7 Ways to "Spring Clean" & Organize Your Agency This Year

Mar 20, 2023

Every digital agency owner needs to spring clean their business each year, whether you take action the first day of spring or wait until there’s less on your plate. Spring cleaning your business lets you sweep away the metaphorical dust that’s keeping you from firing on all cylinders and organize your agency to set yourself up for success. It’s time to toss out what’s not working and eliminate tiny everyday hiccups so you can hit your goals this year!

7 Ways to Organize Your Agency and Spring Clean Your Business

Spring cleaning your agency doesn’t mean clearing out your desk and calling it a day (though you should definitely do that!). It’s a dedicated time to dig into the nitty-gritty of your business and do a mid-year refresh — reevaluating your newest processes and making changes now helps you prevent major issues down the road. Here are seven powerful spring cleaning strategies to organize your agency and keep yourself on the path to success.

#1: Revisit Your 2023 Goals

Checking in with yourself and doing a status update on your 2023 goals is the best place to start when doing an agency refresh. Knowing where you’re on track and where you’re lagging a bit behind will help you make more informed decisions going forward. You should cover all of your goals when you do this, from personal to professional to ones you’ve set with clients.

Don’t worry about whether or not you’ve made huge steps forward! It’s only the first quarter of the year and you have a lot of time to get to where you want to be. The main goal is to see how you’re tracking, organize your agency to make any necessary changes, and put yourself on a strong path toward success.

#2: Review and Update Your Client Contracts

When was the last time you went through your client contracts with a fine-toothed comb? Probably when you wrote them, right? Well, spring cleaning your agency is the perfect time to do it again! It might not be what you had in mind when you wanted to organize your agency, but it’s a vital part of setting yourself up for success — we have a template in The Agency Accelerator if you’re not sure where to start.

Set aside a few hours to carefully read through your client contracts and mark anything you’d like to update. Partnerships change, retainers change, and sometimes what seemed necessary when your client joined your agency just isn’t relevant anymore. It’s always important to have updated client contracts on hand, but it’s extra crucial when you’re settling issues, reworking your retainer terms, or transitioning a client out of your agency.

#3: Dig Into Your Finances

Math and numbers might not be your forte as a creative, but as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to dig into your finances at least once a year outside of setting your annual goals. When you organize your agency, you’ve got to organize your finances, too. You’ll understand how your business is tracking beyond your revenue milestones and will get a better sense of where you’ll land at the end of the year.

Beyond reviewing your taxes and income from client fees, freelance work, or other products and services, you need to review your expenses (especially recurring ones). Go through your business’ regular expenses and see if there’s anything you could cut out: think memberships to media databases you never use or old subscriptions to software you dropped after you started outsourcing. This frees up revenue to invest elsewhere and frees up brain space to let you focus on your zone of genius instead of that useless subscription you just got charged for (again).

#4: Refresh Your Client Welcome Kit

Having a thorough client onboarding process is a key part of setting a new partnership up for success, so you need to make sure your onboarding materials are up to date. Go through your entire welcome kit to ensure all information is accurate and you’re putting your best foot forward with your new clients. If you’ve done a brand refresh recently, this is a great time to make sure all your brand changes are carried over to your welcome kit.

To properly organize your agency, you should also revamp your business’s capabilities deck, whether you share that with clients during the proposal stage or once they’ve joined your agency. Double-check all of your statistics and add new wins that you’ve scored since your last major update.

#5: Update Your Website (and Get New Headshots!)

Your website is one of the first glimpses prospective clients get of you — a killer first impression is key! Click through every page of your site to ensure all links connect to the right pages and any embedded media is working properly. If you run into major issues or want to add new features, consider working with a freelance web designer to complete the job. Make sure you rewrite out-of-date copy on your About page or Case Studies page, too.

If your site is plastered with old pictures of you, new headshots are probably past due! It doesn’t have to be a massive Vogue-level production — just a handful of professional shots that still show your personality will do. You can organize your agency and refresh your brand in style!

#6: Organize Your Agency with a Media List Audit

Journalists and editors are always jumping to new publications, going freelance, or pivoting careers entirely. There’s a good chance your media list is a bit out of date! As you organize your agency, do a media list audit to update incorrect contact, publication, and beat information and remove journalists who aren’t in the industry anymore. Be sure to add any new contacts you’ve made since your last update.

This will likely be a more in-depth job if you’ve taken on clients in a new niche or have shifted industries recently. Make sure you have a pretty even spread of journalists across your niches and national and regional publications — we have a killer media contacts database inside The Pitch Lab with contact info for top editors in tons of niches to help you get started! Don’t forget to include less traditional media contacts in your list, like podcasters or newsletter writers.

#7: Invest in Yourself

Taking the time to spring clean and organize your agency is a great way to invest in your business, but you need to invest in yourself, too! You deserve to prioritize your education and constantly improve your skills. This could coincide with one of your 2023 goals, like adding a new service to your agency or improving your abilities in a particular area, but focusing on your PR education is always important.

Consider joining a new membership program or committing to regular trainings on new topics to expand your PR knowledge. The Pitch Lab is an amazing resource for PR pros who want to uplevel their pitching skills and land bigger & better features for their clients. Digital agency owners who want to scale their businesses and grow their skills as visionary leaders should join The Agency Accelerator.

Spring cleaning your agency might not look like spring cleaning your home, but it’s a vital part of staying on track to reach your annual goals! Take this chance to organize your agency and set yourself, your team, and your clients up for success on every level. These seven strategies will help you clear away what’s not working to make way for major results!