How to start an agency from scratch: step-by-step playbook to $1M ARR

Let’s kill the fantasy real quick: building a profitable marketing agency isn’t about stacking gigs and outsourcing to random freelancers on Discord.

That’s freelancing with extra steps.

If you want a real business, one that grows past your own calendar, you need to be able to solve a painful, specific problem for one type of client, over and over again. At scale. 

That means a tight offer, a bulletproof acquisition system, and operations that don’t collapse when you hit ten new clients.

I’ll walk you through the whole playbook: how to go from zero to $1M/year, without burning out or bloating your team.

You’ll learn:

• How to pick a niche and service that actually sells
• The fastest way to get clients without cold outreach that goes nowhere
• When to hire, what to automate, and how to avoid delivery hell
• How to build systems that run even when you’re offline
• How to go from operator to owner and build a team that scales itself

If you're tired of trading hours for dollars, this is how you break out.

Let’s build something real.

1. Nail one problem, for one type of client

Want to kill your agency before it even starts? Try serving everyone. Offer five different services. Chase ten different problems.

That’s the fast track to burnout, and the reason most new agency owners quit before they even get going.

Here’s the truth: managing a few clients as a freelancer is not the same as building a successful agency. What works for one or two clients breaks the moment you try to grow.

As Aman Ghautura, who’s helped scale 40+ B2B agencies and SaaS companies, puts it:

 “What you can manage for one or two clients as a freelancer and be fine, works differently when you are trying to scale. The moment you try to scale that same thing as an agency owner, it breaks.”

So start narrow. One painful problem. One clear service. One ideal client.

That’s how you build something that doesn’t break under pressure.

2. Nail your niche, and start selling outcome

Here’s where most agency owners miss the mark: they don’t niche down. 

If you’re too scared to cut out potential clients that are not a match, you’ll end up serving everyone and solving every problem. And guess what? You’ll  burn out fast.

Let’s go through for essential steps to keep you from that:

Step 1: Leverage your experience

Think about what you know better than the average person. What’s your unfair advantage in the business world? Where have you excelled the most, where have you added the most value?

Let’s say you’re a solid growth marketer. But you’re great at B2B SaaS, and you’ve mastered tools like Zapier, Make, Clay and other lead-gen systems. You’ve got automation and product positioning nailed. Coding is also kinda your thing?

You’re not just a growth marketer anymore — you’re a GTM (Go-To-Market) engineer for B2B SaaS startups. You’ve carved out a niche. You’re in demand.

You could even narrow it further: fintech, healthtech, or any other sector where your experience clicks. But the key? Pick something specific, and own it.

Step 2: create a killer offer for one ideal client

You can’t be everything to everyone. Trying to offer one service to all industries will tank your growth. 

Instead, pick one ideal customer profile (ICP). Understand their pain points, objections, goals, and how you can help them reach those goals and create value proposition out of it.

Let’s break this down:

• Who’s your perfect client?
• What’s their biggest problem?
• How can you help them solve it?
  

Here’s how our Content Lead, Bojana, defines her ICPs:

Step 3: sell outcomes, not services

The harsh truth is no one cares about your process or your service, they care about what it does for them. 

You’re not selling a LinkedIn outreach service. You’re selling 700+ qualified leads per month.

The key difference? Outcomes. People buy results, not mechanisms.

Instead of pitching, “I’ll manage your LinkedIn outreach,” pitch, “I’ll get you XY qualified leads per month.” 

You’ve framed it around what matters: the end result. Now the client knows what to expect, and you’re already differentiating yourself from everyone else in the game. 

Step 4: back it up with proof (or guarantees)

If you’ve got case studies or proven results, showcase them. 

“We did this for ABC company, we can do it for you.” 

If you don’t have case studies, get creative with guarantees.

For example, “I’ll book you 10 qualified calls per month at $3,000/month.”

It’s a win-win: you’re de-risking the process for your client, addressing objections before they even surface, and making them feel confident in your ability to deliver.

But never over-promise. Only offer guarantees you can confidently deliver on.

