The Digital Agency Growth Podcast

Robert Patin has spent the better part of two decades inside agency finance — helping one firm grow from $1.2M to eight figures in 24 months, then taking those lessons to his consultancy, Creative Agency Success. His lens is analytical and unusually direct: most agencies have a pricing problem, and it's not the one they think it is.

In this episode, Robert breaks down why under-pricing rarely solves the objections it's meant to, how AI is quietly reshaping the conversation between agencies and enterprise clients, and what it actually means to use AI well in biz dev versus just delegating your thinking to a chatbot. He also gets into where agencies have a real window to build defensible value right now — and how long that window might be open.

What We Cover:

• The most common pricing mistakes Robert sees — and why under-pricing doesn't actually solve price objections
• Why the sale is almost always lost before the price is even mentioned
• What to ask when a prospect says "it's too expensive"
• How AI is starting to create pricing pressure — and why enterprise clients will feel it first
• The agencies winning with AI in biz dev versus the ones just delegating their thinking
• Using intent signals to reach fewer, better-fit prospects instead of blasting campaigns
• What to automate versus what to keep human in your sales process
• Distilling your expertise into if-then logic that AI can actually use
• Why data is the most valuable asset agencies are sitting on right now
• The race between software companies becoming agencies and agencies becoming software companies
• Where agencies have defensible ground over the next few years — and where they don't

Robert put together a free resource page specifically for Digital Agency Growth listeners — white paper, a free copy of his book, and a link to chat with him directly about your agency.

Go here: creativeagencysuccess.com/digitalagencygrowth

Most agency owners treat legal as a tax — a slow, expensive speed bump between the handshake and the kickoff. Sharon Toerek thinks that's exactly backwards.

Sharon is a marketing and intellectual property attorney who has spent over a decade working exclusively with independent agencies through her firm Torek Law, which operates in the agency world as Legal + Creative. In this episode, she breaks down how agencies leave real money on the table by treating contracts as admin rather than leverage — and what to do instead.

We get into payment terms buried in enterprise agreements that silently stretch 60 days into 90, exclusivity clauses that punish agencies for the specialization clients hired them for, and the IP transfer timing that gives agencies more power than they realize. Sharon also makes the case for why having your own MSA matters even when the big brands will never sign it — and why deals almost never blow up when agencies push back at the contract stage.

What We Cover:

• Why legal should be a money-generating function, not a cost drag
• The payment term language in enterprise contracts that quietly kills cash flow
• How to negotiate exclusivity without giving away more than you need to
• Why you'll never have more leverage than you do right now, at the contract stage
• The IP transfer timing that can become serious financial leverage when a client goes sideways
• Building your own MSA toolkit — and why it matters even when you'll never use it
• Who should be in the room during contract negotiations (and what the lawyer's actual job is)
• How AI is changing the ownership question in agency-client and agency-freelancer agreements
• Turning proprietary frameworks, methodologies, and systems into licensable, sellable IP
• Why deals almost never fall apart when you push back — and what it signals when they do

🎯 Referrals already work for your agency but you've never optimized them...

Get our free 30-minute video crash course - learn how to turn referrals from reactive and random to proactive and systematic.  

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Most agencies lose pitches before they walk in the room. Here's why — and what to do about it.

Grant Gooding, founder of Proof Positioning, has helped agencies win high-stakes pitches using neuroscience, decision physiology, and a research process built on an FBI interrogation technique. The insights are counterintuitive and the results speak for themselves.

In this episode:

-Why 70% of agency pitches fail (and it's not your creative)
-The neuroscience behind why logic-only pitches can't be processed
-The RFP trap — and how box-checking makes you invisible
-How to de-risk a pitch for a multi-stakeholder buying group
-The FBI elicitation method that gets to the truth without asking questions
What "pre-work" looks like — and why it gives agencies an unfair advantage
Why "build me a website" almost always masks a bigger business problem
Grant's 3-step formula for winning the pitches that matter most
The threat to agencies from AI + holding company acquisitions — and how to fight back

Find Grant: proofpositioning.com

🎯 Referrals already work for your agency, but you've never optimized them. 

Get our 30-minute video crash course on how to turn referrals from reactive and random to proactive and systematic: 
https://go.salesschema.com/opt-in-mw-referral-engine/?utm_source=podcast_dag
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Buying patterns have changed - fast. If you're still pitching the same offers the same way you were two years ago, you're probably hearing "let's talk in three months" a lot. 

Mandi Ellefson returns to the show to break down what's actually happening out there, and what agencies and service firms can do about it.

