How my Web Design Agency hit $500,000 this year

(without burning out and drowning in sales calls)

We went from 80% one-time projects to 80% recurring revenue in under 90 days by changing how we sell, deliver, and retain clients.

Here is exactly what we did:

1. Build an infinitely recurring offer

We stopped selling random projects.
We focused on three core outcomes:

• Tech stack we can support for years
• Clear care plan attached to each client
• Design that loads fast and CONVERTS

Every new website came with maintenance baked in, not as an optional extra.

Life gets easier when you know where your next payment is coming from.

2. Then we stacked layered recurring revenue

Instead of pitching “full service marketing” up front, we did:

• Website first
• Then Local SEO
• Then email automations
• Then grow into ads management

One win at a time.

Clients stayed because each layer made their funnel more profitable, not more complicated.

3. Make recurring work feel like a product, not chaos

We treated retainers like products:

• Fixed deliverables
• Fixed reporting rhythm
• Fixed weekly meeting cadence

Clients knew what was happening every month.
Team knew what to ship every week.
This killed most of the “emergency” calls.

4. Do the hard things competitors avoid

While others chased AI short term tactics to avoid hard work, we:

• Fixed technical SEO properly
• Cleaned tracking and analytics
• Optimized page speed and UX
• Talked to clients’ intake teams about lead quality

Unsexy work.

But it is what moved revenue for clients and made our retainers untouchable.

5. Turn happy clients into a referral engine

We did not beg for referrals.
We engineered them:

• Case studies that show revenue growth
• Simple “Who do you know like X?” asks
• Partner deals with vendors already serving our clients

Result: referrals drove more revenue than cold outreach.

6. Protect energy, not just profit

To avoid dying on sales calls, we:

• Had short, focused discovery calls
• Said “no” to clients who wanted chaos
• Used templates and checklists to scope fast
• Pre qualified leads through forms and content

Fewer calls.
Better clients.
More energy for actually building.

If you run a service business and want to turn it into a recurring revenue machine without living on sales calls subscribe to our yearly premium Substack.

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