The Agency Mindset for Solo Creators
How to run your creative business like a team - even when it’s just you.
When I first started Momentous, I wasn’t running an agency.
I was just a guy with a camera, some lights, and a Google Drive folder named “Clients.”
Every day was reactionary.
Answering emails. Making revisions. Quoting projects on the fly.
I wasn’t building a business - I was surviving a freelance lifestyle dressed up in business cards.
The turning point came when I realized the people who looked like they had massive teams often didn’t.
They just operated with an agency mindset - systems, structure, and delegation, even when the “team” was one person with a laptop and too much caffeine.
🧱 1. Build Departments, Not To-Do Lists
Most freelancers live in one giant, messy list of tasks.
Agencies separate those tasks into departments - creative, operations, marketing, sales, finance.
Even if it’s just you, you can think this way:
Monday: You’re the Creative Director - ideating, writing, shooting.
Tuesday: You’re Sales - reaching out to leads and pitching new clients.
Wednesday: You’re Finance - invoicing, tracking expenses, analyzing revenue.
Thursday: You’re Marketing - building your own brand presence.
Friday: You’re Operations - fixing systems, automating workflows, refining processes.
The difference?
You start running your week like a business, not a burnout cycle.
⚙️ 2. Systemize Your Genius
Agencies don’t rely on memory - they rely on systems.
When something works, they document it.
That could mean:
A Notion template for onboarding new clients.
A checklist for shoot prep.
An email sequence for following up on proposals.
Your brain should never be a single point of failure.
The moment you can repeat a result, it deserves a system.
💡 3. Create Distance Between You and the Work
The biggest mistake most solo creators make?
They make themselves the product.
You are part of what you sell - but if everything depends on you showing up, you can’t scale.
Start creating intellectual distance between you and your deliverables:
Package your process.
Productize your creative expertise.
License or templatize your solutions.
Agencies grow because they sell systems, not personalities.
🤝 4. Get a Second Set of Eyes
Working in a vacuum can quietly kill momentum.
When you’re inside your own business every day, you lose perspective - you start second-guessing direction, priorities, and next steps.
That’s why I decided to bring on a mentor for Momentous - someone outside the day-to-day to challenge assumptions, give honest feedback, and keep me from drowning in my own ideas.
It was a game changer.
You don’t need a full-time business coach or consultant.
Just a trusted advisor - someone experienced enough to spot your blind spots.
Even the best creative minds need editors.
🚀 5. Market Like You’re Big - Operate Like You’re Small
The best small creative businesses project authority while staying nimble.
That means:
Speak with clarity.
Show process, not perfection.
Create brand consistency across your site, socials, and content.
You don’t need to pretend to be a 20-person agency - you just need to look like you’ve done this before.
Confidence compounds faster than headcount.
🧭 Final Takeaway
Running a creative business alone is hard - but running it like an agency makes it sustainable.
Systems create freedom.
Structure creates scalability.
Mentorship creates clarity.
And the agency mindset?
That’s how you stop being a freelancer with clients and start being a creative brand with leverage.
🛠 Tool Spotlight: UseQueue - Automate the Mundane, Focus on the Magic
If you’re managing client content or your own marketing calendar, UseQueue can be a silent lifesaver.
It what I’ve used to create my own branded client dashboard. And, it lets you schedule, plan, and approve content across platforms with an interface designed for creative workflows - not corporate ones.
It’s the perfect “solo agency” tool: lightweight, visual, and built to keep you out of your inbox and in your creative flow.
Stay structured, stay creative,
Alex