Today’s freelance revolution is a global celebration combined of remote working opportunities, access to niche talent and changing work expectations towards flexibility, autonomy and control. The typical 9 to 5 office job is quickly becoming a thing of the past and today’s plethora of advanced technologies are making it easier for us to work from anywhere, at any time.
However, many freelancers often strive to expand their freelancing services into an agency with multiple employees working for them, leaving them with many questions. How should they make the leap from individual freelancer to freelance employer? How much time and money should they invest?
To better understand the process of growing a freelance business, we surveyed freelance agencies across several countries who have scaled their business from an independent freelance model to an agency of both part-time and full-time employees.
After analyzing the survey results, we gathered a few key ingredients freelancers need in order to transition for an individual business model to a scaling freelance agency.
Let’s get started…
Setting goals is an essential part of what it takes to be successful. Survey results showed that 88% of respondents knew from day one that they wanted to expand their freelancer business to become an agency, with the top-three motivators being the drive to invest and expand, finding a new challenge, and discovering a gap in the market.
It comes as no surprise that customer satisfaction is the top priority for almost 1 in 3 agency owners. In fact, 28% of respondents said that making customers happy was the most rewarding part of owning a freelance agency.
We found that 67% of agency owners are successful in pleasing customers but less so in pleasing their pockets. With so much focus on customer satisfaction, it seems agency owners may be underpricing their services. This could indicate a real opportunity for new agency owners to strike a better balance of higher prices without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
To learn more about what it takes to make the jump to becoming a freelance agency owner and which industries agencies focus on the most, download our survey report, Cooking Up Freelance Success today!