Net New Business Isn’t a Tap: Why Agencies Need a More Consistent Approach to Growth
There is a growing consensus across the agency market that winning net new business has become harder. In many respects, that is undoubtedly true. Budgets are under greater scrutiny, procurement processes have become more complex, buying decisions are taking longer and the days of relatively predictable pitch pipelines feel increasingly distant.
But I am not convinced the market is entirely to blame.
Over the years, one of the recurring patterns I have seen among small and mid-sized agencies is that new business is often treated as a response to a problem rather than as a permanent part of the business. When the pipeline starts to look thin, attention suddenly turns to growth. Founders reconnect with old contacts, senior client leads are asked to spend more time networking, marketing activity increases and outbound efforts are restarted.
For a while, this can work. New conversations emerge, a pitch lands, perhaps a client is won and the immediate pressure begins to ease. Then, almost inevitably, the focus shifts back to delivery. Teams become busy, clients demand attention, operational issues take priority and the urgency around new business begins to fade.
It rarely stops altogether. More often, it simply loses momentum.
Months later, when the pipeline looks uncomfortable again, the process begins all over again.
That stop-start approach has always been risky, but in a slower and more cautious market it becomes particularly exposed. The reality is that most significant client relationships do not develop quickly. They often take months, sometimes years, to mature. Budgets move, leadership teams change, procurement frameworks open and close, incumbent relationships weaken and internal priorities shift.
A relationship that looks commercially irrelevant today may become highly valuable twelve months from now. Equally, a seemingly attractive opportunity can disappear because the timing is wrong rather than because the agency failed.
The agencies that manage growth well tend to understand this. They stay close to the market even when they do not immediately need the work. They continue investing in relationships when the pipeline is healthy. They recognise that new business is not simply about finding live opportunities, but about being present long before those opportunities formally exist.
This is also why the way agencies assess senior growth talent deserves more thought.
One of the most common questions asked when hiring a senior new business leader is, “Who do they know?” It is an understandable question, but it can also be a misleading one. A candidate may have an impressive network of senior marketers and global brands, yet those relationships are only useful if they are relevant to the agency hiring them.
If an agency operates in a specialist market, has limited international reach or offers a narrower range of capabilities, then a long list of blue-chip contacts may sound impressive without offering much genuine commercial value.
The better question is whether those relationships align with the agency’s proposition, capabilities, scale and ambitions.
A strong Growth Leader does more than open doors. They understand where the business has a realistic chance of winning. They know which relationships are worth investing in, which prospects are unlikely to convert and how to build credibility over time without constantly trying to force a sale.
That judgement is often underestimated.
Good new business people spend much of their time operating in the space before an opportunity exists. They understand how to maintain relationships, how to stay relevant, how to recognise the early signs of a buying cycle and how to position an agency in a way that feels useful rather than intrusive.
That is a specialist skill. Yet many agencies still treat it as something that can be absorbed by someone who already has another full-time role.
Founders are often expected to carry much of the burden because they are usually natural advocates for the business. They know the agency better than anyone, they have credibility with clients and they are often very good at winning work. But running an agency and systematically building a future pipeline are not the same job.
The same is true of client leaders, strategists and marketing teams. All of them should contribute to growth, but contribution is different from ownership. A client lead may be excellent at expanding an existing account while having little time to build new relationships from scratch. A marketing team can improve visibility and strengthen the agency’s reputation, but greater awareness does not automatically translate into qualified commercial conversations.
This is where agencies sometimes confuse activity with infrastructure.
Posting more frequently on LinkedIn, attending more events or increasing outbound activity may all be useful, but none of those things creates a growth function on its own. Sustainable growth usually comes from the combination of clear positioning, consistent marketing, disciplined relationship building and someone having genuine ownership of the commercial pipeline.
The founder remains important. The leadership team remains important. Marketing remains important. But the responsibility cannot keep moving around the business depending on who has spare capacity.
There is another issue too, and that is expectation.
Agencies can hire a senior Growth Leader with a strong reputation and then become impatient when significant revenue does not appear within a few months. In some cases, that frustration is justified. Not every senior hire works. But there is also a danger in expecting somebody to solve a long-term growth problem on a short-term timetable.
A new Growth Leader still needs to understand the agency properly. They need to learn where the proposition is strongest, where the business can compete, which parts of the market are genuinely attractive and which relationships are worth pursuing. Existing contacts need to be re-engaged in the context of a different business. New relationships need to be built. Opportunities need to move through their natural cycles.
That takes time.
The answer is not to remove accountability. Quite the opposite. Strong growth functions should be measured carefully. There should be clear expectations around activity, quality of conversations, pipeline development and commercial progression.
But measuring success purely by how much revenue appears in the first few months can create the wrong incentives. It encourages people to chase whatever looks closest to a deal rather than build the right pipeline for the agency.
That distinction matters because not all growth is good growth.
Agencies can become extremely busy doing work that does little for margin, positioning or long-term enterprise value. A full pipeline can be just as dangerous as an empty one if the wrong opportunities are filling it.
This is why growth needs to sit closer to strategy than many agencies allow.
The strongest businesses tend to be clear about the type of clients they want, the work they are best placed to win and the markets where they can compete credibly. Their growth activity follows that logic. Their marketing supports it. Their leadership team reinforces it. Their new business effort is focused rather than reactive.
Most importantly, it continues when the agency is busy.
That is perhaps the hardest habit to build, because success itself can create the conditions for future weakness. When teams are fully occupied and revenue looks healthy, new business naturally feels less urgent. Yet the work being delivered today is usually the result of relationships and conversations that began many months earlier.
The pipeline being built now will determine how healthy the agency feels next year.
So yes, the market is harder. Clients are cautious, competition is strong and new business cycles are slower.
But that only strengthens the case for treating growth as a permanent capability rather than something that is switched on when the pipeline becomes uncomfortable.
The problem with the tap analogy is not that agencies need to turn it on harder.
It is that they keep turning it off.