Most agency owners I talk to have a story about a prospect who went through the whole process and then hired nobody.
Weeks or even months of conversations, a proposal they were proud of, and then a quiet decision to keep doing what they were already doing. Or worse: simply being ghosted and finding out much later that the prospect did nothing.
In this week’s newsletter, I look at why that happens, how to spot it earlier, and how to make sure a stalled deal costs you as little as possible.
First, let’s see the latest from SAGA, as well as what Jen has rounded up for us this week.
— Chip Griffin, SAGA Founder
Latest from SAGA
TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE — Did you know your team can be over-supervised and under-managed at the same time? Chip sees it pretty regularly. Read his take on The difference between performance management and performative management.
IF CURIOUS GEORGE SENDS YOU HIS RESUME, HIRE HIM — Experience and technical skills are fine and dandy to look for when you’re hiring, but most skills can be taught, and experience comes with time anyhow. What traits do you need in a new hire that can’t be taught? In the latest episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast, Chip and Gini offer ideas for how to screen job candidates for curiosity and ability to problem-solve. Watch/listen to The top two traits for new agency hires.
Jen’s Weekly Roundup
Here’s what caught my eye this week:
AI AGENTS ARE THE NEW GATEKEEPERS — At Spin Sucks, Gini argues AI agents have taken over the role editors and algorithms used to play, standing between your brand and its audience. Paid media used to be a skeleton key, buy enough reach and you got in. Now the agent only trusts what it can verify, not ad spend. Fellow Spin Sucks writer Travis Claytor argues marketing and comms teams undervalue their own work by only counting what’s easiest to track, the revenue at the end, instead of the trust and visibility built well before it. And over at FIR, Shel Holtz and three IABC Fellow colleagues dig into what the newly released Reimagining Tomorrow 2026 report means for communication.
TRUST BUT VERIFY, MANUALLY — Lee McKnight, Jr. of RSW/US tells us in part four of their AI email summary series that there’s no dedicated tool worth paying for (yet) to test how AI is summarizing your outreach. The reliable method is still the manual one, sending your draft to a personal Gmail and Apple Mail account and reading what each one generates. He also walks through what new AI transparency laws require, the EU AI Act, California’s SB 942, and C2PA watermarking, and some of you probably just dozed off but the bottom line is using AI wholesale is likely counterproductive. Keep humans involved.
ROUTINE WORK ISN’T ALL BAD — Brad Farris at Anchor Advisors walks back his own framing from the week before. He’d called routine agency tasks “donkey work” worth automating away, and readers pushed back. Some of that rote work, like meeting summaries, is what reassures a client they were actually heard. New research backs it up, showing agency clients want better thinking from AI, not cheaper thinking, and cost reduction ranked in the bottom quarter of a survey in the Agency Core 2026 report.
THE ONE WHERE ROSS YELLS “PIVOT!” — Karen and Michelle on That Solo Life take on pivoting from a dry sector to a more profitable one. They offer up some concrete steps to take, with honest advice from real-life experience. On The Innovative Agency, Michelle Wintersteen of MKW Creative talks about how saying yes to every opportunity is what actually breaks a creative agency, not the talent shortage or market shift. Without boundaries and someone owning them, growth just multiplies the chaos.
TIME AND MATERIALS IS ON BORROWED TIME — On the Agency Profit Podcast, Marcel Petitpas, Carson Pierce, and Kristen Kelly break down why the line between agencies and SaaS companies is disappearing. Pricing pressure, in their view, is really a sign that what you value and what the client values don’t match. On Agency Bytes, guest James Kwon discusses how he’s building products alongside the agency because playing defense against AI isn’t a strategy, boats, not moats.
SELL WHILE YOU STILL HAVE CHOICES — Rick Gould at Gould+Partners lays out seven signs it’s time to sell your PR firm. The short version is sell while you’re strong, not when you’re exhausted, with clean financials, a diversified client base, and a team that can run things without you. And David C. Baker answers your mailbag questions.
