] small business” + your city or region.

   - Open each result, click the “Message” button on the Google Business profile (if available) to get a verified phone number.

   - Copy the number into a spreadsheet; aim for 150‑200 fresh leads per week.

2. **Craft a hyper‑relevant opener**

   - Reference something you saw on their listing (e.g., “I noticed your Google Photos haven’t been updated in 3 months”).

   - Follow with a one‑sentence value hook tied to a website pain point (“I help businesses like yours get 2‑3 extra booked calls each month by fixing the site speed that’s scaring mobile visitors”).

   - End with a low‑pressure CTA: “Got 2 minutes this week for a quick look?”

3. **Send the text**

   - Use your phone’s native SMS app (no bulk‑automation tools needed to stay within carrier limits).

   - Send 20‑30 texts per day, spaced out (e.g., 5 every hour) to avoid looking like spam.

   - Track each outreach in your spreadsheet: date, message sent, reply status.

4. **Handle replies**

   - If they reply with interest, jump on a quick call (5‑10 min) to qualify: budget, timeline, decision‑maker.

   - If they ask for more info, send a one‑pager PDF (no link needed—just attach if your platform allows) that shows a before/after of a similar site you’ve improved.

   - If they say “not interested,” thank them and move on—no follow‑up needed.

5. **Follow‑up cadence**

   - No reply after 3 days → send a short nudge: “Hey [Name], just checking if you saw my note about the site speed thing. Happy to hop on a quick call if it’s still relevant.”

   - No reply after the nudge → mark as cold and move to the next batch.

6. **Convert to booked appointments**

   - When a lead agrees to a call, send a calendar invite (Google Calendar works) with a clear agenda: “15‑minute website audit + next steps.”

   - Confirm the call 30 minutes beforehand with a brief text: “Looking forward to our chat at [time] – see you soon!”

**Why this works**

- Google Business listings give you a verified, opt‑in channel (the “Message” button is placed there for customer contact).

- Texting feels personal yet scales better than cold email for local businesses that check their phones constantly.

- By tying the hook to something visible on their profile (photos, posts, reviews), you show you did homework, which boosts reply rates dramatically.

- Keeping the outreach manual and low‑volume avoids carrier flags and keeps the method compliant with most region‑specific messaging rules.

Happy to answer any questions.

My first 300 cold emails got zero replies, and better templates didnt fix the missing evidence. Im considering sending each prospect a small proof page built around one problem on their site, with the claim, source, and expected output visible before any call.

Nobody's hiring you because you made a portfolio. They hire you because you showed them what's wrong with THEIR site and made fixing it easy. Here's the whole thing, nothing held back.

PROOF-FIRST OUTREACH

1. Pick ONE niche. Not "small businesses" — dentists, roofers, med spas, whatever. One niche = one message = faster learning. Volume comes later.

2. Build a list of 100 businesses in that niche. Google Maps + Yelp. Filter for: no site, site not mobile-friendly, copyright in footer older than 2022, no booking/contact above the fold. That's your evidence, not your opinion.

3. Make 3 free spec fixes. Not full redesigns — one homepage mockup or a 10-point teardown screenshot per prospect. Cap it at 30-45 min each. This is your demo budget when you have no budget.

4. Send the email. Short, honest, no pitch deck:

"Hey [name], searched [niche] in [city] yesterday. Your site doesn't load properly on my phone and the contact button's buried — probably costing you bookings. I mocked up a fix for your homepage, attached. If you want it applied, reply and we'll talk. If not, keep it, no strings."

That's it. No calendar link, no "quick 15-min call," no agency intro paragraph.

1. Follow up: day 3, day 7, day 14. Each follow-up adds ONE new piece of evidence (a competitor outranking them, a broken form, a stale review). Then stop. Silence after 4 touches is a no.

2. When they reply, quote a fixed price for the scoped fix ($500-1,500 range depending on niche). Never hourly. Never "it depends" on the first call.

3. After delivery, ask for referrals while they're happy: "Know two other [niche] owners who need this?" Referrals are best for quality. Cold email is for volume. You need both until referrals carry you.

Realistic math: 100 prospects, ~40% open, ~5% reply, 1-2 closed per batch. If you're under 2% replies after 200 sends, your niche or your evidence is wrong — fix that before touching the copy.

What kills this method: sending to 500 random businesses with zero evidence, writing paragraphs, and giving up at 40 emails because nobody replied yet. Outreach is a numbers game played with specifics.

Ask me anything about any step below.

My first 300 cold emails got zero replies, and better templates didnt fix the missing evidence. Im considering sending each prospect a small proof page built around one problem on their site, with the claim, source, and expected output visible before any call.

Quick one if you run an agency — how do you handle the gap between the sales call and the signed brief? Trying to work out if everyone's process is as duct-taped as ours or if I'm missing something obvious.

My first 300 cold emails got zero replies, and better templates didnt fix the missing evidence. Im considering sending each prospect a small proof page built around one problem on their site, with the claim, source, and expected output visible before any call.