Introduction
Running a WordPress agency can be rewarding, but it’s no secret that it also comes with its share of stress, challenges, and long hours. I experienced this firsthand, starting and running my own agency.
Many founders start with big dreams and end up overwhelmed, caught in a cycle of firefighting and endless tasks.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The key to building a WordPress agency you’ll love lies in creating a business that works for you, not the other way around. Below, I outline six key things that you can adopt in your agency, to help you transform it into one that you really love.
6 key things:
1. Get your clients to respect your process
As agency owners, we’ve all been there.
Those client projects where you stand back and think: “Why did we ever start working with this client? We knew they’d be trouble.”
I think you can spot the signs very early on and it often comes down to how well they respect your process from the outset.
Whatever your process might be, you’ll have a particular way (I hope) of qualifying a potential client before you and your team start investing lots of time into them and considering them as a serious lead.
You might ask them to complete a short initial questionnaire.
It might be that you run quick 15/30 minute intro calls to find out a little more about them.
This article doesn’t really care what your process is. It cares whether your client respects it.
Do they follow along with it and do as you ask them? Or do they question everything you do and generally make the process more difficult than it should be?
If it’s the latter, red flag time.
Don’t let them walk all over you from the first step.
You have the choice of which clients to work with. You don’t have to work with them all and you definitely shouldn’t!
You’re going to enjoy running your agency a whole lot more and generally be a more enjoyable person to be around for your team if you get clients to respect your process.
2. Charge the right prices
If there’s one thing early stage agency owners are guilty of (especially in the UK, in my experience), it’s not charging enough.
The work you do and the value you provide to clients as WordPress agencies is immense. Think about it. You’re responsible for a business’s online presence. In many cases, the number one place where that business tries to attract new customers/clients and grow. That’s huge. So charge accordingly.
And I’ve been there.
I charged far too little in my early days for fearing of scaring away clients with prices that were too high. This went for website project work and WordPress care plans too. I definitely think the old adage is true that if you charge very low prices, you attract clients who are more challenging to deal with, who penny pinch over everything and try to get a ‘deal’ or discount out of you at every turn.
Contrast that with charging what you’re worth and demonstrating to the client from the outset that what they’re doing is investing in the future of their business and you’ll attract the right type of client. The one who respects you, recognises what you’re worth and pays the right kinds of prices.
3. Turn down clients who aren’t the right fit
When something feels off, it usually is. I think that goes for quite a few things in life and it’s definitely true of potential clients.
This comes with experience. The more miles you walk, the more you get a sense of how things go and turning down clients that don’t fit is a skill.
However, once you’ve got it down, your business will be so much better for it.
Taking on any client just for the sake of getting more revenue is a recipe for disaster. Clients that don’t fit can bring a lot more harm than that extra revenue is good.
Some clients just don’t fit for a number of reasons:
- For a start, see number one above, they might not respect your process in the qualifying stage: red flag
- Other clients might respect your process but just don’t have the budget required to hire you: red flag, refer them to a company you partner with who do take on more budget-style work
- Some might be a bad fit culturally. Maybe their business type is one you don’t want to be associated with: red flag, stay true to your company values and refer them on
Whatever the reason is, if they’re not a good fit, they’re not a good fit.
Don’t try to shoehorn them in. Respectfully decline and offer to refer them to another company who you think might be better placed to work with them.
4. Build recurring revenue streams
This one might be quite obvious but honestly, the amount of agencies I’ve spoken to who are missing out on easy-win revenue streams is quite startling.
I remember the early days of my WordPress agency. I was about 9 months in and had done an ok job of building up project work, mostly off the back of some great local networking groups.
I can see myself now, sat in my parents’ kitchen talking to them about how I felt like I needed to create a recurring revenue stream in order to grow the business and protect against project ‘down times’.
In the end, I created a WordPress support and maintenance service and mandated this for all new projects. The difference that made was hugeand ultimately got me to the point faster where I could start hiring and investing more in the growth of the business.
WordPress agencies of course come in different shapes and sizes. However, here are some recurring revenue streams that you could create in your agency, now:
- WordPress support & maintenance plans (often referred to as Care Plans): Typically, agencies will offer 2 – 4 different pay-monthly plans that they sign project clients up to, off the back of launching their new website. With the right software and system in place, this can be a very high profit margin service.
- Hosting: Easy one this. Don’t just build the clients’ site, host it for them as well and charge them a monthly/yearly fee for doing so. Like support and maintenance plans, this is also often a very profitable service.
- Subscription-based projects: This is becoming more common. Instead of charging one-off fees for project work, charge a monthly fee over a set period (eg. 24 months) and get really good at proving the value of your service so you can keep renewing the client beyond that time. You could have different subscription packages for different sized websites.
5. Hire the right people to take you out of the ‘doing’
I think this one depends on your personal goals with your business. Do you want to grow an agency with a team of people and maybe even sell it one day in the future? Then you’ll need to do as this point says and build a team.
If on the other hand, you’d rather keep it small and more of a lifestyle business, then maybe this is less important to you.
Either way, it can’t be denied that if you can bring in the right people at the right times, you can free up a lot of your time to focus on what you enjoy doing the most. And whether that’s enjoyment of building the business and focusing on the aspects of that that you love the most, or it’s more time with your friends and family, it doesn’t really matter. You’ll have more time for those things, full stop.
Hiring people also doesn’t mean they have to be full time and on the payroll. I’ve run a couple of models in my career. The first was the traditional one of a fixed office place and full time team. I loved it and had some great days.
More recently I employed an outsourced team, not on the payroll and there’s many pros to that as well. You miss out on the team and culture stuff but the upsides of less stress of making payroll, being able to ‘turn on/off’ the team as and when you need to are definitely significant.
It’s up to you how you want to do it and if you crave that extra time, it’s something you won’t be able to ignore for long as you start to grow.
6. Collaborate with complimentary businesses
I think there’s so many positives that come with collaboration. And I’d count collaborating with so-called competitors in that too.
Don’t close yourself off and think that you need to do everything yourselves. Sometimes, it makes good business sense to collaborate with others, whether they’re freelancers, consultants or other agencies. Bringing in people who’ll have different view points and offer up new and creative ways of doing things can be a really energising experience.
Beyond the benefits for the business itself, I’ve also found in my career that these types of collaborations can lead to new personal friendships too and experiences in life that might otherwise have not been forthcoming.
To collaborate, you need to put yourself out there, regularly. Genuinely connect and engage with people on social media. Ask questions, offer to make useful introductions, talk about what you do and get to know people. And obviously do exactly the same things in person too. Attend networking events, sponsor others. Get to know other local businesses and commit to help each ohter out.
Conclusion
Building a WordPress agency that you love doesn’t happen by accident, it’s a deliberate journey we take ourselves on.
Remember, a thriving agency isn’t just about hitting revenue targets; it’s about creating a business that energises you, empowers your team, and delivers great results for your clients.
Focus on the core aspects above and you’ll love it.
