Eric Deeran identifies seven constraints that trap creative agencies at $20,000 monthly revenue: the owner does all sales, pricing is too low to hire, every payment needs founder approval, cash flow blocks hiring, there's no packaged offer, marketing happens after delivery, and the founder sees themselves as a videographer, not a business operator.
Here are 7 invisible ceilings capping your agency growth at $20K per month. Number 1, you are the only person who can sell the projects. The owner's the only seller. If you're the only one doing sales, you need to hire someone to do sales for you so you can get out of the trenches. Number 2, they're typically price anchoring to their old freelance rates because that's what feels comfortable to price at, not what they actually need to charge. This keeps you stuck because you don't have enough margin to actually hire good people in your agency. And then number 3, every dollar runs through your inbox, meaning that you have to be the one that approves everything. You chase the invoices, you have no one to actually handle that side of your business. And so that caps you because you're the one in charge of everything. You also can't hire because you're waiting for enough revenue, meaning you don't have enough funds to actually hire talented people because you're not making enough money yet. Next, there's literally no offer that exists. You just have these menus and custom projects that you do, and that's how you've been able to get to $20K a month. Number 6, marketing happens after fulfillment, if ever, meaning that you're always focusing on working in the weeds on your business, not actually marketing the business to get new clients. And so you're stuck working in the business, not on the business. And number 7, you identify as a videographer, not an actual business operator. These are the 7 things that we see cap agencies at $20K a month. If you wanna learn how to fix this, I put together a short video on the next page going over exactly how you can. Click the link below.
