Building Community and Navigating Growth Challenges in Agencies

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What happens when you stop chasing $30K projects and start solving real problems for smaller clients in a way that actually works?

Today’s featured guest had been building $32,000 websites for mid-market companies. On paper, it looked like success. But in reality, he felt stuck—unfulfilled and back in a corporate-style grind that didn’t align with the kind of work or life he truly wanted.

When he took a step back, he realized something important: the clients he really wanted to serve were already reaching out. These were smaller, $300K businesses with many of the same challenges agencies see across the board—but without the bloated complexity.

So he made a bold pivot. He simplified his offer, created a productized service, and returned to his roots—helping people in a way that felt meaningful, scalable, and sustainable. The result? Less stress, more impact, and a business model built around freedom, not friction.

Nate Freedman is the founder of TechPro Marketing and creator of MSP Sites, a productized service built specifically for Managed IT Service Providers. After years of working in high-ticket agency engagements, Nate made a bold pivot—focusing on volume, automation, and scalable coaching for small IT firms. That shift helped him grow from a $20K/month agency to a $2.5M+ business serving over 100 clients with a tight, dialed-in model.

We’ll explore his early missteps, the aha moment that changed everything, and the system he built to serve a niche audience at scale—without losing his soul.

In this episode, we’ll discuss:

• Pivoting to MPSs as the perfect fit.

• Creating a low-ticket offer.

• Productizing with a purpose.

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Sponsors and Resources

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Impostor Syndrome and the Accidental CEO

Nate’s background wasn’t in marketing strategy or enterprise consulting. He was a self-taught internet nerd who cut his teeth writing affiliate articles and selling photo recovery software online.

He studied accounting, not realizing when he picked that career that being an online marketer was an option. Right out of college, his first job was at an accounting firm, an experience he promptly hated. He felt exposed and like a fish out of water.

This is a feeling he recognized years later when, the more his agency took on large, complex clients like Salesforce, the more he felt like a fraud. He was working with large corporations and felt like an impostor. It just wasn’t the right fit for him.

“I was putting on a kind of a facade. Like, I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t… and it just wasn’t me.”

That realization drove Nate back to his roots: helping people who reminded him of himself.

From Big Clients to Bigger Misalignment

Nate didn’t start small. Like many digital agency owners, his early focus was on winning big projects—$10K, $20K, even $32K website and marketing packages. And sure, those checks looked great at first… until a very good client sent him the dreaded email:

“Nate, when are we going to generate leads from this?”

That one question—posed by a well-meaning client already $32K in—flipped the switch. Nate realized that delivering work isn’t the same as delivering results. The more he moved upmarket, the more he felt like he was back in the corporate world he hated. High-maintenance clients. Long sales cycles. No real alignment.

He wasn’t building relationships. He was building a façade.

Finding His People: MSPs as the Perfect Fit

Nate’s breakthrough came when he niched down into the MSP (Managed Service Provider) space. These were former tech guys turned business owners—scrappy, smart, and stuck in the same ways agency owners often are.

They didn’t need $30K marketing retainers. They needed help generating leads, converting visitors, and staying in business.

Nate made a gutsy move. He ditched his high-ticket proposals and started sending BombBomb videos to leads who had previously ghosted him:

“You turned down my $20,352 proposal. Here’s my new one: $2,000 a month, and I’ll help you generate leads. I don’t even know exactly what I’ll do yet. I just want to help you grow.”

That transparency worked. Five early adopters signed on, and Nate never looked back.

Scaling a Low-Ticket, High-Impact Model

What started as a simplified offer became a flywheel. Over seven years, Nate scaled his agency to over 100 monthly clients, all paying around $4,200/month. But growth at that level brings churn.

With just 3% monthly churn, he’d have to invest more on sales and onboarding and close three new clients a month just to break even.

However, focusing on growing this way meant turning away 75% of leads who were not at least $1 million in revenue that could afford the expense.

And most of the businesses reaching out to his agency were at 200K-300K. Nate felt he could service those clients without a big investment in human resources.

This sparked the next evolution: MSP Sites.

The new offer targeted those MSPs doing $200K–$300K/year. These folks couldn’t pay $4K/month… but they desperately needed help.

So Nate reverse-engineered a low-cost, high-value offer that started at $200/month and eventually grew to include:

• Custom-designed websites

• Human chat agents

• CRM and booking automations

• On-demand courses and live office hours

• Weekly coaching and a client-only community

He went from being “just another agency” to becoming an all-in-one marketing partner for small MSPs—at a price they could actually say “hell yes” to.

Productizing with Purpose: Lessons from the Pivot

This shift to a productized offer came with unexpected lessons, as Nate was confronted with a question from his past work making $32K websites or a $200 website: “Where are the leads?”

He realized that whether he was going after the high end or low end of the market, he still had to provide an end result for clients. Low ticket doesn’t mean low impact. He has to answer that question while still providing an affordable service, so he started layering in automation, coaching, and a structured experience This slightly raised the price to $300/month, but clients not felt like they were part of a premium program.

Nate wanted to help clients not just have a website, but also generate leads, drive traffic, and close the deal. By adding live calls, email support, and a live event, Nate turned MSP Sites into more than a tool—it became a tribe.

Once the service was upgraded and clients could get their website set up even faster, the problem was that now they all looked the same. Nate knew his clients deserved better, so he removed the one-click deploy and now ensures each website is custom-designed to look amazing. Of course, this also led to a rise of the set up fee, but clients were more than happy to pay for a better design.

Finally, on-demand courses and live office hours were the finishing touch for his new offer and he was finally helping clients much more and building the business he really enjoys.

Market Share > Margins (When You’re Playing the Long Game)

At some point, most agency owners fantasize about selling. Nate’s no different—but he’s thinking a few moves ahead. Instead of relying on private equity, his bet is on strategic acquisition by a larger company in his own niche.

“The best multiple I’m going to get is from someone who wants more market share.”

That’s why he’s focused on volume at the low end. Every small client is a slice of market share. And if you can build community, coaching, and brand loyalty into your offer, you’re not just a service provider—you’re infrastructure.

The Next Frontier: Launching a Mastermind

With 300+ paying clients, Nate’s building something many agency owners should be thinking about but don’t: a mastermind for your niche.

Why?

Because clients already trust you. They’re already getting value. And when you get them in a room together—virtually or physically—magic happens.

Better yet, Nate doesn’t need to be the guru. The best masterminds don’t revolve around one person—they’re facilitated, not taught. When the room is full of practitioners, the value is in the conversations.

Do Right By People (and You’ll Win)

Scaling isn’t just about tech, pricing models, or marketing hacks. It’s about people.

Nate credits a huge part of his growth to partnering with E2M Solutions, which removed the HR complexity of managing a dev team in-house. More importantly, it aligned with his core value:

“Do right by people. If you do that, no one’s going to say anything bad about you. Even when you make mistakes.”

It’s simple, but in a crowded industry full of overpromising and under-delivering, that integrity stands out—and scales.

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