A few things we got into:

• Why clients are freezing, shrinking scope, and pushing timelines — and what's really behind it
• The four-level service pyramid (staff augmentation → high-quality provider → proven ROI → growth partner) and where 80% of the market is stuck generating 20% of the profits
• The "Power of One" formula: one client, one painful problem, one transformation — and why offers built around it command dramatically higher fees
• Why hiring a salesperson before your go-to-market system is built usually makes things worse, not better
• The blind spot most agency owners have when they think "I just need more sales"
• How a sales admin can own 70–80% of the referral and partnership process so the owner only shows up for the conversations
• A real example of an agency that niched into elder care, went from five-figure to seven-figure engagements, and is on a path to $10M

Resources mentioned:

Mandi's upcoming training on the Hands-Off Growth Operating System: handsoffceo.com/briefing

🎯 Referrals already work for your agency, but you've never optimized them. 

Go here to get our 30-minute video crash course on how to turn referrals from reactive and random to proactive and systematic: https://go.salesschema.com/opt-in-mw-referral-engine/?utm_source=podcast_dag

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Adam Yaeger built Llama Lead Gen from solo freelancer to 17-person embedded growth agency over eight years. In this episode, he breaks down what actually drove that growth — and what didn't.

We get into why he put branding on the back burner early (and why that was the right call), the hiring mistake that cost him a client relationship, and why soft skills matter more in the age of AI, not less. On the biz dev side, Adam shares what's worked for Llama Lead Gen — SEO, Clutch, referrals — and why cold outreach mostly didn't. Plus a few partnership stories, including what happens when white labeling goes sideways.

We also dig into GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and why Reddit has quietly become one of the more interesting paid channels for B2B.
What we cover:

-Growing from solo to 17 people over eight years
-Why branding can wait — and when it can't
-How Llama Lead Gen gets new business: SEO, Clutch, and referrals
-Partnership wins and one memorable miss
-Balancing client delivery with sales when you're the only BD
-Managing seasonality: when to push, when to pull back 

Resources Mentioned

Llama Lead Gen: https://www.llamaleadgen.com/
— Marketing budgeting and PPC calculators available on the site

Lead Gen in the Wild Podcast: Available on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you listen 

Learn the small shift that makes referrals repeatable. Check out our new video training: https://hey.salesschema.com/opt-in-mw-referral-engine?utm_source=podcast

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Most agencies treat the RFP as the cost of doing business. Chris Rose has built a career out of sidestepping them entirely — landing clients like Hilton, Planet Fitness, and NBC Universal along the way.

Chris serves as Executive Director of Growth at Cylinder Studios, a design and production studio within the Cheil Agency Network. Before that, he led new business at Movers and Shakers. We got into why RFPs are almost always poorly written, how to bypass procurement with preferred vendor status, what's changing with AI and pricing, and why the best pitch teams are smaller than you'd think.

What You'll Leave With:
- Diagnose before you pitch — co-write the brief with the client
- Become a preferred vendor to bypass procurement
- Smaller pitch teams win more
- Production is the new strategy
- Stay close to the work after you win it

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-rose22/
Cylinder Studios: https://www.cylinderstudios.com/

Learn the small shift that makes referrals repeatable. Check out our new video training: https://hey.salesschema.com/opt-in-mw-referral-engine?utm_source=podcast

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Most agency owners assume nobody can sell as well as they can. Lori Cox built an agency, sold it, and then took a BizDev leadership role — and says she's actually sharper at sales now that she's not running the whole show.

Lori brings 20+ years of B2B marketing and revenue experience. She built and sold a full-service healthcare-focused agency, then moved into VP of BizDev at Knack Collective, where she works with global tech companies on partner-led go-to-market strategies. We got into the systems that made her agency sellable, why most partnership pitches go nowhere, and how the inbound/outbound mix has shifted heading into 2026.

What You'll Leave With:

• Systems before salespeople
• Partnerships require intention and attention
• Diversify your pipeline, not just your client base
• Non-owners can be better salespeople
• AI is changing the job, not replacing it

Connect with Lori on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-cox-mba/

Knack Collective: https://knackcollective.com/

Learn the small shift that makes referrals repeatable. 

Check out our new video training. 

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What happens when years of planting seeds finally meets the right market moment?

Alexis Trammel is Chief Growth Officer at Stratabeat, a B2B SaaS organic growth agency. She recently transitioned from account management into a biz dev role.  But the real story is how timing and preparation collided. For years, Stratabeat was doing the unglamorous work: niching down, building LinkedIn presence, publishing original research, speaking at conferences, nurturing relationships. Then GEO (generative engine optimization) hit right as AI anxiety peaked, and suddenly the leads started flooding in. This conversation explores what it looks like when the groundwork you've been laying finally pays off, and why most agencies aren't ready when their moment arrives.