— Jen Griffin, SAGA Community Manager
The prospect who hires nobody
Most agency owners know the feeling of losing to a competitor. It’s not fun, but at least it makes sense.
Losing to nobody is more difficult. You put in the time and effort, and then the prospect checked the box labeled “none of the above.”
This usually bothers agency owners more. It feels like a waste of time, and it leaves you without a clear explanation of what went wrong.
The status quo is the real competitor
When there’s an incumbent agency, it’s often an uphill battle to win a prospect’s business.
But even in agency sales processes where there is no incumbent, your toughest competitor isn’t another agency. In both cases, the status quo is in the pole position. The real competition is the prospect’s current way of doing things.
Hiring a new agency is expensive and risky for the person doing the hiring. They have to justify it internally and take the blame if it doesn’t work out.
Unless the pain of their current situation is greater than the pain of changing it, nothing happens.
If you accept that, the goal of your business development process shifts a bit. Beating other agencies is only part of it. You’re also trying to figure out, as early as possible, whether this prospect is going to change anything at all.
The signals usually show up early
The no-decision prospect tends to look a certain way if you know what to watch for.
The clearest signal is a prospect who can’t answer the “why now?” question I encourage you to open with.
Ask what brought them to the table today, and dig past the first answer. If there’s no clear precipitating event, no budget cycle, and no boss demanding results, the odds that they act are lower. People who are going to hire an agency almost always have a reason that it can’t wait.
When you realize you’re a vitamin and not a painkiller, your odds of success plummet.
A close second is a prospect who is “trying to decide” whether to keep their current agency or their current approach. It often means they’ve already decided they aren’t happy. The question is whether they’re ready to do anything about it.
The third signal is a prospect who won’t engage on money at all. You don’t need them to hand you a number (and most won’t have a real one anyway). But when you share your own range and they can’t or won’t react to it, you’re usually talking to someone who is still window shopping.
None of these is disqualifying on its own. But when you see two or three together, you’re most likely looking at a prospect who will vet you thoroughly and then hire nobody.
“Too expensive” from a no-decision isn’t price resistance
The real problem with “none of the above” decisions is that we often read too much into them.
When a prospect walks away saying the price was too high, most owners hear that as a signal to lower their rates. But “too expensive” from a prospect who then hires nobody is usually a polite way to end the conversation, not real price resistance.
True resistance means they went with another agency at a lower price. If they didn’t hire anyone, “too expensive” was probably a graceful exit line, not a verdict on your number.
So before you let one stalled deal talk you into a discount, understand what actually happened.
Make the stall cost you less
You won’t spot every no-decision prospect in advance. What you can do is structure your process so a stall doesn’t take weeks of your time with it.
Stop investing large amounts of time and effort before you understand the situation. Before you agree to a capabilities presentation or start drafting anything, have a real conversation. Ask questions, listen more, and talk less. Float a budget range and watch the reaction.
Don’t build a comprehensive plan during the pitch. Sharing an idea or two is fine. Proposals should be just a page or two that you assemble after you agree on a direction and budget in conversation. Don’t keep offering a prescription without enough information for a proper diagnosis.
Consider paid discovery as the first step. Help yourself and the prospect with a short-duration planning process that benefits them even if they don’t hire you for execution. You learn a lot while getting paid for your time, and the prospect gets something they can use in return.
Offer a less risky option to say yes. A prospect who is nervous about a year-long retainer may be perfectly comfortable with a defined project as a mutual test drive.
And when a deal goes quiet and you feel like you’re being ghosted, ask directly whether it makes sense to keep talking now or whether it’s better to reconnect later.
You’ll get a straight answer more often than you’d think.
A no-decision is still a decision
The prospect who hires nobody hasn’t rejected you so much as decided the problem isn’t painful enough yet to justify the cost and risk of solving it now.
That can change, though. Budgets get approved and bosses get impatient.
So don’t burn the bridge and don’t beat yourself up.
Keep them on your radar, stay in touch with something useful every so often, and spend the time you saved on the prospects who can answer “why now?”
