How to sign your first agency client in a few simple steps
The hardest part of any business is getting started.
Everyone talks about scaling an agency to “$10k a month”, but few really break down how to take the first stride toward achieving that: signing your first client.
Here’s how to sign your first in a few simple steps.
First, define your offer. What value do you provide? What pain points do you fix? What outcomes can you help someone achieve?
Follow the “I help X achieve Y by Z” framework:
“I help SEO agencies land more high ticket clients by closing deals over the phone.”
“I help SaaS companies enroll more paying users for their software by running paid ads to their target audience.”
Once you have your offer, get really granular on who you want to work with by crafting your Ideal Client Profile (ICP).
What industry are your ideal clients in? How much revenue do they pull in? Are they large companies or companies with 10–20 employees?
For example, you can work with eCommerce companies in the health and wellness niche making $100-$500k a year with 20–50 employees.
The third step now that you have your offer is to build a leads list and write scripts for cold outreach.
With your ICP as a baseline, use a tool like ListKit to get a list of leads in your target market to plug into your cold outreach.
While you’re waiting for your ListKit to be delivered to your inbox, craft your cold outreach scripts.
We’ve found that simple scripts work best.
Here’s our initial message framework:
Hi {name} — {personalized line}
Do you/are you (insert pain point, desire, service they’re currently using)?
Examples:
“Are you able to take on new clients?
“Do you use Klaviyo for email marketing?”
“Are you currently working with a business coach?”
For follow ups, simply refer back to the first message:
“Hey {name}, I didn’t hear back from you the other day. Did you get a chance to view my email?”
“Was wondering if you got my email the other day?”
Or if you’re feeling ambitious, use creative video or audio follow ups on LinkedIn, or even send a Loom video on email explaining your offer.
Now that your list and scripts are ready, it’s time to start your outreach.
Using a sending software like Mailshake or Skylead, set up a simple sequence using your scripts and plug your list .csv into the software, and let the campaigns run!
Side note: Before you start outreach purchase a new domain, link the domain to your website, and warm it up using Gmass for 2 weeks.
Once you get your first few interested replies, push a client towards a sales call.
Since you’re a new business, having a no-brainer offer will play to your advantage.
An offer we love is a “pay-per-performance” offer where the client only pays you for the results you deliver.
Even with no case studies, using this offer on the sales call as leverage will help you sing clients with ease.
Now that you have your first client, deliver results for them and then leverage their success as social proof to scale your agency!
