How to Focus on Offering Services You Love to Deliver with Luke Trewin of Modern Visual
Key Takeaways
- Staying in the 'yes-man' phase too long damages profitability - evaluate which services actually generate strong margins before expanding
- Strategic specialization attracts premium partnerships and positions your agency as an authority rather than a generalist
- Data-driven decisions about service offerings produce better results than client-driven expansion into areas outside your expertise
Gray MacKenzie interviews Luke Trewin, Managing Director at Modern Visual, about the journey from side-hustle web agency to specialized platform consulting firm - and why cutting services was more valuable than adding them.
From Factory Floor to Agency Founder
Modern Visual started as a side project while Luke worked in factory printing operations. What began as freelance web design grew into a full agency, following a path familiar to many agency founders. The transition from side hustle to full-time business happened gradually as client demand increased and the opportunity cost of keeping his day job became too high.
The Yes-Man Trap
Like many growing agencies, Modern Visual went through a phase of saying yes to everything clients asked for. Email marketing, SEO, content creation - if a client needed it, the team would figure it out. This approach generated revenue in the short term but created serious problems:
- Margins were thin on services the team was not experienced at delivering
- Quality was inconsistent across the expanded menu
- The agency’s positioning became unclear to prospects
- Team members were spread across too many disciplines to develop deep expertise
The turning point came when Luke analyzed profitability by service line. The data clearly showed that web development - the original core offering - was significantly more profitable than the add-on services they had been layering in.
Narrowing to Platform Consulting
Armed with that data, Modern Visual made the strategic decision to narrow its focus. The agency repositioned as “platform consultants” specializing in what happens after traffic reaches a website. Their core work centers on integrating platforms - CMS, CRM, project management, and ticketing systems - to remove friction from the customer experience.
This positioning puts them downstream of traffic-generating agencies (SEO, PPC, content) rather than in competition with them. The result is a natural referral pipeline from agencies who drive traffic but need a partner to handle the conversion and systems integration side.
Becoming a HubSpot CMS Pioneer
The specialization strategy paid off in a significant way when Modern Visual became one of HubSpot’s first Advanced CMS Implementation Partners - and the first in Australia. This partnership validated the market positioning and opened access to a steady stream of HubSpot clients who needed sophisticated CMS work.
Remote Work and Operational Discipline
The shift to remote work forced the team to formalize workflows that had previously been informal. Modern Visual implemented ClickUp for project management, creating documented processes that maintained consistency and quality regardless of where team members were working.
Luke notes that the operational improvements forced by remote work actually made the agency better. The discipline required to collaborate asynchronously exposed inefficiencies that had been hidden when everyone was in the same office.