I’ve seen this happen to almost every agency founder early on.
You start getting traction
A few clients here
A few clients there
Before you know it you’re juggling 14 different clients, across 6 different industries, offering every service under the sun.
Web design
SEO
Social media
Ads
Whatever they ask for
And it feels like progress.
But behind the scenes?
Everything starts to feel chaotic.
On a recent podcast episode, I sat down with Nick Desrocher, a young agency owner about two years into the journey.
Great clients.
Good momentum.
But he was running into the exact wall most agencies hit around this stage:
Too many services.
Too many types of clients.
No clear ICP.
Which creates three brutal problems:
• Onboarding takes forever
• Systems are impossible to build
• Scaling feels chaotic
During the conversation I walked him through a concept most agencies miss entirely
The “Soft ICP.”
Not the scary version of niching down where you suddenly say no to everyone.
But a way to quietly focus your agency around the clients that are already working best.
Once you see it, a lot of other things suddenly click:
• Why some services feel like a bottleneck
• Why onboarding feels messy
• Why scaling a team gets complicated fast
There are also some subtle wins:
• You can actually charge more for services that deliver real value
• You stop wasting hours on clients who aren’t a fit
• Your marketing becomes crystal clear, leads know exactly who you serve
If you’re feeling stretched thin or like your agency is spinning its wheels, this episode is going to save you months of trial and error.
Catch the full episode on The Agency Uplift Podcast
Get the Client Call Analyzer and 4 more powerful tools for free at:
THE AGENCY LEVERAGE BLUEPRINT
- Sean
P.S. At the end, I share the exact framework I use to identify a “soft ICP” for an agency without ever cutting off all other opportunities. It’s a game changer.