Welcome to the Agency Health Podcast, where we dig deeper into key agency topics – the what, why, and how – mining actionable insights to help build a better firm.

And what is a healthy agency? A healthy agency is one that creates great value for its clients, people, and owners in a sustainable way.

In this episode Arlen and Piotr kick off a new series on agency new business and talk about why it’s hard, what success actually looks like, and how to replace heroics with a system you can operate consistently.

Key Insights:

• Nailing new business is a core part of agency health. It drives better client fit, pricing power, delivery quality, and more.
• Know your destination. A systematic, sustainable, approach to creating new client relationships. Not too dependent on any one person. Not too dependent on a single tactic or channel.
• Intermittent focus creates feast-or-famine. Even short pauses in new business efforts can create pipeline gaps later.
• Reduce key-person risk. Move from hero-dependent marketing and selling to a system that is easier for anyone to run.
• Pattern-match to improve outcomes. Better new business → increased repetition of work → better strategy, planning, margins, and value per hour.
• Diversify intelligently. Don’t rely on one person or one channel; do a few things exceptionally well.
• Improve your inputs. Appropriate focus, quality, consistency, and quantity of effort are all critical to building a strong new business muscle.
• The market’s shifting fast (global + AI). It’s a challenging time, but it’s also an opportunity for focused, specialized agencies to thrive.

Coming up in this series Arlen will be talking to agency marketing leaders on the front lines, seasoned new business advisors, and growth marketing experts to surface valuable perspective and actionable insight on new business.

Are you facing a challenge with new business in your agency or would you like a sounding board for an aspect of your new business strategy? Book 15 minutes with me to talk about it. I’d be happy to be a thinking partner.

If you have questions or comments about this episode, a topic you’d like covered, or an agency owner or relevant expert we should invite as a guest, we’d like to hear from you! Email [email protected]

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in touch or follow Arlen on LinkedIn.

Thank you for listening!