How I sold My Service-Based Marketing Agency In 2024

I sold my service-based marketing agency in February 2024, and in this post, I’ll show you how I turned my service-based agency into a sellable asset, how I found buyers, and how I eventually exited the business—all within six months.

If you know anything about running an SMMA (Social Media Marketing Agency), you know it can be notoriously difficult to sell. There’s no software or intellectual property to offer; essentially, you’re selling your paying customer list, your systems and procedures, and the fulfillment team that goes along with it.

I broke this process up into three key steps:

1?? Systemizing

This is where I began: turning my agency into a sellable asset by standardizing everything. Systemizing means creating a consistent way of doing things that doesn’t waver from one client to the next. This includes onboarding, reporting, communication, and fulfillment—each task should be the same across the board, no matter the client or project.

All that information needs to be organized in a place that anyone on your team can access or reference easily. A good project management tool is crucial here. Personally, I built our entire business inside Notion, which made it infinitely easier to manage and eventually sell. Then, I added automations that worked with Notion to handle some of the more tedious tasks, freeing up valuable time and reducing errors.

For instance, anytime a client completed an onboarding form in Google Forms, it would automatically add all of that information into individual fields inside the client’s CRM. Similarly, when a customer made a payment in Stripe, it would trigger an action item inside our workload, assigning it to the appropriate team member, setting priorities, and assigning due dates.

We also stored internal documents inside Notion—everything from video SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), tech stack login information, referral partner details, time-off requests, and our organizational chart. This level of organization honestly made it so much easier to scale and, eventually, sell the agency.

Even simple things like employee onboarding were automated: we’d assign new team members various SOP videos, so they’d know exactly how we fulfilled client services right from the start. Or for client onboarding, integrating with the CRM meant that all details were added to the customer’s profile immediately.

This kind of organization is exactly what potential buyers look for. It provides them with a clear vision of how the business is managed inside a single dashboard. And Notion is popular—it integrates with other platforms like Monday .com and ClickUp, so it’s likely one of the best options to manage and grow your agency. (By the way, I turned my company’s Notion board into a template, which is available for sale in the link below if you’re interested!)

2?? Listing

Once everything was systemized and automated as much as possible, it was time to prepare the company for sale. There are dozens of components involved in creating a good listing—each one probably deserves its own post—but I’ll focus on the four things that had the biggest impact for me: useful software, price determination, a unique selling proposition, and client contract negotiation.

• Useful Software: I recommend using Acquire .com, which has a massive directory of agencies filtered by price, profit, MRR (monthly recurring revenue), and more. It’s a great place to list your company for sale. Another tool I used was SaaSync, which integrates with QuickBooks and Stripe to verify your financials. It provides potential buyers with a clear picture of your financial activity over months or years, making it easier for them to trust your numbers. Similarly, ChartMogul offers the same kind of financial transparency.
• Price Determination: When selling an agency, there are two common ways to price it: either a multiple of revenue or a multiple of profit. For revenue, it’s typical to get between 1.2X to 2X your last 12 months’ revenue. So, if you made $500,000 in the past year, your asking price would realistically be between $600,000 and $1,100,000. A multiple of profit offers a wider range—between 4 to 10 times last year’s profit—but there’s a big variable: the owner’s draw. Since agencies are cash-flow businesses, owners often take a lot out of the company, making the profit margin look lower. For instance, my profit margin appeared to be 30% in QuickBooks, but when you remove my draw and bonuses, it was closer to 70%. In most cases, listing based on revenue is more effective.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): Clearly communicating your agency’s USP is crucial. There are many agencies for sale, so it’s important to highlight the type of customers you work with. When a potential buyer evaluates your business, they’ll consider how easily they can attract your target customers and how well your client base and delivery methods align with their own. Clearly communicating your customer avatar, acquisition method, retention strategy, and the tools you use to manage operations (like your project management tool) helps potential buyers see the value of your business and sets you apart from others.
• Negotiating Client Contracts: Securing long-term contracts with existing clients is a great way to increase your agency’s value. For example, if your annual churn is 16%, that means the average customer stays for 10 months, and at $5,000/month, their contract value is $50,000 over 10 months. If you can secure a 12-month contract, that value rises to $60,000—boosting your asking price by $10,000 times the revenue multiple you’re using. Getting clients to sign 12-month contracts may not always be easy, but even securing quarterly contracts shows potential buyers that customers have confidence in your services and are less likely to churn than month-to-month clients.

3?? Closing

The final step is closing the deal, and this typically starts with fielding calls from potential buyers. Keep in mind that you’ll likely need to work with this person for several months during the transition, so ensuring that your personalities align is critical. If you don’t get a good feeling about the buyer, your clients probably won’t either.

On these calls, I was fully transparent, showing potential buyers my Notion system, QuickBooks, and Stripe accounts. They could see exactly how the company was run and how all the financials flowed.

Remember, this isn’t a one-sided conversation. You should be asking them questions too—about their ideal client, how they find customers, and their retention metrics. You want to ensure your clients are transitioning to the right agency.

Once you’ve had a few successful calls, you might be asked to sign an LOI (Letter of Intent), which is a great step forward. However, signing an LOI means you can’t field other offers during its term, so make sure the expiry date is no more than two weeks. That way, if the deal falls through, you can move on to other prospects.

There’s much more to selling an agency than meets the eye. It’s about preparing your business, communicating value, and negotiating effectively. If you'd like more insights, I’m sharing the entire process of scaling & selling my agency in my Skool community. I’ve also linked my internal Notion template if you're interested in replicating the system that helped me succeed!

Join me in Skool: https://www.skool.com/agency-to-saas-3091/about

Download my Notion template: https://agencynotiontemplate.com/