Why you need to focus your positioning

Many digital agencies start out as freelancers. You get your first clients, deliver solid work and think to yourself: why not build up a small team? The demand is there, an office is quickly found, a few laptops are bought – and off you go.

At the beginning, the broad positioning works wonderfully. Websites, e-commerce, content, design, apps, maybe a bit of social media – as long as the customer pays, it gets delivered. This flexibility ensures orders, the cash flow gets rolling, and larger investments are hardly necessary. No credit, no investors – just do it. Sounds like a good start. And it is.

But at some point, the formula no longer works properly.

When growth becomes a problem

As soon as the first employees are on board, fixed costs skyrocket. Now, the sales team has to constantly bring in new projects to finance salaries, rent and tools. And suddenly it becomes clear: the rules of the game have changed.

In this phase, many agencies dream of winning “bigger” clients – with better budgets, longer-term contracts and more planning security. But that's easier said than done. That's because big clients make their decisions strategically. They want service providers they can rely on: established processes, clear points of contact and sufficient capacities. And that's exactly what many small agencies lack.

The problem: with a very general value proposition (“We do everything digital”), you remain interchangeable. The market is huge, and so is the competition. If you don't have a clear focus, you will be perceived as an “all-rounder” – and there are many all-rounders out there. The result: you end up in a price war. And if you have to sell yourself on price, you will lose in the long run.

Without a niche, things get tight

The result: Despite high capacity utilization, little is achieved. The projects are too different to build scalable structures. There is no real learning curve, no specialization, no deeper expertise. Instead of becoming more efficient, the business becomes more and more fragmented.

There is also a lack of external profile: What does the agency actually stand for? Which problem does it solve better than others? If you have an answer for everything, you often seem arbitrary – and it is difficult to differentiate yourself in customer discussions.

At the same time, internal organization suffers. Without clear specialization, processes are difficult to standardize, knowledge transfer stagnates, and it takes a long time to train new employees. Day-to-day business dominates – strategic work falls by the wayside.

If you want to grow, you need focus. A clear positioning on a problem, a topic, a target group. Only then can a real competitive advantage arise. And that's exactly where Leadtime helps: our software helps you to recognize, structure and systematize recurring processes. So that you no longer manage your company as an agency – but run it as a scalable system.