Networking Agency Building That Actually Works

I'm Kurt Schmidt, founder of Schmidt Consulting Group and host of The Schmidt List. A few weeks ago I published the 300th episode of this show, and I spent a lot of time beforehand trying to figure out what I would say to mark the occasion. What I landed on surprised me a little: the biggest thing I've built over the last several years is a network, and the podcast was just the mechanism. If you're serious about networking agency building, meaning building a real agency or consulting practice through genuine relationships rather than paid media, there's a lot in that 300-episode arc to unpack.

The premise of the show was almost embarrassingly simple. When I was first starting my business Foundry, I was going on a lot of networking meetings and kept meeting extraordinary people. I kept thinking someone should record these conversations. Then I realized I could be that someone.

What Does "Networking Agency Building" Actually Mean?

Networking agency building is the practice of using consistent, intentional relationship development as the primary growth engine for a services firm. It's the structured decision to treat every conversation, every introduction, and every piece of content you publish as a long-term investment in your pipeline.

Most agency owners think of networking as a tactic, something you do between client projects when revenue gets thin. The firms I work with that grow the fastest treat it as infrastructure. They build systems around it: a podcast, a newsletter, a speaker series, a LinkedIn cadence. The channel matters less than the consistency.

I've been doing this long enough to see the compounding effect. The CTO of CHS, a Fortune 50 company, drove to my house in Richfield, Minnesota to sit in a spare bedroom and record the very first episode of my show. I still count him as a genuine friend today. That one conversation, the first domino, kicked off a chain that now includes the founder of Hydro Flask, the General Manager of the Minnesota Twins, and hundreds of founders, operators, and nonprofit leaders in between. Each of those relationships opened doors I couldn't have bought my way into.

Why Do Most Agency Owners Struggle to Build a Real Network?

Because they're asking for permission. This is the thing I caught myself doing right before I launched the show, and I see it constantly in the agencies I coach.

I was going around telling people I was thinking about starting a podcast. I'd get polite responses. "Great, cool, sounds interesting." And I kept waiting for someone to get excited enough that I'd feel validated. My wife finally called it out directly: she asked if I was looking for someone to give me permission to do the thing. She was right. That's exactly what I was doing.

The moment I stopped asking and just started, I booked the CTO of a Fortune 50 company for episode one. He said yes immediately.

This pattern repeats in agency business development constantly. Founders spend months "getting ready" to launch a service line, a niche, a content program. They poll their peers. They wait for consensus. Permission never comes, so neither does the momentum. Networking agency building requires you to move first and let the evidence accumulate afterward.

For a deeper look at how this connects to your broader pipeline strategy, see attraction-based approach.

What Kind of Relationships Actually Build an Agency?

The ones you'd maintain even if there were no business outcome. That sounds like soft advice, but the mechanics are real.

I've sat across from people who would normally charge hundreds or even thousands of dollars for an hour of their time. They showed up to my show, shared their actual thinking, and in several cases became ongoing professional relationships. That happens because the conversation itself was valuable to have. There was no pitch baked in. The value exchange was the conversation.

In my experience working with agencies, the founders who build the strongest networks are the ones who come in curious. They ask questions they genuinely don't know the answers to. They're not fishing for case studies to use in their next proposal. They're actually trying to learn. People can feel the difference between those two modes, and they respond to the genuine version.

The agencies I coach now range from two-person shops to operations with well over a hundred people. What I can tell you with confidence is that nobody has it figured out. Even the big ones are working through decisions with incomplete information. The hundred-person agencies have more firepower, but they're still not always sure where to aim it. The two-person shops are scrappy but often closer to the clients. What levels the playing field is the quality of the relationships you build and how honest those relationships are.

This connects directly to because who you know shapes what you're known for.

How Do You Turn Networking Into Actual Revenue?

Consistency, specificity, and patience. In that order.