What You'll Leave With:

• Why lead flow needs to exist before you hire a salesperson—not the other way around
• How years of niching down positioned them to catch the GEO wave
• The compounding value of original research, LinkedIn presence, and conference visibility
• Why internal sales hires often outperform external ones when the foundation is there
• How to keep planting seeds even when you're not sure which one will sprout
• The seasonality reality and why "when it rains, it pours" cuts both ways

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Introduction to Alexis Trammel and Stratabeat
• [02:36] The long road of niching down and eliminating services
• [03:19] When AI panic created unexpected demand for GEO
• [05:16] Original research as a lead gen and credibility play
• [07:46] Coming back from maternity leave to a sales opportunity
• [10:00] Why the lead flow has to come before the sales hire
• [11:47] Wearing both the sales and marketing hats
• [14:10] Planning for seasonality when you're riding a wave
• [16:41] LinkedIn as long-term brand building, not cold outreach
• [22:04] GEO converting better than almost everything except referrals
• [30:12] The relationship groundwork that makes referrals possible

Mentioned Resources / Links:

• Stratabeat - B2B SaaS organic growth agency
• Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
• Alexis Trammell on LinkedIn
• Tom Shapiro on LinkedIn

When clients start asking "What am I paying you for?", most assume they have a pricing problem on their hands when they're actually facing an operations problem. 

Leah Leaves is the founder and CEO of Alderaan Operations, where she embeds operations directors and part-time digital project managers directly into remote agencies.  In this conversation, she reveals what's happening when clients question an agency's value - asking for more deliverables, questioning reports, or wondering why they can't just use cheap tools themselves. 

A few things we covered: 

• Why the same operational bottlenecks agencies have always had are now happening at 10x-100x speed
• The exact question clients are asking agencies right now (and how the best agencies are answering it)
• How agencies are reinvesting time saved by AI into client experience, productized tools, and advisory services
• The "bionic org chart" framework for documenting what AI owns versus what humans own
• A practical system for turning meeting transcripts into searchable client context that actually gets used
• Why hiring people who want to stay static in their role is a feature, not a bug
• The shift from deliverables-based positioning to strategic marketing partner (and why AI makes this more urgent)

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Introduction: Leah Leaves and the state of agency operations
• [01:26] Same issues, 10x-100x speed: What's really changing with AI
• [03:37] The question clients are asking: "What am I paying you for?"
• [06:38] How agencies are answering the value question differently
• [11:15] Moving from execution to advisory: Selling thinking, not deliverables
• [15:30] The art of productive client meetings (and why most fail)
• [20:45] Hiring strategy: Finding people who want to grow vs. stay static
• [29:47] The bionic org chart: Documenting AI's role on your team
• [32:17] Practical AI implementation: Turning meeting notes into searchable knowledge
• [34:20] Ideas that wouldn't exist without reduced latency
• [35:29] Where to find Leah and learn more about operation

Alderaan Operations - Leah's company embedding ops directors in agencies

Leah Leaves on LinkedIn - Connect with Leah

Looking to build a repeatable, referral-focus biz dev system inside of your agency?

Check out our new video training: https://hey.salesschema.com/opt-in-mw-referral-engine

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What if successful agency business development isn't about having the perfect system, but about showing up consistently in the right conversations?

John Caruso is the Director of Business Development at Vendilli, where he's spent the last six years navigating the messy reality of agency growth. With a decade of BD experience spanning traditional and digital agencies, John has learned that there's no magic formula, just consistent effort in the right places. In this conversation, he shares the unglamorous truth about what BD actually looks like day-to-day, why agency owners set their BD hires up to fail by expecting results too quickly, and how he learned the craft by sitting in dozens upon dozens of sales meetings with his team. 

What You'll Leave With:

• The realistic timeline for a BD hire to become truly effective at an agency
• How to structure your day when client needs constantly derail your plans
• Why sitting in sales meetings with experienced agency owners builds BD skills faster than any course
• The "shortlist" dynamic that determines whether prospects even consider your agency
• How to think about the division between marketing and sales activities
• What systems need to exist before bringing on a dedicated BD person
• An education-first approach to staying top of mind without being pushy

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Introduction: John's journey from traditional to digital agency BD
• [02:30] The reality of a day in the life of agency business development
• [05:40] What activities consistently drive revenue for agencies
• [10:30] Why getting on prospect "shortlists" matters more than perfect positioning
• [15:45] Moving beyond transactional referral requests
• [20:15] How the BD landscape has shifted over the past decade
• [28:34] What needs to be in place before hiring a BD person
• [29:04] The learning curve: why it takes 6-9 months minimum to see results
• [31:10] How Vendilli divides marketing and sales responsibilities
• [33:25] Where to learn more about John and Vendilli

Vendelli: https://www.vendilli.com/ 

John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncaruso-vendilli/