You don’t have to do classic case studies either. We’re doing playbook collaboration with our customers, and it’s a win-win situation for both sides. 

They’re showcasing their expertise, we’re showcasing what our product can do. Leads flowing on both sides, everyone is happy. 

3. How to land your first clients, fast

The toughest part of starting your agency? Getting your first clients. But here's the thing: if you’re serious about growing, you don’t need to wait for the perfect inbound strategy or pray for referrals. 

You just need to hit the streets with the right outreach game.

There are multiple ways to find clients: word of mouth, online traffic, cold outreach, to name a few. 

But in reality, you need to focus on what works now for your agency, and where your ideal clients are hanging out.

Here’s what’s worked for me, hands down:

1. Inbound led outbound outreach/DMs
2. Cold emails
   

Why? Because they allow you to scale volume. The more prospects you hit, the better your chances of landing new clients,  and that directly impacts your cash flow.

The framework: value-loaded outreach

Here’s how you do it: reach out with messages packed with value. 

Make it so easy for your prospects to say, “Yes, I’m interested,” that they practically respond on autopilot.

Aman Ghautura recommends keeping things simple, yet relevant:

• Personalize the message, show you’ve done your homework. Mention their current project or something specific about their business. It’s not just about sending another generic message. It’s about making it clear you’re thinking about their business and not just spamming them.
  
• Ask questions, make it easy for them to respond. A simple question opens up the door for a conversation.

Here’s an example:

“Hey [Name], I noticed you’re working on [their project]. How’s that going? I’ve helped similar companies boost [X result] — let me know if you'd be open to chatting about how we could do the same for you.”

Simple. Clear. Direct.

The goal isn’t to book a meeting. It’s to get a response. That’s it. 

Get them engaged, get them talking, and you’re halfway there.

💡Pro Tip: Warm outreach works wonders if you’ve already got a LinkedIn connection list with buyer intent signals. Start with a targeted list of 100 potential clients, and hit them up with personalized DMs. This is low-hanging fruit.

Also, if LinkedIn’s your playground, check out How to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to maximize your opportunities for more strategies.

If you’re not landing your first clients with warm outreach, it’s time to fire up cold emails. You’re not going to hit it big with your first few tries, but cold email done right is a game changer.

4. How to land your first client with cold outreach

Cold outreach isn’t just a tactic — it’s a must for landing clients fast. It’s scalable, it’s efficient, and when done right, it works.

The main advantage? You can reach an endless number of potential clients with the right prospecting tools. 

B2B enrichment, automation, and a solid cold email strategy allow you to scale your outreach infinitely.

The cold LinkedIn message template that gets replies

Hi [Name],

I’ve been following your work on [specific project, initiative, or recent update].

Can I send you a quick video on how [your solution] can help [specific outcome] for [their business]?

Let me know if you're interested!

It’s short, simple, and it’s low commitment. The goal isn’t to sell a massive project upfront, it’s just to get them to reply and take a look at your offer. 

You’re not pitching “CRO” or “webpage design” — you’re offering a quick, easy way for them to see how you can help.

Why this works: You’re giving them a reason to respond without asking for too much. And you’re building trust instantly by offering a video.

💡 Pro Tip: If you don’t have a portfolio or case studies yet, this is your way in. Send them a Loom video explaining your process, showing them how you do it, and letting them see your expertise in real-time. This works wonders for building credibility.

The next step: delivering results

Now you’ve got a few clients through cold emailing. Time to focus on delivering results. Nail your first projects, overdeliver, and turn those first clients into long-term advocates.

5. How to deliver top-notch outcomes to your clients

Here’s the deal: if you deliver great results, your clients won’t churn. At least, not because of your performance.

The key? Stay organized and proactive. Your goal is to be ahead of everything for your clients, all the time.

The most effective way to do this is to map out the client’s journey for the first 90 days. I use a combination of Notion and Miro to do this, but you don’t have to complicate it, even a simple spreadsheet will do it. 

Share it with your clients, and make sure you update it together during your one-on-one calls. 

This gives them clarity, and it keeps you both aligned.

