If I Needed My First Agency Client This Week, I'd Do This

If I woke up tomorrow with zero clients and one week to change that, I know exactly what I'd do. Not what I'd research, not what I'd prepare, but what I'd actually do, starting right now. Because getting your first or next client isn't hard. It's just that most people do things in the wrong order. Fix the order though, and you can be talking to real business owners in the next few days. I built three different seven-figure agencies, worked with over 1,500 small businesses, run thousands of campaigns, and today I do it all as a one-person agency with zero employees. So, in this video, I'm going to give you the exact sequence to get your first or next client. It's just five moves that you can do this week. Follow it in order and you'll have real business owners responding to you by the end of the week. So, let me walk you through each one now, starting with Monday. Pick one. The single biggest reason that most people never get their first client is that they spend weeks, sometimes months, trying to decide what to sell and who to sell it to. So, Monday has one job, make both of those decisions and commit. First, pick your service. This is what you're going to sell and you've got three options here. Option one is online reputation management, also known as review automation. This is where you set up a system that automatically asks customers for a Google review after every job. This one is the easiest to explain, it's the fastest to show results for, and it's the one that most business owners understand immediately. So, if you're not sure which offer to pick for your very first one, start here. Option two is the AI receptionist. Here, you set up an AI agent that automatically answers calls after hours and on weekends or whenever the business is unable to answer the phone, the AI answers the call, it talks to and qualifies the caller, and it books appointments automatically. If you're genuinely excited by the AI side of this, then you're going to want to lead with that. So, this is your pick. Option three is web design, but more specifically than that, you're going to offer to build them what I call a revenue website. This is a clean, simple site built specifically to turn visitors into leads, calls, and customers. You don't need to know how to code to do any of this either, as the software that we're using allows you to vibe code an entire site by just talking to the computer and telling it what you want. You know, if you've got any background in design or tech and that kind of work sounds cool to you, then this one's a natural fit. The key here though is to just pick the one that fits where you are right now. You can stack the others on later. Choosing one here doesn't limit your ability to offer more in the future. As the saying goes, you can't steer a parked car. So, you got to get this thing rolling. The best and fastest way to do that is to pick just one single service and start. Okay, so now that that's done, the next thing you want to do is choose your niche. These are the people that you're going to serve, the business type or the industry that you're going after. For example, plumbers or dentists or HVAC companies, roofers, landscapers, that kind of thing. I want you to think about this carefully because for most people, the first client comes from a personal connection that you have, not cold outreach. So, ask yourself these three questions. First, is there an industry that you've worked in before? A past job, a family business, something you understand from the inside. Second, do you personally know anyone who owns or works for a local service business? Because the odds are good that your first client to be a direct connection to someone that you already know or someone that they know. Third, which type of business do you just find genuinely interesting? Those answers will point you towards your niche because explaining your service to someone in a business that you actually understand goes a lot smoother than trying to sound smart in an industry that you just picked randomly yesterday. I'll put a list on the screen right now of some good potential niches for you to choose from. You can feel free to screenshot this or write the best ones down, but the fact is that any local service business where customers search online to find someone to hire is likely going to be a solid option. So, pick one, write it down alongside your service, and you now have an offer. Tuesday, message 10. Before you send a single cold message, you're going to start with 10 people who already know you. This is the step that most people skip because it feels less exciting than building a whole outreach system. But, warm contacts convert at a completely different rate than strangers. And I know I said this a couple times now, but the fact is that your first client is almost always someone who already has a reason to trust you or someone that they know. A lot of people are scared to reach out to their warm network because they don't want to try to sell their friends or family on their services, but that is not what you're doing here. You are not asking them to become your client. You're asking if they know anyone who might need help. Here's the script, feel free to use this word for word. Hey, name, random question. I'm helping local business type businesses get more Google reviews automatically and make sure that they never miss a call. Know anyone who might be a good fit? Happy to show them how it works for free. Send that to 10 people today. You can text it, you can DM it from your personal social media accounts, whatever feels natural for that relationship. You don't need a professional email address or a business account to do this. Your personal phone number and your personal Instagram or Facebook are completely fine to start with. You can set something up more professional later, but right now what matters is getting that message out. Side note here, for free means the audit, not the entire service. You're offering to show them the problem, not deliver the solution for nothing. Now, most people expect to get ignored when they send these, but what actually happens is about one in five people say yes or refers you to someone, which is usually a lot better than people expect after sending messages that they almost talked themselves out of sending. Wednesday, follow up and go cold. Believe it or not, this is the point at which most agencies fail. Not after they get a few clients, not after they try to scale to six or seven figures, and not after they've been doing it for years, but right at this one single crucial moment because this is where most people give up and just quit, making success, well, impossible. How it usually goes is this. They send a few messages, they get no replies, and they assume it didn't work. But, what's actually happening is very simple. People are busy and the odds are good that they saw your message, had every intention to respond to you later, but then forgot because something else came up and life got busy and, you know the drill. Wednesday fixes this problem. First, follow