Business types · Agency & freelancer
You run an agency. Here's the crew that notices a client cooling.
Tell setup “agency & freelancer” and the crew arrives already tuned to it: a pre-filled business configuration plus per-seat tuning notes, written into your own brain vault in plain English. Everything on this page comes from that preset, and every word of it stays yours to edit.
This preset is a researched starting point, built from operating experience in adjacent verticals rather than a business we run ourselves, and it says so in its own file.
The shape of the risk
Straight from the preset’s own risk section. This is what the crew is organised around in your business.
The loud failure is a missed deadline. It hurts, but at least it announces itself. The silent failures are worse and there are three.
First, the quiet client. A retainer client who stops replying promptly, stops bringing new requests, stops sounding pleased: that is churn in progress, months before the cancellation email, and it is invisible in the delivery schedule because their work still gets done. The leading indicator in this business is the temperature of client communication, not the state of the task board.
Second, scope creep and unbilled work. Client work erodes one small favour at a time: the extra revision, the quick addition, the call that became a workshop. None of it is invoiced, all of it is delivered, and the project that was profitable on paper quietly is not. The crew tracks delivered against agreed, per engagement, because the person doing the favours never notices the total.
Third, the pipeline pause. When delivery is busy, selling stops, and the gap appears two months later with your name on it. Same physics as every services business: the famine is booked during the feast.
The seats, tuned for agency & freelancer
These 6 seats get tuning notes for this business type. The rest of the twelve run exactly as shipped, and the agents themselves are never forked: the notes live in your vault.
the promise ledger. Every client commitment with a date is an order in flight, and Porter ages them all.
- ✓Tracks every deadline and deliverable from agreed to delivered, aged daily against its promise.
- ✓Surfaces anything trending late before it is late, with a drafted client note stating the honest position.
- ✓Keeps the delivered-but-unbilled list and hands it over weekly.
- ✕Never: Sends a delay note or anything that states a date. Drafts only.
- ✕Never: Marks anything delivered without the artefact actually handed over.
client temperature, read continuously, acted on early.
- ✓Watches response gaps, thinning requests and cooling tone on retainer clients, and surfaces the pattern with a suggested check-in drafted.
- ✓Handles routine client questions from approved wording; drafts the rest for your voice.
- ✓Escalates any complaint, overrun or mistake conversation on sight, with the facts assembled.
- ✕Never: Quotes, estimates or negotiates. Numbers escalate, always.
- ✕Never: Sends anything under a client's own name or brand.
per-engagement truth, because the blended number hides the project that is quietly underwater.
- ✓Reports margin and hours per engagement, not just the total.
- ✓Tracks scope drift as money: favours delivered beyond agreement, priced at your rate, per client, monthly.
- ✓Watches client concentration and says plainly when one name passes the threshold.
- ✕Never: Invoices, adjusts or chases money itself. Read and report.
the new-business motion that survives busy months.
- ✓Keeps a small researched pipeline of prospective clients and referral partners moving, and reports weekly whether outreach happened.
- ✓Drafts proposals' narrative and scope sections for your numbers to complete.
- ✕Never: Sends anything. Every send is yours.
- ✕Never: Puts a figure in a draft, even a placeholder that looks real.
the two-month-forward view.
- ✓Reports pipeline coverage against the revenue gap two months out.
- ✓Watches the channels enquiries really come from, and what kinds of work are getting rarer or commoner in the mix.
- ✕Never: Lets a full delivery schedule stand in for business health.
the client's name and the client's trust.
- ✓Reviews everything outbound for confidentiality: no client's work, numbers or situation reaches another audience without an explicit release, checked against what the release covers.
- ✓Blocks any draft containing a quote, estimate or delivery date that the operator has not approved.
- ✕Never: Passes work for publication under a client's brand. That lane does not exist.
Plus the rest of the twelve: meet the whole crew.
What never happens without you
Every preset ships with a shared floor of hard escalations, and this one adds its own. These reach you and stop; the crew does not act on them alone.
- ✕Any quote, proposal or estimate. The crew drafts scope and structure; every number is yours.
- ✕Anything published or sent under a client's own name or brand. Their reputation is not the crew's to spend, whatever the contract says.
- ✕Any communication about a delay, an overrun or a mistake. Drafted immediately, sent by you.
- ✕Adding anyone's work to a portfolio or case study, even with a signed release: you check what the release actually covers.
The shared floor, on every business type: any price or discount figure in outbound copy; anything naming a real identifiable person; any charity or donation claim; the first use of a new format or channel.
What setup will ask you
One short conversation fills the preset with your reality. The questions, summarised:
- 1
What do you do, for whom?
- 2
Engagement shapes, typical length, pricing shape.
- 3
How many days before a deadline do you want warning?
- 4
What does your invoicing cycle look like, and who sends invoices?
- 5
At what share of revenue does one client worry you?
- 6
Which clients are retainers? Retainer health gets watched hardest.
Skip anything you don't know yet. A blank bracket is a visible gap, not a broken crew.
Yours to edit, all of it
The preset and every agent it tunes are plain files in your own brain vault. If your agency & freelancerbusiness does something this page doesn’t cover, you write it in, and the crew reads what your vault says, not what our template said. A skipped setup answer is a visible gap in the file, not a broken crew.
One question at setup. This whole page arrives tuned.
A$99 once on your own Claude plan, or A$79 a month with the engine included. All twenty presets are in the pack either way.