⚠️ Quick Note: Roadblocks will happen. Not everything will go according to plan. Don’t get discouraged if progress isn’t as fast as you expect. It’s part of the journey. The best way to power through tough times is reminding yourself of your “Why.” It’ll fuel your passion and give you the strength to keep pushing forward.

6. What you need to grow your agency (From $100k to $3M/year)

Once you’ve nailed your deliverables, it’s time to shift your focus. ‘cause here’s the truth: you can’t scale if you’re stuck doing everything yourself.

At this point, you may be tempted to relax, let things run on autopilot, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. But let me be clear — that mindset will keep you stuck.

You don’t need to hire a big team right away. It’s 2025,  automation is your best friend. Heck, there are agencies out there running successfully with zero employees.

But, to scale from $100k to $500k, or even $1M/year, you need to implement operational improvements. Without these, your growth will stagnate.

The biggest challenge: client acquisition & fulfillment

At this stage, you can’t afford to rely on hope. Clients can decide to stop using your services at any time for various reasons you can’t really influence. Because of that, you need to build a consistent client acquisition system.

Two things can help you out in that mission, depending on what your preferences are

1. Hiring a VA or salesperson
   Get a virtual assistant or salesperson to handle your LinkedIn outreach.  Their job is simple: book appointments and get things moving with the playbook you provide.
   
   This will free up your time, as you’ll move on from prospecting, and allow you to focus on bigger bites.

2. Use automation tools
   You don’t have to do everything manually. Leverage tools to speed up your process and automate outreach on LinkedIn:
   
   • Build outreach list with target audience
   • Automate multichannel outreach
   • Publish content regularly (for visibility and triggers content marketing does wonders)
   • Run paid ads (if you’ve got the budget, this is totally optional)

💡 Pro Tip: Automation isn’t about sending generic messages. You’ll still need to craft compelling offers and use case studies, or other metrics to prove your experience, ability and relevance to ensure your outreach speaks directly to your leads' needs.

Enter HeyReach: automating client acquisition without the generic feel

Here’s the cool part: HeyReach allows you to prospect and outreach on LinkedIn at scale. You can automate your outreach but keep things personal. 

You can track how many connections you've made, how many messages you've sent, and how many replies you're getting. 

All of this helps you stay on top of your client acquisition game.

Here’s how it works:

1. Connect LinkedIn accounts
   Once you connect your LinkedIn account to HeyReach, the tool handles the heavy lifting. It engages and sends messages for you, while you can manage yours and your clients accounts from one dashboard.
   
2. Add leads
   You can import leads directly from Sales Navigator. This makes filtering and adding the right prospects to your campaign easy. You just copy the URL from Sales Navigator and paste it into HeyReach.
   
3. Create campaigns
   After importing your leads, create a campaign. If you’re not already connected, send a connection request first (tip: don’t include a note for a higher acceptance rate). Once connected, you can send the first message, once the prospect replies you can take over from the tool like you’d from your virtual assistant.
   
4. Rotating accounts for maximum reach
   The beauty of HeyReach is that it allows you to link multiple LinkedIn accounts and rotate them during campaigns. This bypasses LinkedIn’s weekly limits and helps you reach more people, faster.

With this system, you can:

• Send more DMs
• Book more meetings
• Close more clients for your agency
  

And there you have it,  a cost-effective complete system to automate and scale your client acquisition, without the tedious manual work.

7. Hiring team members for your agency (where to find them & how to train them)

Once your automated system is consistently closing clients, it’s time to build your fulfillment team.

Hiring the right team helps you get out of the weeds and focus on scaling. You can’t juggle client acquisition and fulfillment  at some point, you’ll drop the ball on one of them.

If you’re focused on client acquisition, fulfillment slips. And if you go back to fulfillment, client acquisition slips. That’s why having a support team for both sides is a key business model to scale your agency. It moves you from being employed in your own agency to the person who owns a business.

Step 1: Find your bottleneck‍

Pinpoint the biggest challenge in your fulfillment process. Once you know where things are slowing down, you can start outsourcing.

Step 2: Write a clear job description‍

Outline exactly what you need. A detailed description will help you attract the right candidates.

