How to Stop Selling as an Agency Owner and Keep Growing

I never have to pitch anybody and I never have to sell, which was my goal with this business.

What that means, though, is that I have to be known as an authority, as a person of knowledge in this space, before people ever talk to me or even go to my website. We need to sell them before they ever reach out. Then the people who fill out the form only filled it out because they're already sold. It's your deal to lose.

But the problem is, a lot of firms don't have a system.

Key Takeaways

• You need a system for business development before you need a full-time salesperson.
• People who check out your work before they ever talk to you come in already sold.
• Every lead gets one owner and lives on a deal board with clear stages.
• Selling stays partner-led until it becomes a strong system.

Why does the owner end up doing all the selling?

The worst thing about running agencies is the up and down and up and down. The way to smooth that out is that when you're busy, you're still hitting it.

Do not take the foot off the gas when you're busy. That's what a small team will do, and I get it. But we've got to delegate, delegate, delegate till it hurts, till we're risking stuff.

You're busy keeping the lights on. You need somebody paying attention to new business.

Should a firm hire a salesperson or build a system first?

The worst thing you could do is hire a salesperson or a business development person, like a full-time person. You need a system for business development. You don't need a person right now.

Let's say you get a bunch of money tomorrow and you hire some salespeople. You don't have a process for them to follow, other than asking who they talked to.

You've got to have a machine in place, and a machine that is flexible. If we don't have a plan, there's really nothing to stay consistent about. Once you've got a good strategy and all the pieces in place, it's really just a matter of the system. You just run the system.

That's where AI can really help you, to stay consistent.

How does a firm sell before anyone talks to the owner?

You can go and check out all this stuff before you ever talk to me.

Being visible first matters to the people who send referrals, too. A Hinge Research Institute and XPX study asked 262 business advisors what kills a referral, and the top answer, at 45.5 percent, was "Absence of Visible Expertise." If your message needs proof behind it, start with Agency Niche Strategy Without the Revenue Drop.

One of my first pieces of advice is to make sure all of your past clients are on your newsletter, that you're directing people toward it, and that it actually is delivering value.

I stopped sending cold emails, and I just started sending books. A mentor of mine says their inboxes are full, but their mailboxes are empty, so get a book in their mailbox. I don't pitch them on anything other than telling them what I do for a living. And if you're not getting invited to the party, you've got to be throwing the parties.

LinkedIn is a great place to connect with people and build authority. What's more important to me than selling directly on LinkedIn is getting referrals from people there. That's been the most profitable side of LinkedIn for me. I've had so many clients over the years contact me to say they love my stuff on LinkedIn and want to meet. These are people who have never commented or interacted with my posts.

Past clients come first, and coming up with a plan to re-engage with them is the first thing we do. In SparkToro's 2024 survey of 612 agency owners and consultants, 66 percent named existing and past clients as their top source of referrals for new business.

What does a sales process other people can run look like?

There needs to be one person in charge of bringing in sales, one person in charge of accounts and keeping people happy, and usually one person in charge of delivery. Those are the three arms of any agency.

You need one neck to choke in each one of those things, so when sales dry up or clients are leaving or unhappy, you know who to go to.

The salesperson's job is to land the first deal. The account manager is there to land the third, fourth, and fifth deal. Replacing a client is very, very expensive, so account managers pay for themselves just in retaining clients.

Always try to hit a price on the first call. One owner per lead. Make sure there's a deal board where every lead lives and gets tracked. What's the difference between a new lead and a qualified lead? What are the stages people should be in? We have to define a lead as somebody who understands what the product is.

Our goal is to disqualify. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but a lot of people will just waste our time, and we don't have time for that. If they stall in the columns, they are dead, and we get rid of them, because they're just distractions.

The process has to say clearly that selling is no longer your job. You can stay involved and stay cc'd on the emails. But the accountability changes. I love building airplanes, but there needs to be a runway for people to land.

To measure that pipeline, use the numbers in Agency KPIs.

When can the owner hand the selling off?

In the short term, it's got to be partner-led. Until it becomes a strong system, I would not give it to just a team member to go and run, by any means.

Keep the system simple and repeatable. Too many folks overproduce it. Once it's repeatable and you start seeing success, over time it becomes a perk for employees in some ways.

My hope is that you get to where you say, we've got this whole process in place, and now we could actually hire somebody to come in and run it. Or you could just run it yourselves.

Meet weekly, sometimes more often, to go through the current pipeline, make sure things are moving through it, and go back over people who said no a few months ago.

You need systems in place that can run on their own for the most part, without you in the weeds. Consistency is key for building referrals and networking.

In my own business, I could step away, because the systems are just doing their thing. For your own role as the firm grows, see How to Scale an Agency Without Burnout.

How does Schmidt Consulting Group help an agency owner stop doing all the selling?

Schmidt Consulting Group works with founder-led agencies and professional services firms on positioning, pricing, and new business.

Mentorship is twice-monthly counsel for founders on pricing, hiring, clients, and direction. You set the agenda, and your team does the work.

Advisory is a weekly operating rhythm for growth: a written plan, one priority at a time, and a review of results every week.

A two-founder production studio worked with us twice a month. The list of companies built in those sessions got them a meeting with Google.

You'll hear the fee on our first call.