up with anyone who didn't reply yesterday. And don't just bump the original message. You want to add something new. Try saying this. Hey, name, forgot to mention, one of the fastest things I've seen work for business type is an automated review request that goes out after every job. Happy to explain it real quick if you think that would help. That kind of message isn't just a reminder, it actually gives them a reason to reply and it feels completely different from, hey, just checking in. Now, the second job, cold outreach. And I promise you, this is a lot easier and a whole lot less scary than it sounds. Pull up Google Maps, search your business type in your city or any city as your agency isn't location dependent and you can work with anyone from anywhere in the world, and you're going to start to see the difference between businesses that are doing this right and businesses that aren't pretty much immediately. Some businesses have hundreds of reviews, others have barely any. They are offering the same service, they're in the same city, but they're getting completely different results. And that difference is your opportunity. Then, click into one of the weaker listings. Low reviews, no responses, some won't even have a website. That's not necessarily a bad business. In all likelihood, this is a business that just doesn't have a system. And now, your message makes complete sense. So, here's what to reach out with them with. And you could do this via email or DM their Facebook or Instagram. You could even call them or show up in person if you wanted, but here's what to say. Hey, name, I was searching for business type in city and came across your business. You've got some solid reviews. I noticed a few things on your Google listing that might be costing you calls though. I put together a quick breakdown if you'd like to see it. No charge, no strings, just thought it might help. Is it okay to send it over? Find 10 businesses minimum, 20 is better, 30's amazing. Then, send that message to each one. By the end of Wednesday, you've got at least 30 messages out there. 10 warm from Tuesday, the follow-ups, and 10 to 20, possibly even 30 cold. Okay, moving on to Thursday. Have the conversation. By Thursday, someone has replied. Maybe two people, maybe more. And this is the next moment that most people freeze. They get a reply and suddenly realize that this was the one part they hadn't considered. But, don't worry, here's exactly what to do next. All you need to do is send them the information that you found when looking them up in the first place. You're just showing them what you saw, the review count, the unanswered reviews, the missing website if that's the case, and then asking if any of it sounds familiar. Just keep it simple, you're not presenting a proposal here. Most of the time, these business owners already know that something is off. They've seen competitors outrank them, they've noticed calls slowing down some weeks, they just haven't connected it to a solution. And now, you're the person who does. Okay, it's time for Friday. Make the offer. Friday's job is simple. Take the interest and the replies from Thursday and close them into clients. You might want to write this down. Say it exactly like this. I can set that up for you this week. The review system runs automatically after every job. You don't do anything once I set it up. The cost is 197 a month and most clients see their first new reviews within the first couple of weeks. Now, for context here, a plumber's average job is 400 to 600 dollars. If your system brings them just one extra customer a month that they would have lost to a competitor, your fee is paid for like two to three times over. If they say yes, you've got your first client. If they say they need to think about it, say, of course, I'll check in in a couple of days. While we're both here right now though, are there any other questions or concerns you have about this? That is a very neutral, non-pushy way to try to understand what's stopping them from working with you right now. Sometimes they really do just need to think about it, in which case, make sure to actually follow up. Now, here's what happens after they say yes because this is the next part where most people start to worry. How am I going to deliver these services? Inside HighLevel, which is the software I use to run my entire agency and the one we're going to be using here to offer all of these services, you're going to build one simple automation. Inside my HighLevel dashboard, we'll click on automations, then review system, and then we'll choose the simple review system. You can see at the top of the automation, there's a trigger that gets the automation to fire and it happens automatically as soon as a job is marked as complete. After that, there's a short delay, then there's an SMS that goes out that looks like this and requests a Google review. Another short delay and then a follow-up message goes out via email as well to make sure that we capture the review as quickly as possible. Setting this up takes maybe 15 to 20 minutes tops per client and then it just runs automatically, week after week, month after month. If you're not using HighLevel yet, this entire setup is already pre-built inside of my Agency OS. You install it, swap in the client's name, and their Google review link, and it's live. You get instant access when you start a free trial through the link below. Two warnings before you go do this. Warning one, getting your first client will take longer than you want. There's videos out there promising a client in the next 2 hours. I mean, sure, maybe. But, for most people, it's two to four weeks of consistent outreach. The good news, though, is that the second client comes a whole lot faster than that. And the third one, even faster. But, the first one pretty much always takes longer than you expect. That is not a sign to quit, and it's not a sign that this isn't working, which is why I want to make sure that you understand this, and then brace for it. Warning two, the system is simple, but simple doesn't mean it does itself. You still have to send the messages, have the conversations, and follow up when someone goes quiet for 3 days after saying they were interested. That's the work. It's not hard work, but it is work. Everything I just showed you, the reviews, the outreach, the automation, it all runs on that platform, HighLevel. When you start your free trial through the link below, I'm going to drop my entire Agency OS into your account on day one. You're going to get access to all of my pre-built automations, and outreach scripts, and review campaigns, all ready to go. You don't start with a blank screen, you start with the system. The exact same system that's been helping me make over a million dollars a year as a one-person agency with zero employees. And, if you want to see the complete picture and how to pick your niche, and what to charge, and how to scale this into a real agency, I broke the whole thing down in a free masterclass that I've got linked up right here. So, tap or click that now. We'll see you in there in just a second.