When it comes to new business there are four basic ways to invest your time and your agency’s resources: Marketing, Innovation, Pitching, and Organic Growth and your senior staff plays a role in all of these. These four ways of growing your business are not all created equal, nor do they deserve the same amount of time and energy, but they do need experience and guidance.

Marketing your agency and its capabilities should equate to about 20 percent of your time. Telling your story, and effectively communicating the benefit of working with you. There are more that 75K marketing agencies in the U.S. and they all say they are smart, insightful and different. But instead of telling the marketplace you are different, show it with thought leadership, your points of view on a variety of topics you are well-equipped to have an opinion on so that you are practicing good “marketing hygiene,” everyday. Most of us only put energy into marketing our resources and value, when we have down time and are in between pitches, but good marketing hygiene means that you are marketing your agency and its benefits, every day.

Innovation and new thinking, concepts, or offerings should be about 10 percent of your time. You should always be innovating, and not just for your clients, but for yourselves. How many services, ideas or time do you give to clients without being compensated? The additional idea during the phone conversation, fulfilling client requests that are not outlined in the scope of work (which should be very detailed and measurable), or even the time it takes to plan. I get it, clients want results, but the right results require the right tools and thinking, and that takes time. Think of the last freebie you gave to a client … could that be something your agency productizes and offers as a service?

Now, here is where the fork in the road leads to debate: Pitching new business should only be 20 percent of your time. Organic Growth should be 50 percent of your time. Marketing and innovation require senior input and experience, but here is where there is value for you and for your clients.

Pitching new business is the most expensive way to grow your business. There is an immediate diminishing return because of the time, and hard costs spent to win. I was speaking with a former colleague they other day and she was telling me about a $1mm account her agency won back in May. They spent almost $600K in time and resource to win the business. With seven months remaining in 2017, they had already eaten into the profitability of the account and any return the agency would have seen by 50 percent. I get it, its necessary, but do your homework and understand which opportunities are the right ones to respond to, and more importantly, which are the right ones to proactively mine that should be on your target list.

Organic growth is where it is … you already have the business, you already have the relationships, and statistically organic growth leads to lower client and employee turnover. And if your senior-most-people are not on the business like you said they would be in the original pitch, what are the chances of retention, which puts even more pressure on pitching new business … more resource, time and money out the door.

I’ve worked for agencies that were responding to 20 RFPs at once, chasing the dollar because retention was down, and I have work for others that targeted five brands a year. They had a plan, an achievable system for prospecting and they were accountable for it. They were immersed in existing clients’ business, which led to greater value for the clients, more opportunity for the agency and growth … profitable, sustainable, manageable growth. Solve the existing clients’ problems, and there is no need to upsell capabilities. You will grow your business by demonstrating the benefit of you, your agency and you will have residual business, year-over-year.