3 Shifts That Took My Web Agency From $70k to over $200k

· By Lee Blue

There was a time when running my own web agency made me feel really sad. I don’t talk about this much because I don’t like feeling sad. But I want to share this with you because maybe you’re in a similar situation.

I’m Lee Blue. I’ve run a web agency for over 20 years and shown hundreds of other web designers how to do it too through my DoubleStack mentoring program.

The Struggle: Making $70K But Working Endless Hours

I was making around $70,000 a year, which is pretty decent money. But I was working way more than 40 hours a week. This was happening right when my wife and I were having our first baby. She was staying home with the baby, and we were a single-income family.

I felt like I was missing out on a lot because I was just working so many hours. If I was going to be working that much, I thought I should at least be making more than $70,000 a year. It made me feel sad and trapped.

The Anxiety of Inconsistent Lead Generation

On top of feeling overworked and underpaid, I felt anxious because I had no reliable way to generate new leads. I relied almost entirely on word-of-mouth referrals from friends and past clients.

The problem was that I couldn’t control the flow of those leads. I would even get mad at my friends for not sending me the leads they said they would. Pretty crazy, right? Why would I get mad at my friends for not doing my marketing for free?

I felt anxiety from two angles:

  • Looking at an empty calendar with no leads in the pipeline
  • Not wanting to go out and get the leads myself

I didn’t want to attend networking groups, Chamber of Commerce meetings, or BNI groups because I didn’t know what to say. I was anxious about not having leads and anxious about going to get leads. It was a lose-lose situation.

The 3 Transformational Shifts That Changed Everything

I made three fundamental changes that completely transformed my business. These shifts took me from about $70,000 a year to making over $200,000 annually without working more hours (because I didn’t have any more hours to give).

Beyond the financial impact, they also transformed my emotional relationship with my business. I went from feeling anxious to feeling excited and confident about moving forward and talking to people.

Shift #1: Niching Down to Limit Questions and Understand Client Needs

The first transformational shift was deciding to learn and focus on a specific niche. I thought about why I felt nervous going to networking events, and the problem was clear: I didn’t know what people were going to ask me.

When you tell normal people (not web designers like us) that you do web design, it seems to open up every door remotely related to the internet. Someone would ask, “My printer’s not working. Can you fix that?” or “I don’t know how to access my email from my phone. Can you look at that?”

Anything internet-related would come my way, making me anxious because I didn’t want to say, “I don’t know how to do that.” I worried it would make me look incompetent.

So I thought, what if I focused on a niche? Instead of saying I generically do web design and marketing, what if I said I specialize in marketing for local service businesses?

Then when someone asked about their printer or email, I could say, “Let me refer you to somebody who’s into networking. I focus on marketing for local service businesses.”

By focusing on a niche, I drastically limited the inbound questions I felt I wasn’t prepared to answer.

Understanding What My Niche Actually Needed

The other important benefit of focusing on a niche was figuring out what they really needed. Local service businesses don’t need printer fixes or email troubleshooting. They need:

  • More calls
  • More visibility
  • Ways to build trust and authority
  • More clients in their business

It seems obvious that if you want to get leads, you offer people what they actually want.

But it wasn’t obvious to me at the time. I was saying technical things like “Do you want a faster website?” or “Do you want better SEO?”

People don’t really want those technical things. What they actually want are:

  • Consistent leads
  • More revenue long-term
  • Potential to open new locations
  • Measurable business outcomes

By focusing on a niche, I could make a list of what people actually wanted. Then when creating my website, attending networking events, sending emails, or posting on social media, I could talk about what people actually wanted—not the technical “connect-the-dots” stuff.

Shift #2: The SMACK Pack - Creating a Comprehensive Solution

My second transformational shift was creating what I call the SMACK Pack. Now that I knew what results my clients wanted, I needed to figure out how to deliver those results through my services.

SMACK stands for:

  • S = Support (hosting, maintenance, backups, updates)
  • M = Marketing (driving traffic through ads, SEO, content marketing, backlinks)
  • A = Authority (building social proof with reviews, case studies, testimonials)
  • C = Capture (converting leads to clients and nurturing prospects)
  • K = Keep (customer loyalty and retention strategies)

I started offering SMACK Packs to every client, not just websites. This changed everything. Financially, I tripled the value of my clients without doing more work because I eliminated the gaps between projects. I kept working with clients indefinitely.

This approach could take a $3,000 project and turn it into a $10,000+ client relationship. (That’s when I started sending out the DoubleStack trophy to people landing $10,000 clients by offering SMACK Packs.)

