Yes, that’s right, I used to co-own a marketing agency called HAD Digital in Brighton. I sold the agency in 2023 because I much preferred the flexibility of being a sole-freelancer, but let me show you my journey.

In 2019 I left my employment working for a Dental Marketing Agency to fly solo. I started my first freelance website and got it ranking at the top of Google within four months for freelance digital marketing search terms in Bournemouth. I also took a small PPC budget and started bidding on very specific search terms.

Within 3 months I had surpassed the salary I was on when I was working at the marketing agency. Five months after that and I had over tripled it.

My first biggest client was Alliance Insurance Partners. My first marketing retainer over £5000 per month. Which was alone more than my salary at the marketing agency. This got the ball rolling for big expansion plans.

The day after the COVID lockdown was announced, about 40% of my client’s had called to say they had to cancel their direct debits with me. Within two weeks. All of my client’s had cancelled.

It wasn’t that they were upset with my work, it was that they had to make cut backs and wind down operating as they simply weren’t bringing any money in. The contractor will always be the first to go, and there’s no hard feelings.

I wasn’t able to be furloughed, I also wasn’t able to claim self employment grants as I didn’t have a previous tax year, so I had to come up with a plan.

That blistering hot summer passed, but I used this as an opportunity. I wanted to start again, but bounce back harder. I wanted to beat what I had accomplished the first time round.

So I got to work.

I managed to squeeze out a couple of client’s in industries that were still allowed to operate, mainly in labour industries. Afterall, plumbers and electricians were still needed. These client’s kept me going and meant that I could keep my head above water. Months passed and it was announced that lockdown was gradually phasing out. My high rankings on Google as well as word of mouth allowed me to accrue new client’s and within six months after lockdown began relaxing – I was on over £100,000pa.

I had done it, within 12 months after incorporating my entity during lockdown I had achieved six figures.

HAD is unlike many other marketing agencies out there. It was formed out of necessity and I started it with a fellow freelance website designer, Adam. Adam used to be the manager of the design team at the marketing agency I worked at and during 2019 he too left to go freelance. I had passed so much work to Adam it made sense to combine forces and start our own thing. The only catch, I didn’t want to become ‘another marketing agency’ I wanted to continue serving marketing agencies and individual businesses as a freelance; but how was I meant to offer a freelance experience when we were starting a team?

Well, we simply did the following:

It worked, marketing agencies loved us, reviewed us highly and gave us more and more work to manage their clients. We even had a marketing agency that didn’t actually have their own team. They gave us each and every single client they had, we managed everything whilst they moved to Dubai, assumingly to soak up the rays on the beach.

I love HAD Digital. They’re still running to this day and I think that the niche they’re in is a great one; but I missed freelancing. As HAD Digital grew from strength to strength I was taking more and more of a step back from making my client’s money and stepping more and more into managing the company’s finances, the teams, expansion and marketing projects.

So I sold my share of HAD Digital to Adam and jumped back into the freelance marketing game. Where I look now to work closely with individual client’s making them and their client’s money.