#83 The Making Of Affinity Collective

This issue is a whole lot of behind the scenes – I'm going to share everything that went into my decision to launch an agency + all the help I had to make it happen.

If you nerd out on business strategy, this issue is for you.

Let’s get into it –


First let's dial back the clock to December 2023. For months I had debated if I should keep working as an individual consultant or build an agency.

I "grew up" at an agency so I know the business model.

I started as a Product Designer and worked my way up to a Principal Strategist with my own multi-million dollar portfolio of clients, a team of 30 developers and designers, and a whole lot of responsibility.

I knew everyones salaries and who to staff on what in order to hit my target project margins.

I knew how to build relationships with clients so that they renewed and referred us more work.

I knew how to close new projects and was often brought in as the closer in the sales process.

My boss joked that I could "find money" when we needed to hit a bonus target. My colleague joked that I knew how to "play the game".

So I know this business. But I also know all of its downfalls.

I know profit margins can be slim.

I know there's never enough overhead roles.

I know the grind of landing new projects.

I know the ebbs and flows of staffing. People were generally overworked or underworked and there felt like no middle-ground.

Just thinking about my calendar during that period of my life makes me want to keel over... something like 40 hours of meetings and another 40 of time-blocks for getting shit done.

I was instituting things within my practice (my projects teams) that I learned from this woman I was following on Instagram, ​Anna Nassery. ​

She was always talking about systems to streamline things within an agency to get your time back and make for a more seamless client experience. For example, creating videos and templates for new clients to onboard. Her tips, via social media, helped me 3x my portfolio.

Years later I met Anna through bossbabe when we collaborated on a masterclass about web design. Anna has a web design & branding agency called ​Lumina​.

When I left bossbabe Anna reached out and she became a mentor of mine (formally this time) and an advocate for my consulting work.

At this point I knew I could build a successful agency, I had the receipts and I knew the business. But I didn't think I wanted to... for all the aforementioned reasons.

Then Anna told me to read the book ​Built To Sell.​

So it's December 23, 2023. I'm doing last minute Christmas shopping bopping around local shops (because last minute + local are my vibe) and I listen to the entire book in one day.

The premise is that an agency owner refined his services from anything creative under the sun ... to logos ONLY.

What I learned from that book is that I could build a really different agency than the one I used to work at.

Instead of constant custom projects with bespoke proposals, pitches, and team makeups... I could sell a repeatable process. I could package my services as productized offers. This blew my mind.

And with what I know now about digital products and digital marketing, I knew that we could create something special.

One of our core services we've productized is our ​Transformative Product Sprint​. We follow the exact same process which we have templatized with each client to help them build the right thing.

  1. Kickoff – Set research plan

  2. Research Phase – Write survey, 1:1 Customer interviews

  3. Data Analysis – Review existing data

  4. Affinity Mapping – look for patterns amongst data for insights

  5. Design Workshop – Community journey mapping & product ideation

  6. Product Strategy – Deliver final recommendations for offer details, pricing, ascension strategy, platform, etc.

8 weeks. Repeatable. Templatized.

Before launching the agency we've been fine tuning each stage for the past year and now this process is working SO well.

Now I'm not going to pretend like I have it all figured out... but I'll continue to share here as I work toward building an agency to sell.

You can follow along the launch posts (I've got 6 weeks planned!) on ​Instagram​ or our ​LinkedIn​ page.

Speaking of 6 weeks of social media content... I wanted to give some shoutouts for all the people that have helped me along the way because I certainly did not do all of this myself.

It takes a village

  • ​Anna Nassery​ – Agency coach + helped me decide on the name. If you have an agency I highly recommend Anna's mastermind.

  • ​Lumina​ – Brand kit & custom color palette

  • ​Frame Agency​ – Social launch templates & grid plan

  • ​Keeping Up Social​ – Launch content creation (LinkedIn & Instagram)

  • ​Cheyenne Buttrey​ – Website copy edits

  • Affinity Team – We have worked together to refine our processes and serve our clients and I'm so grateful for my community managers, researchers & product strategists supporting us.

  • My Husband – Justin is running our agency operations and has built out a CRM and lead pipeline that I'm obsessed with.

I designed and built the website myself... and we have some more content coming to the site soon... including some digital products! I'll share more about that in a future issue.


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#84 Should You Build A Program, Course, Mastermind, or Membership?

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#82 Quit Thinking & Just Launch