Step 3: Post the job‍

Use LinkedIn, Upwork, Fiverr, and similar platforms where specialists are offering specific services. Post the job on your LinkedIn feed too, and invite people to DM you for more details. This actually works the best for me, as I always get to know people who align with the culture I want to nurture in my team, and in the agency business in general.  

Step 4: Use a funnel for screening‍

Testing can be time-consuming for both sides. Creating a systemized workflow can help a lot in hiring optimization and speed.

The process may vary, depending if you’re searching for someone to run social media marketing, or do a web design, or an account manager to closely talk to the client.

 Ask for a work sample that’s related to what you need for client work, and have them complete a paid work sample. If you can allow yourself to, try out three candidates for the role for a month or two,  this will help you assess who’s the best fit.

Step 5: Onboard & train‍

No matter how experienced your hires are, you’ll need to onboard and train them on your systems. 

A well-structured onboarding process ensures that everything runs smoothly from day one.

8. How to scale your agency with inbound lead generation

Inbound lead generation is the dream: you set content marketing and search engine optimization right and clients just flow  to you. But the truth is this marketing strategy takes time, and it’s not always an option for small businesses.

For B2B agencies, LinkedIn and YouTube are goldmines, if your ideal client hangs out there of course. 

Start with social selling by posting content and interacting with prospects. This will set the stage for smoother inbound outreach down the line.

Pro Tip: Once you start delivering results to your clients, ask for referrals. If your service is good, your clients will be happy to help you spread the word.

By building a solid team and creating an inbound system, you can move from client acquisition to fulfillment seamlessly, scale your agency, and build a system that works even without you.

9. How to grow your digital agency from $300k to $500k per year

Crossing the $300k mark is a huge achievement, but to scale to $500k/year and beyond, your focus needs to shift from working in the business to working on the business. 

You need to transition from being an operator to a leader. 

Here's how to make that leap:

1. Expand your team

At this stage, your business becomes a people’s game. You’ll need specialized roles to keep growing. 

Start hiring:

• Account managers
• Sales teams
• Project managers/appointment setters
  

These hires will allow you to step away from day-to-day tasks and focus on scaling.

You can use the same hiring funnel as before. Also, tap into referrals from your current team for inbound applicants.

2. Implement systems & software

You need repeatable systems to scale efficiently. Here are two key tools you’ll need:

• Project management tool: to manage your operations and track progress.
  
• CRM: To manage client relationships and ensure you’re following up with leads and current clients efficiently.

Building these systems now prepares your agency for future growth and makes it easier to sell if needed. 

No matter what type of agency you’re building, or what’s your end goal, it’s good to have in mind that buyers want businesses that can operate without the owner being involved in every detail.

3. Build a predictable sales funnel

 A predictable sales process is essential at this stage. Whether you’re using LinkedIn or outreach, networking events, referrals, or other channels (or a mix of a little bit of everything)  you need to make sure you have a systematic approach.

• Content creation: Create valuable content on LinkedIn and YouTube to build trust in the target market, which will enhance your outreach efforts.
• Paid ads: Consider running paid ads to acquire clients more predictably, if it’s relevant for your niche – make sure you do proper market research before you invest any dollar in LinkedIn or Google ads.
• Partnerships: Form strategic partnerships to extend your reach. Think of it as a semi-white label arrangement to get in front of clients you wouldn’t normally have access to. You can do it with softer services, or even other service providers. 

4. Reinvest to scale

 When you hit the $500k - $750k range, you need to reinvest your profits into scaling:

• Hire more people for fulfillment and sales.
• Increase ad spend to acquire clients faster.
• Work with agencies that can help you scale (e.g.,creative agencies focused on YouTube growth, content creation, outbound sales).

At this point, your goal is to scale what you’ve already been doing, so you can do it better and faster.

5. Upsell existing clients

This is a crucial growth strategy. As you scale, you should start upselling existing clients and expanding into new markets.

• Expand contract size: Offering additional services or advanced packages to existing clients will significantly boost your revenue.
  
• Enter new markets: Start offering services to a new set of clients or industries.

