How Mariya 10x’d her agency’s rates by building a founder brand

Whenever we advise founders to build their personal brand, they’re often hesitant. They say, “I’m too busy to post on LinkedIn” or “What would I even talk about?”

Valid concerns, but with so many agencies and freelancers competing for attention, clients have more choices than ever. One of the best ways to stand out and attract better clients is by marketing yourself and, by extension, your agency. 

Few people know this better than Mariya Delano, founder of Kalyna Marketing, a content agency with clients like Orum and Expandi.io. After being more visible online, she started attracting higher-quality clients and was able to raise her agency’s rates 10x. And it wasn’t a fluke. When she paused her content, inbound leads dried up and only picked back up when she started posting again.

In this article, we share her story: why she started building her brand, how she did it, and what she’s learned along the way. 

It all started with wanting bigger contracts

For the first year of starting Kalyna Marketing, Mariya wasn’t interested in building a public brand. She had just started an agency after freelancing on Upwork for three months, and at that point, she was focused on getting clients. 

Most of her early clients came through Upwork, Twitter, and niche communities like Superpath, where she’d respond to job posts and pitch leads directly. She had no online presence or bylines, just a few followers on LinkedIn and Twitter, but she was freely and audaciously giving. For instance, she was a genuine fan of the audience research tool, SparkToro, and was consistently sharing how she used the tool. She even published a six-part blog series about it. 

“I randomly found SparkToro and thought it was really cool,” she says. “So I kept posting about it because it was fun. I wasn’t trying to get noticed, I was just sharing what I liked.” 

The founder, Rand Fishkin, and head of marketing, Amanda Natividad, started replying to her, and Rand encouraged her to do more writing for herself. 

Around the same time, she noticed that other agency founders were winning lucrative contracts simply because they were well-known, while she spent so much time applying for jobs with little success. She then decided to take her personal branding seriously.

“When I talked to these people, they would tell me how much they got inbound and  it was because people knew about them and would go to them and trusted them already,” Mariya says. “So it just seemed like that was the way to scale client acquisition better because I hated filling out application after application after application, as most went nowhere.”

Once Mariya decided to start marketing herself, she first hired a local journalist to help write a few blog posts for her agency’s website, then she launched her newsletter, and her very first post got an unexpected boost. Rand shared it across his Twitter (to almost 500k followers) and Mastodon, driving thousands of views and over 100 subscribers in just a week. His co-sign boosted her credibility, and industry leaders like John Mueller from Google started interacting with her. 

She kept the momentum her virality brought by being bold, vocal, and active in marketing communities, often asking directly for opportunities.

“I did a small webinar for a community I was in and it went well. So I posted: ‘Hey, I’d love to do more webinars. Anyone know how I can get into this scene?’ Someone replied saying they were organizing a conference, liked my work, and wanted me in.”

That turned out to be SaaSOpen, Nathan Latka’s conference in New York, where she ended up speaking on stage just a few months later.

She also said yes to casual invitations that turned into more exposure. Her first podcast appearances came after she cracked a joke on a call with Jonathan Gandolf from The Juice. He laughed and said, “I need to get you on our podcast, you’re brilliant,” and booked her.

Mariya didn’t just wait to be discovered. She was intentionally visible, vocal, and unapologetically assertive, and it all paid off.

Seeing the results

After months of sharing her knowledge and connecting with people online, clients started reaching out directly. As inbound demand grew, so did her rates and the quality of projects. She began working with clients who respected her expertise and brought her in for strategy work (not just blog writing), and paid at least $15,000 per month.

“The client work started coming in all at once, and with every project, we were able to increase our rates. The projects got better. The clients got better. I even had companies I knew reaching out and begging to work with us,” says Mariya.

How Mariya’s rates changed after branding herself

Why Mariya’s marketing works so well

If you read any of Mariya’s posts, you’ll notice right away that she is honest and often blunt, and that’s exactly what draws people in. She shares controversial takes, admits mistakes, and talks openly about difficult moments she’s faced.

For instance, in one post, she explained why she didn’t get back to contractors for a long time after her agency faced financial problems because she was afraid. It was vulnerable, relatable, and showed accountability—qualities her audience appreciated. In another article for Search Engine Land, she pushed back on a popular piece on The Verge, offering a well-argued rebuttal that many marketers appreciated.

Her newsletter is also candid and personal. She’s written about speaking at her first conference while managing ADHD, how she’s struggling to run her business, and even something not business-related, like how she felt when Matthew Perry of Friends died. 

“It’s just how I talk. As you can tell, this comes naturally. And the more I’ve done it, the more I’ve seen it work. People come in saying they want to work with me because of this,” she says.

Prospects who read her content tend to trust her before they even get on a sales call. They also make better clients.

“They already know how we work. They’re not shocked when I tell them an idea is bad,” Mariya says.

Her approach also means she rarely competes for projects. Most clients reach out wanting to work with her specifically, and they’re often willing to pay a premium.

Lessons from Mariya’s story

• Share what you’re observing or what you’re working on. 
• Give to your network—make connections, comment, assist.
• Keep an ideas backlog and record ideas as they come to mind.
• Build up inbound, then raise prices 10-15% each project until you hear enough “Nos.” 
• Be opinionated and bold. People are drawn to that.
• Block out time to post and engage with your audience. 

Always make time to show up

When things get busy, it’s tempting to deprioritize personal marketing in favor of client work. But that’s a mistake. Whether your pipeline is full or empty, your brand still needs attention.

Mariya paused her marketing because she was busy with other projects. At first, nothing seemed wrong. But months later, inbound leads slowed down. The moment she started showing up again, new leads returned.

The lesson is simple. If you want new leads consistently, don’t pause your momentum. Keep showing up no matter what.