Consistency means showing up so regularly that people think of you before they think of searching Google. My podcast ran for 300 episodes. YouTube has become increasingly central to how I share ideas. My newsletter is another touchpoint. None of those channels works in isolation; together they create a surface area that's hard to ignore.

Specificity means knowing exactly who you want to meet with and being clear about what you do when you're there. I work with service-based companies on sales, growth, profit, and marketing. That's specific enough that when someone meets me, they know immediately whether to refer me to someone or hire me directly. Vague networking produces vague results. If someone can't explain what you do in one sentence after meeting you, you haven't done the work.

Patience is the one nobody wants to hear. I've been building this for roughly seven years. The consulting work I'm doing now, the agency coaching, the marketing partnerships, the UX/UI firm Blueshift I'm partnered in, all of it grew out of conversations and relationships that started years before there was a business outcome attached to them.

I've also been building a new product, a digital version of my networking framework I'm calling The Little Book of Networking, built as an app. That project has required me to step into a role I've never held before: product owner on my own software. I've been using tools like Replit, Lovable, and n8n to build automations. It's the same principle applied to product development. Move before you're ready, learn from what breaks, iterate fast.

For agencies thinking about how to build similar infrastructure, see.

Podcast vs. Traditional Networking: Which Builds an Agency Faster?

Neither works if you're not consistent, but a podcast-driven approach has structural advantages for agency founders.

The reason a podcast compounds in a way that coffee meetings don't is simple: the asset persists. A conversation in a conference room disappears when you both leave. A recorded conversation lives on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube indefinitely. People who haven't been born yet will find episode one of my show someday and reach out. That doesn't happen from a handshake at a Chamber of Commerce event.

If you're a solo founder under ten people and just need fast pipeline, a structured LinkedIn outreach process paired with direct referral asks from current clients will almost always outperform a brand-new podcast in the short term. The podcast is a long game. Know which game you're playing before you choose your tools.

See also pipeline building strategies for more on matching tactics to your growth stage.

What Does This Look Like in Practice When Building an Agency?

A few things I've watched work across the agencies I've coached and the businesses I've run.

Pick a format you'll actually sustain. I shifted toward YouTube recently because audio alone wasn't exciting me the way it used to. If the format bores you after six months, your audience will feel it before you admit it. The best networking channel is the one you'll show up to every week for three years.

Be honest about what you want from relationships. I've never pretended the podcast was purely altruistic. I built it because I was learning things I needed to learn, because it was opening doors, and because it was growing my reputation. The people I interviewed could tell I was getting something from it. That's fine. Mutual value is how real relationships work, per Adam Grant's research on giving and reciprocity in professional networks.

Let the network tell you what to build. Some of the most interesting work I'm doing right now, including the automation tools and AI-powered marketing work for clients, came directly from conversations with my network. They told me what they needed. I learned enough to deliver it. The network informed the product roadmap.

And finally: get embarrassingly specific about who you're trying to meet. My first guest was the CTO of a Fortune 50 company. I didn't start with warm-up guests. I reached for the most interesting person I could think of and asked directly. The worst outcome was a no. He said yes.

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Key Takeaways

• Stop asking for permission to start. Whether it's a podcast, a content series, or a new service line, launch before consensus arrives. Treat networking as infrastructure. The agencies that grow fastest build systems around relationship development.
• Pick a format you'll sustain for years. Excitement fades; systems keep you showing up.
• Specificity closes deals. If someone can't explain what you do after meeting you once, your positioning needs work.
• The asset should outlive the conversation. Recorded, published content compounds in a way that in-person meetings never will.
• Every agency, from two people to two hundred, is figuring it out. Your edge is showing up more honestly and more consistently than the competition.

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I covered the full story behind these 300 episodes and what I've learned about networking agency building on The Schmidt List. The question I keep sitting with now is whether the next 300 episodes look anything like the first 300, or whether the tools, the format, and the whole idea of what a "network" means will shift so fast that the playbook rewrites itself completely.