When agency owners talk about growth, the conversation almost always turns to finding new clients.
New business matters, but it’s the least reliable of the three places your future revenue comes from.
In this week’s newsletter, I look at why keeping and growing the clients you already have should get more of your focus.
But first, let’s see the latest from SAGA and what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Latest from SAGA
STOP THE SLOP — AI has evolved so much that some agencies are bragging about one-shotting websites and other deliverables with it. Slow down, folks. If the content is any good (and that’s a big if), a human spent a lot of time laying the groundwork. Hear what Chip and Gini have to say about how Agency owners need to manage AI like employees on the latest Agency Leadership Podcast.
Jen’s Weekly Roundup
Here’s what caught my eye this week:
RESOURCEFUL WHEN HE DOES IT, CHEATING WHEN SHE DOES — Gini Dietrich at Spin Sucks lines up three new studies with an ugly pattern. Women are more likely than men to worry they’ll be seen as cheating for using AI, and guess what? They’re not wrong. The exact same CV from “Emily” instead of “James” got her competence questioned twice as often as his. PR is two-thirds women, and they are adopting AI at roughly 25% less than men.
CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY CHANGE — David C. Baker at Punctuation argues you aren’t built to care equally about every wrong in the world, and trying to do so will just burn you out without moving anything. Concentrate on what you can meaningfully affect and let the rest go.
WHO’S PROTECTING THE FIRM FROM YOU — At 2Bobs, David C. Baker and Blair Enns discuss whether you need an advisory board. With no boss, no shareholders, and no board, what keeps a founder’s bad decisions in check besides employees jumping ship? From the buyer’s side, Rick Gould at Gould + Partners says the thing that kills a small PR firm’s sale value isn’t size, it’s the founder still being the business. If you vanish for a month and the agency suffers, that’s what a buyer sees.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT YOU SAY AND WHAT LANDS — Karen and Michelle at That Solo Life talk with Kaitlin McCready about the throughline across her career, corporate tech, and now her own solo practice: the persistent gap between what an organization says and what its audience actually believes. Shel Holtz and Mark Dollins discuss the internal version of employee engagement on FIR’s On The Same Page. Disengagement is the leading indicator, turnover is the lagging one.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
Keep, grow, win
Ask most agency owners how they plan to grow, and you’ll hear about business development and how to land more new clients.
That makes sense. Winning a new client is exciting and visible, it feels like progress, and it’s where most growth advice is aimed.
But if you rank the sources of next year’s revenue by how likely they are to actually deliver, new business comes in third.
Keep your current clients
Your existing clients are the most reliable revenue you have. They already know and trust you, and they have you in their budget.
That doesn’t make renewal automatic. It just means the odds are in your favor if you’re paying attention to how the relationship is going.
Are you getting them the results that they need? Are the lines of communication strong? Do they feel valued?
It also helps to build relationships across the client’s organization rather than relying on a single contact, so a personnel change doesn’t take the account with it.
And if you can get in-person face time periodically, you should seize the opportunity.
Grow the work you already have
Expanding existing relationships is the next most likely source of revenue. You understand the client’s business, you’ve already made it through their internal contracting processes, and they’ve seen what you can deliver.
Many agencies miss revenue here because they wait to be asked.
Clients often don’t know everything you do, or don’t think to bring you problems outside your current scope.
If you see an opportunity in their business, bring it up. Create regular planning opportunities to review where things are headed — which also helps with retention and even re-pricing when needed.
Win new clients
New business is still essential. I’m not advocating that you ignore it.
At a minimum, you need to be prepared to replace inevitable departures. Clients leave for reasons that have nothing to do with you (a new CMO brings in their own agency, or the company changes strategy or hits a financial speedbump), so you’ll always need a pipeline.
It’s just the least predictable of the three. Sales cycles are long, the odds are uncertain, and some prospects go through the whole process and hire nobody.
Winning only matters if you’re keeping
The order isn’t only about odds. New business adds a lot less to growth if the clients you already have aren’t sticking around.
I’ve seen agencies that are very good at winning clients and still never grow. They sign a steady stream of new accounts while a similar number leave. The owner spends all their time replacing revenue instead of adding to it and wonders why the agency is the same size it was three years ago.
Solving retention problems adds more to the bottom line than any business development program ever could.
So before you plan your next new business push, take a hard look at the clients you already have.
Which ones are at risk, and which ones have room to grow?
The answers are often a faster path to revenue growth than anything in your pipeline.
