How did you manage many projects and multiple clients when you were starting out?
When I first started I was juggling a lot without a defined project‑management system. Eventually I got a system, but I don’t think you need a fancy tool right away. Managing two or more clients depends on what you’re building, deadlines, expectations, and whether the client is recurring. For recurring clients, scope the process and deliverables so you allocate time for each. Set a unified schedule for client management—e.g., be available on Slack from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. PT—and bundle work. I usually set aside two hours to handle about 20 clients because only one or two will message daily. A 2‑hour Q&A period in a retainer adds perceived value with little effort and works well for progress updates. When building for multiple clients, I create separate make.com environments for each, keep a big password manager, and use templated projects—copy a blueprint and make a few adjustments—so everything stays isolated. If it feels overwhelming, simplify the builds. Juggling two massive $20k custom projects is stressful, but handling five simple templated projects that cost $3‑4k and take two hours each is much easier. I didn’t adopt a formal project‑management system until I was making at least $10k a month; before that I just used email and Slack. Develop personal and mental systems that let you avoid external tools, because those skills transfer across roles. Improve your ability to project‑manage if that’s a major issue.
Continue just like that. Once you've acquired your first couple of clients, you'll realize you don't want to start at zero each month—you don't want to go from making two grand in one month to zero the next and then grind back up. So you'll start pursuing monthly recurring revenue (MRR) instead of one‑off fixed‑price projects. MRR means clients pay you repeatedly for similar work over time, and that's where most long‑term money comes from. So push for recurring revenue: close those fixed‑price projects, re‑pitch, and try to reactivate the clients you just closed out. Enumerate all areas of their business where you could help, and for each area outline the estimated earnings or gains. For example, you might add $15,000 in MRR by solving a particular issue. You could charge that amount, but it's better to bundle those 10 items into a retainer and work on them ongoing. That helps you understand their business better, gives them a dependable partner who shows up, and eliminates the need for random fixed‑price projects. You become an extension of their team, focused on system and process optimization.
I build new systems rather than just maintain one, because you’d quickly run out of high‑ROI systems to apply to their business. The ROI from something like Lead‑en automation can be massive, which justifies the recurring payment, but if the retainer were only for maintenance of a single system you’d worry about endless revisions. I don’t think it’s wrong to charge a retainer even when the ongoing work is near zero, because the systems I build produce value independently—you don’t have to constantly watch over them. It’s like hiring an emergency plumber who charges $500 for a 30‑second fix; the fee reflects the expertise built over years, not just the time spent on the job. So the ongoing work doesn’t have to be zero for you to get paid, but you must continuously provide value—perhaps through a system that runs cold email autonomously, for example. What I provide on a monthly retainer includes: unlimited maintenance on all systems we’ve built together; a 15‑minute availability window each day (12 p.m. to 2 p.m. PT) where you can ask me any question and I’ll reply within about 15 minutes; a weekly strategy call (30‑45 minutes) where I slot into your business and tell you exactly what you need to do to make more money, essentially building a roadmap for the coming week; I also often create a big monthly roadmap at the start of the month or include a proposal with a list of 50 things I want to do when we begin working together, which I follow unless I provide a separate monthly roadmap; unlimited new project requests—you can make as many requests as you want and I’ll add them to my queue, though realistically I usually complete about one new project per week because I have templates and blueprints for most things, so I’m not spending eight hours a day fulfilling a $7,000‑a‑month client; there’s a lot of perceived value in this, comparable to what clients would pay for a standalone maintenance package, Q&A and training for the team, a weekly strategy call, or consultation at my hourly rate (around $800). Instead of building every project myself, I increasingly describe exactly what the system should look like or provide SOPs for your team to build it with their own tools, so I’m not a single point of failure and your team develops the skills to build these automations as well.
I start with a kickoff call where I deliver quick wins to minimize buyer's remorse, and I always take payment upfront before any work begins - never considering a client 'onboard' until the money is in my account. After receiving payment, I create a detailed proposal that serves as both a sales document and a roadmap. Roughly 60% of the proposal outlines the client's problems, demonstrating my understanding from any prior small project; about 20% covers the proposed solution; the remaining 20% discusses logistics, principally compensation. I typically pitch a large monthly fee - recently moving from $6,900 to around $12,000-$12,300 - and often add a revenue-share component to align incentives, inspired by the idea that sharing upside makes both parties more comfortable and can lead to more money. I discuss performance-based versus flat pricing, noting that beginners should lean performance-based, intermediates may go flat, and experts often return to performance-based because they have confidence in delivering results. Once the client agrees and pays, I invite them to a kickoff call to set communication expectations: I'm highly reachable via Slack (within 15 minutes) and hold daily office hours from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. PT, plus a weekly strategy session. I ask clients to commit to the same recurring time each week for at least 50 out of 52 weeks, emphasizing consistency so they take the calls seriously and see ongoing value. During each meeting I review wins from the past week, outline what I'll do next, and address any questions or fires, ensuring I always show up with something tangible to justify the retainer. I then follow the roadmap, checking off the 45-plus tasks in order, and optionally sync with the client's project-management system (though I've moved away from using my own ClickUp board as the single source of truth). I also note that other agencies like DesignJoy use shared boards, but I prefer bringing a quick note of wins and next steps to each meeting.
After hiring around 40-50 people for my agency, I've realized I prefer to hire last. The common advice to delegate everything comes from a time when technology couldn't handle much of the work, but today technology gives us leverage, so you can realistically wait until you're making around $50k/month before your first hire instead of $15-20k. Hiring early is often just a band-aid for deeper problems—if you're under $25k/month the issue is usually your systems, not a lack of manpower. Focus on building systems that reduce the work needed to fulfill: automate repetitive tasks like onboarding emails, scheduling calls, and problem-solving via email; design productized offers that take half the effort to deliver (e.g., a form that auto-generates a campaign, scrapes leads, and follows up); create scalable sales flows (a discovery/closing call batched together, a proposal, and automated follow-ups that stop when a deal isn't worth the effort). Make client management discrete—set a daily 8 a.m. five-minute template update instead of letting clients interrupt you on WhatsApp all day. Hiring early means giving up a large share of profit (e.g., a $5k salary is half of your profit at 50% margins) plus management costs and risk; it's better to wait until revenue is higher so the hire is a smaller fraction of margin. I pay a flat salary plus a clear, trackable bonus—staff log it themselves and add it to their invoice—avoiding profit-share or rev-share because they misalign incentives and add overhead. Finally, I only care about deliverables: if someone is intelligent and ambitious they can build their own systems to finish work in fewer hours, and as long as the output is good I don't track hours.