From breaking even to a more valuable agency.
Blue Collar Marketing serves contractors across North America. The agency was growing, but its overhead kept it at breakeven. We helped the founders make the team leaner, rebuild how it delivers and sells, and open an enterprise channel. Today it's extremely profitable and worth more than when we started.
The challenge
On paper, Blue Collar Marketing was doing well: an established agency with a large contractor client base. Underneath, the business was carrying too much. Some months it only broke even. Then it lost money in what should have been its busiest sales month of the year.
The founders thought more sales would fix it. The real problem was how the agency was run. Costs were high, roles overlapped, and much of the revenue came from project work that varied month to month. Sales conversion was inconsistent. Big website projects ran far past their timelines. The agency also wanted to win enterprise clients but had no system to do it.
They knew a restructure was needed, but they'd never been through one. They had 6 to 12 months of runway.
What we did
Made the team leaner
We built a 30-60-90 day restructuring plan tied to quarterly goals (OKRs). The team went fully remote and gave up the office. Roles were consolidated, project management went from three seats to two, and some work moved to lower-cost offshore talent, with no hit to delivery.
Rebuilt project management
Clients were grouped into pods, each with a dedicated project manager. Weekly process-improvement calls and a move to ClickUp brought operations into one system. Project manager bonuses now reward retention and upsells, not just finished tasks.
Fixed delivery
Paid discovery comes first, and clients sign off on design before development starts. Formal QA and clearer handoffs followed, plus budget guardrails for project management, QA and build time. A templated website tier now serves smaller clients profitably.
Rebuilt sales
The pitch now focuses on outcomes and positions the agency as a growth partner, with a new sales deck, case studies and refined call scripts. Quarterly check-in calls with clients created a dependable upsell motion. Faster payment links shortened the time to get paid.
Rebuilt lead generation
The agency now has in-house sales development reps with structured onboarding and training. Leads are segmented by client revenue and marketing spend, and lead generation relies less on paid ads.
Opened the enterprise channel
With the base fixed, we helped define the ideal enterprise customer and package a staged offer: Discovery, Production, Reach. It's built around recruiting and workforce marketing for large construction companies, with private decision-maker dinners, events and partnerships.
The results
Growth from March to November 2026
Response rate on AI-assisted enterprise outreach
- Profitability: from breaking even, with a loss in its busiest month, to "extremely profitable" in the founder's words
- Valuation: the agency is now worth more than when we started
- Runway: from 6 to 12 months before trouble, to building a cash reserve
- Operations: all four core parts of the business rebuilt: project management, delivery, sales and lead generation
- Pipeline: sales calls are booking faster than the team can take them
- What's next: now going after enterprise-level deals
"All four core parts of our business have been completely revamped."
Wes, Co-founder, Blue Collar Marketing
"It's never been a discussion of are we going to continue this or not. It's like they're a part of our team."
Wes, Co-founder, Blue Collar Marketing
Growing, but not keeping any of it?
More sales won't fix an agency with too much overhead. Let's find what's holding your margins back and rebuild it.
Book a strategy call →