Establishing My Authority Through Expertise

The SMACK Pack also allowed me to demonstrate my expertise without having to claim I was an authority. I could simply show it through my knowledge.

For example, I’d say things like:

“Did you know that you get about a seven-day traffic spike whenever you post something on your Google Business Profile? It doesn’t last forever, but every post gives you about a seven-day traffic boost.”

Most business owners don’t know that. They think they can set up their Google profile, maybe get some reviews, and just set it and forget it. By saying, “Why don’t we do weekly posts to your Google Business Profile?” I’m demonstrating my expertise.

Or I’d share insights like:

“Did you know you can get a big traffic boost for both your Google Business Profile and your website simply by synchronizing your name, address, and phone number across all channels? Any discrepancy between your NAP information—or even your hours of operation—can cause both people and Google to get confused about whether you’re open or where you’re located.”

People don’t think about these details. They might abbreviate “Terrace” as “Ter” in some listings but spell it out in others. Making everything consistent is an easy win.

Another example: The proximity of backlinks makes a difference for local businesses. Getting links from your chamber of commerce, little league baseball team, or neighborhood blog can significantly impact local marketing.

When I shared these insights, clients would think, “Wow, I never would have thought about that. This person is clearly an expert.” I didn’t have to claim expertise; they could see it right on the surface.

Shift #3: The Belief Stack - Transforming Fear into Excitement

The third transformational shift was what I call the Belief Stack, and this is where I experienced the most significant emotional transformation.

The first two shifts helped me identify my audience and create a valuable service offering with recurring revenue. I could also price my work based on the results my clients would get rather than how much time it took me to implement.

But the Belief Stack is what transformed my attitude from feeling nervous, anxious, and scared into feeling excited. I realized that fear and excitement are essentially the same emotion. The only difference is your expectation of the outcome. If you expect a negative outcome, you feel fear. If you expect a positive outcome, you feel excitement. That’s why people ride roller coasters—it’s a scary environment, but you know you won’t get hurt, so it becomes exciting.

Building Complete Confidence in My Solution

The Belief Stack works by going back to the SMACK Pack services and saying to myself: “I’m going to do weekly posts on your Google Business Profile, which will increase your traffic and visibility. I’m going to help you get reviews. I’m going to get you backlinks from places near your business location.”

I knew these strategies would make a huge difference, and I also knew that most web designers weren’t even thinking about these things. I was building up my belief in my solution.

Self-confidence in my coding ability was never an issue. I’ve always been good at coding (3.9 GPA, Magna Cum Laude, huge projects including a $3.5 million medical record platform). I knew I could code whatever solution was needed.

My anxiety stemmed from uncertainty about whether I was creating the right solution for the client. What if I took someone’s money, built exactly what they asked for, but they asked for the wrong thing? What if it didn’t work, everything fell apart, and they blamed me?

The Belief Stack eliminated that anxiety. I knew that implementing these strategies would be so much better for clients than not doing them. I would look at all the elements I’d added to the SMACK Pack and feel genuinely good about the solution I was offering.

From Seeking Approval to Giving Support

When I truly believed in my solution, I could share that belief with my clients. Before this transformation, I lacked confidence in what I was offering, so how could my clients have confidence in me?

The Belief Stack gave me that confidence, which led to perhaps the biggest mental shift: Before, when I went to networking events, I felt like I was trying to get approval from people. After developing the Belief Stack, I already had my own approval and confidence. My mindset shifted from trying to get approval to giving support.

I became excited about sharing my expertise because I knew with certainty that if clients implemented my recommendations, it would positively impact their business. While I couldn’t calculate the exact penny value of that impact, I knew it was significantly better than not doing these things.

This newfound excitement made me look forward to networking and sharing my knowledge. My calendar started filling up, I began implementing SMACK Packs, and generating recurring revenue. The fear transformed into excitement, and talking to people became fun.

Turning Your Web Agency Around

If you’re feeling stuck in your web agency—overworked, underpaid, and anxious about lead generation—try these three transformational shifts:

  1. Focus on a specific niche to understand their needs and limit the scope of questions you need to answer
  2. Create a comprehensive solution (like the SMACK Pack) that delivers recurring revenue
  3. Develop a Belief Stack that gives you complete confidence in your solution

Don’t forget to check out the Lead Lab, a free mini-course on generating organic leads without buying ads. My favorite section shows you how to use advanced Google searches to find local businesses that need your help—all for free. You can then message them to start the conversation.

These strategies helped me more than triple my agency’s revenue without working more hours. More importantly, they transformed my relationship with my business from one of anxiety to one of excitement and fulfillment. I hope it does the same for you.