Is it time to start my own business?

I really like this motivational quote by Francis of Assisi-

“Start by doing what’s necessary;

Then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

In my blog post today, I am sharing an inspirational journey of a freelancer duo who managed to make it to a renowned agency with their above par services, knack of delivering beyond expectations and consistency to upgrade their knowledge, skill and efficiency to deliver at scale. 

RankJacker SEO – A well known name in the SEO industry today, was started in the year 2014 by two young enthusiastic individuals Amit Kumar (from marketing field) & Rohin Dua (an engineer by profession). 

Starting off with individual affiliate sites, they were quick to get into client SEO, thanks to their exposure on Konker.io as one of the best selling SEO service providers. Leading SEOs like Matt Diggity and Kotton Grammer also talked about their best sellers on their blogs and how they used their services to speed up their processes. 

So, I just happened to hop on a call with them to discuss certain opportunities and have their side of the story from being freelancers to full fledged Agency. The idea here is to publish their experience and share as a guidance light to so many other freelancers looking to formalize their offerings and businesses and help them build it up through their insights. 

Surely, commencing an agency is a natural progression to grow, deliver superior-quality work and have a lasting career. 

Running an SEO agency at a consistent pace isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. So, a clearer view is required at every point before you start your own, so here are some of the insights from my discussion with the legends: 

Launching an Agency – Is it the Right call?

Solo freelancer to an agency owner could be an extreme transition. 

You need to weigh the benefits + rewards against any risks involved. Consider the points mentioned below for an educated decision. 

The Motivation

Before you start, you should be absolutely clear about what’s the driving force behind. Are you in the run to:

• Looking to harness Your Potential
• Increasing your Offering/Services
• In look out for more challenging projects

When the Rank-jacker people started their main aim was on providing freelance SEO work along with DFY – done for you SEO services on various marketplaces. 

Their services also consisted of SEO hacks + strategies for pushing their client rankings in the SERPs. Rank-jacker is not an example to motivate you but give you a better understanding of learnings and opportunities. 

Your Vision & Mission

Having a clear vision and a mission with regard to what you wish to achieve is a prerequisite when it comes to establishing an agency. There’s a great chance that you lose your way due to the noise all around. So having a clearly thought out strategy, and your conviction to stick to it will help you go a long way and a lot quicker. Once you are an agency owner then you will be required to make decisions that will play a key role in shaping your reputation and the agency’s work. This will be a mixture of:

• Project types
• Target clients
• Project approach
• Core values

Having all our resources, people and efforts directed towards your Agency’s vision will be the greatest enabler to achieve what you have set for.

Your Agency’s Niche

No agency is all-inclusive and you cannot serve everybody and everything. Before you start reaching out to your prospects, collaborating with people, you have to define your work specialization type and the project criteria you want to undertake. 

How good are you at handling risks?

Delivering work of top-notch quality to your clients will be your sole responsibility as an agency owner. 

Be proactive and smart in judging the potential risks involved and taking requisite actions to avoid them at the first instance and also have a backup plan ready in case things go out of hand due to such factors. I can personally vouch for the RankJacker team’s readiness at handling such situations. 

Keep in mind that there are other risks involved in running a new business as well. Proper business insurance is something you cannot afford to skip, and you should find a company you can trust to have your best interests at heart.

Team leading qualities are a must 

Once you are an agency you need to have the requisite leadership qualities to keep your ‘team’ a dedicated one. You need to be innovative, courageous, self-motivated, and above all empower others. 

After all, success is all about a versatile, great leader, and his self-driven team. 

Skill Sets required in making a successful agency

 Once the vision, mission, and niche of your agency is decided then some skill-sets are needed showcasing your experience to your clients.

Not just for your specialized skill-sets, rather all the clients will be engaging with you and your agency for some more reasons like: 

• Processes
• Communication
• Organization

You need to have some extra talent to meet their expectations and become a successful agency.  

There are numerous reasons to have an agency account for Up-work. There are many individual freelancers by whom accounts are launched to offer more to their clients. Some others are crafted by freelancers who are in the lookout to coordinate as an established team in a good way. 

A huge number of conventional agencies are selling their services online.