You can't sell your job.

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Over the past few months this newsletter has been growing like crazy. Our readers have been super instrumental to our growth, and that has allowed us to do some really fun new content ideas.

As the newsletter has been growing, we’ve decided it’s time to work a little bit on our branding. This newsletter started as basic as can be. Just some plain text on a plain Substack profile. Eventually we realized we should have a logo, so one of our team members went into Google Drawing and made this masterpiece:

Awesome right?

But now that we have over 1,000 subscribers we think it’s time to make it look a little more professional.

So we have been working with a graphic designer to talk about some ideas and make this thing a lot more fun to read. All this collaborating and going back and forth on designs has made us think a lot about one thing: Freelancing.

If you spend a lot of time in entrepreneurial groups on reddit or listening to podcasts, you’ll hear lots about freelancing. It’s often portrayed as the best case scenario for a young entrepreneur. You can “be your own boss” and make unlimited money depending on how hard you work.

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We guarantee that if you search on Google “ten businesses to start in 2023” there is going to be an item on the list that tells you to do one of the following:

• Become a freelancer

• Be a virtual assistant

• Consulting

• Freelance copywriting

• Freelance digital marketing

The writers of these articles get paid when they refer users to sites like upwork, fiverr, or thumbtack. That’s why they always push you to sign up.

These can be viable business options, and there are many people who have been extremely successful starting their own business in one of these areas.

Let’s propose a perspective shift:

Freelancing vs. Agency

Freelancing:

working for different companies at different times rather than being permanently employed by one company.

Agency:

a business or organization established to provide a particular service, typically one that involves organizing transactions between two other parties.

What would you rather do? Have 5 different bosses, or run a business that provides a service?

Freelancing carries with it the connotation that you are fulfilling the work yourself. It leaves you no room to grow your business because you will always be the bottleneck.

If you build an agency, then you are building an actual business instead of just working for a bunch of different companies.

Agencies don’t have to be big to be successful. There are plenty of one person agencies that make a ton of money.

If you want to be successful, don’t become a freelancer.

Build an agency instead.

You can’t sell your job. But if you build an agency that does $100,000 a year in profit, you could sell that for $500,000 when you are ready to move on.

How do I start an agency?

You start an agency the same way you start any other business.

Start hyper focused. What is a service you can provide for others? What is going to be your competitive advantage?

Can you help general contractors find reliable subcontractors?

Can you help a local car dealership to maintain their lot so it’s more appealing?

Can you help an 80 year old restaurant owner create a social media account and give out coupons online?

Start small and in your local community. Grow through recommendations and word of mouth. Hire valuable employees to continue building.

Blast from the past:

If you think of your business like an agency, you’ll need to design a web site. Check out this previous post to see our tips and opinions on how your should set up your web site.

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