Are you running a thriving freelance business in the WordPress domain? It is time to think bigger and step up from freelancer to agency.
But why?
As a freelancer or business owner, you always seek new avenues to expand your client base and increase your earnings. By transitioning from a freelancer to a WordPress development agency, you can lead to significant growth and success, allowing you to attract new clients and manage a multitude of projects.
But how do you know it is the right time to make this transition? Knowing the right time helps you with a smooth transition and manage current market trends, client demands, and operational abilities effectively.
So, whether you’re a freelancer or a small agency owner, you should stay alert and look for signs your business is ready to expand.
However, it might become difficult for you to look out for such signs in the initial years.
Here, we’ve conducted comprehensive research to provide you with these signs and their implications for freelance businesses looking to grow.
If you notice any of these signs in your own business, it’s a clear indication that it’s time to transition from a freelancer to agency model.
But before that, let’s understand the basics of an agency running a WordPress development business.
What Defines a Full-Service WordPress Agency?
The main difference between a full-service WordPress agency and a freelancer or a small team is the earning potential. A full-service WordPress agency isn’t limited to designing and developing WordPress websites. They also offer specialized services that help their customers achieve long-term strategic goals.
All of these WordPress services can vary based on the type of customers you serve. If your agency niche caters to e-commerce customers, it might include technical development for websites and platforms like WooCommerce or Magento. It might include marketing or promotional services for unique e-commerce retailers.
Ultimately, by defining the characteristics of a full-service WordPress agency, an agency will be able to leverage WordPress to the fullest to deliver on customer goals. In these cases, WordPress is just a means to an end a valuable tool for getting specific jobs done.
To achieve this, full-service agencies typically employ a team. It takes more than 6 people working together to achieve these kinds of results. You might have a developer, a designer, marketer working alongside an operations manager and a full-time project manager, plus yourself. That’s a lot of overhead, but the profits make it worthwhile.
This is because a full-service WordPress agency earns a recurring base of big-budget clients alongside a steady number of new ones. Having a larger team means the agency can work more efficiently.
After becoming familiar with WordPress agency offerings, we will walk you through some signs of moving from a freelancer to agency model.
So, let’s get the ball rolling.
5 Signs It’s Time to Make the Transition from Freelancer to Agency
Transitioning from freelancing to full-service agency work can be challenging, but with the right support and guidance, you can successfully navigate this change and take on your new responsibilities with confidence.
Here are a few things to look out for:
1. You’ve Reached Capacity and Cannot Grow Further
As a freelancer or a small agency, you have limited resources at your disposal. Developing a successful WordPress website and offering monthly maintenance takes much time. Every hour you spend doing that kind of work is an hour you don’t get to spend growing your business.
If you spend most of your time performing tasks that don’t generate revenue alone, you might have a productivity limit. This is the maximum capacity your current business structure can provide.
From that point onwards, changing your business structure is the only way to grow. This means delegating tasks to others so that you can spend more time doing what you do best.
For some people, that means hiring new employees. For others, it means turning from a freelancer to an agency here, from a WordPress freelancer to a white-label WordPress development agency.
2. Your Client Requests for Additional Services
Various clients often don’t just like to focus on development but also on other aspects that help their website grow in the digital world.
For instance, if your clients are demanding for services other than WordPress development, such as maintenance, SEO, design, and content, it’s time to transition from a freelancer to agency.
This transition not only expands your service offerings (digital marketing, social media marketing, plugin customization, or anything else) but also positions you as a comprehensive full-service agency. This allows clients to access all the services they need from a single WordPress development agency, freeing them to focus on business growth.
Ultimately, it will allow you to upsell various additional services like WP Care Plans, serve your clients better, and generate more revenue for your agency.
3. You Want to Raise Your Prices
If you’re putting in all your effort but still struggling to fulfill all your needs, getting more for your work simply makes sense. However, raising your price is a delicate task, and it doesn’t come easily.
In order to justifiably raise your prices, you should be able to offer more to your clients than you currently do. For most WordPress freelancers, that means branching out into some of the other services your clients need. The more work you can perform for your clients, the higher the overall price you can charge becomes.
This is where scaling your capabilities begins to produce significant results.
How?
Instead of finishing a WordPress site and sending it off for your client to run and operate, you can provide your client with a full-service solution that includes website development, maintenance, and operation, alongside multiple other services they need to generate value on their end. If your business is at this stage, transforming from a freelancer to agency is the right move.
4. You’re Ready to Start Investing in Marketing
While running a freelance business, you might focus on selecting a number of leads rather than expending energy closing every possible deal.
If you’re gearing up to plan and execute an effective marketing strategy, take it as a pivotal sign that you should transition from a freelancer to agency. Why? Because a strategic marketing approach allows you to efficiently filter through every stage of the sales funnel, concentrating efforts on leads most likely to convert into clients.
Imagine the potential of this transition. With a full-service WordPress agency, you’d have the resources to launch diverse marketing campaigns, reach more clients, and secure more projects. This isn’t just about growing bigger; it’s about growing smarter.
Additionally, with strategic marketing, your WordPress agency can stay ahead of the competition. It’s a critical investment in your business’s future, focusing on growth and building a robust online presence.
5. You Desire to Work on Larger Projects
When running a freelance business, have you ever faced a big project and thought, ‘This could be a game-changer for my business’? Imagine a scenario where a client requires more than a simple redesign, a major eCommerce site overhaul, including design, development, SEO, plugins, and more. As a freelancer, handling all these aspects is challenging, and you might be in a situation where you can’t do it all.
That’s the time you should transition from a freelancer to a WordPress agency. In a full-service WordPress agency, you will require a team with excellent skills to handle enterprise projects that require extensive solutions. Hence, you will need to focus on hiring specialized talents who can handle all the challenges and provide solutions.
So, if you intend to work on bigger projects that help businesses grow and leave a massive impact on society, you should consider forming a full-service WordPress agency. It’s about expanding your capabilities and seeking opportunities that were once out of reach.
Final Steps to Evolve into a Full-Service WordPress Agency
Transitioning from a freelance business to operating a full-service WordPress agency is a big decision that will significantly impact the future of the business. Transitioning from a freelance business to operating a full-service WordPress agency is a big decision that will have a major impact on the future of the business. By transitioning from a freelancer to agency, you will have the opportunity to expand and diversify your service offerings. Moreover, switching from one person to a team helps you grow your business.
Please note that transforming into an agency sets you on a path to meeting and exceeding your professional aspirations. It is an excellent opportunity for you to shift your focus from individual to team achievement.
While doing this, many freelancers and small agency owners assume they have to start hiring full-time employees. This is definitely one way to do it, but it’s not the only way. For many growing agencies, hiring a white label WordPress development partner is a more risk-friendly approach. It enables you to use the productivity of an entire team for less than the cost of a single new hire.
Contact UnlimitedWP and learn how we can help you manage agency growth. Hire a dedicated wordpress developer & assign unlimited tasks to our white label WordPress experts so you can focus on the work you do best.