This is also a good timing to revisit your pricing strategy, type of packages you offer, and in general to go through clients’  testimonials and distinguish if there is an opportunity to offer some additional services and value on top. 

6. Avoid spreading too thin

Scaling too fast can lead to burnout. Be mindful not to spread your team too thin.

Start by doing the audit of the current system and business plan, find the holes, fill them in, fix what’s not working and focus on scaling systematically and maintaining quality across all client services.

At this point, put your mind on becoming input-dependent rather than output-dependent.

• Input-dependent: You focus on the right actions (e.g., more outreach, better hires).
  
• Output-dependent: You worry about the outcome before you’ve laid the right groundwork.

10. How to grow your agency from $750,000 to $1,000,000

At this stage, the growth of your agency isn't just about more clients and revenue—it's about becoming a better leader and building a foundation for sustainable growth. Here’s how you can take your business to the $1M mark:

1. Start thinking like a CEO

Now is the time to transition from an "agency owner" to a "business leader."

• Oversee strategy, not just operations: At $750k/year, you need to think long-term and focus on strategic growth rather than day-to-day operations. This means delegating and empowering your team while you work on scaling the business.
  
• Lead by example: Focus on setting the tone for your agency's culture, values, and strategic direction. Get out of the weeds and start building the future.
  

2. Build a strong team culture

A strong company culture is a key driver for scaling to the next level. While you need to develop it from scratch from day one, this is probably the best time to review current state and work on modifications where you find opportunities.c

• Align team with vision and values: Your team needs to know where the business is headed and why. Not necessarily a step-by-step guide, but overall business strategy, goals, values, and brand identity. Make sure everyone is aligned with your vision and the values that drive your agency's growth.
  
• Focus on high-level sales and marketing: As your agency grows, you need your team to focus on high-level activities that directly contribute to client acquisition and retention. Your role will evolve to managing the people who drive these results.
  

3. Focus on scaling client acquisition

To hit $1M, you need to scale client acquisition, and that requires a well-thought-out marketing strategy.

• Webinars and events: Hosting webinars and events is a great way to build trust and expand your influence in your target market. These platforms give you the opportunity to showcase your expertise, connect with potential clients, and provide value upfront.
  
• Content creation: Now's the time to double down on content—whether it's LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, or even podcasting. Consistent content keeps your audience engaged, builds trust, and expands your brand’s visibility.
  
• Leverage market authority: Content also positions you as an authority in your industry, which is key to attracting high-quality clients who trust you to deliver results.
  

4. Expand your network

Your network is a crucial asset when you’re scaling past $750k. 

Here's how to leverage it:

• Attend high-level events: At this stage, you need to get into rooms with other business leaders. Attend industry events, join exclusive webinars, and participate in mastermind communities.
  
• Forge partnerships: Build relationships with influencers and other business owners. Partnerships can help you reach new clients, share insights, and even collaborate on projects that add value to both parties.
  
• Your network = your net worth: The more you expand your network with high-level individuals, the more opportunities you'll unlock. Focus on quality over quantity and nurture relationships that can add strategic value to your business.
  

At $750k, you're entering the realm of leadership and strategy. It’s no longer about just running the agency, but rather about becoming a visionary and a connector who scales by leveraging systems, culture, and strategic relationships.

As you focus on expanding your network, scaling your client acquisition, and building a strong team culture, your agency will naturally approach the $1M milestone and beyond.

Launch and scale your digital marketing agency to success

Starting and scaling an agency isn’t just about providing great services—it’s about serving more clients profitably and creating a repeatable system that works. To do this, you need to:

• Know your market – Deeply understand who your ideal clients are.
• Craft an irresistible offer – Build an offer that speaks directly to your market's needs and desires.
• Create scalable systems for client acquisition – Establish a solid lead generation system that consistently brings in new business.

Success in growing your agency comes down to these principles. Research, refine, and keep tweaking your processes as you scale. But, the true game-changer is having a consistent lead generation system in place—it’s the backbone for long-term agency sustainability.

Want help automating your LinkedIn lead generation? Schedule a 1:1 strategic call and take your agency to the next level!