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Agency Core™ 2026 Is Live
Agency Core™ exists to help agencies make better decisions by giving them clearer context. It is the passion project of Susan Baier, Co-Founder, Agency Core, and CEO, Audience Audit, and Brian Gerstner, Co-Founder, Agency Core,…
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The Next Agency Inflection: 2026’s Blueprint for Growth
Forget “business as usual.” The world agencies once dominated is breaking. The Forrester “Predictions 2026“ already gives us a structural map: agencies must become resellers, product‐builders, embedded partners, not just service vendors. Add to that…
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The Art of the List: Win More and Better Clients
For many ad agencies, new business often feels like an endless hustle. Pitches, proposals, referrals, and the occasional inbound lead that leads nowhere. But here’s the reality: too many agencies overlook or don’t take the…
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Is AI Coming For You?
As an ad agency owner, you face tremendous competition. Google the term “Ad Agency” and you get 4,570,000 results. Google will likely show you only 40 pages of results. I feel bad for the agencies…
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10 BD Problems and How to Bury Them
If you’re running an agency in 2025 and your new business pipeline feels thin, inconsistent, frustratingly quiet, or deceased, you’re not alone. I talk to agency owners every day who say some version of the…
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Some Agencies Are Winning Now. How About You?
Let’s not sugarcoat it. 2025 is testing every agency leader’s grit. Margins are under pressure. Marketers are in triage mode. Headcounts are leaner. Budgets are delayed. And the RFP pipeline? For many, it’s either stalled…
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Your Ad Agency Prospecting Platform
Reach more prospects. Guide the journey. Make decisions with data. Track your progress. Convert more clients. Affordable. Easy to use. Powerful. Backed by 20 years of new business experience. All configured to the way your…
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Winmo. The best tool for agency new business
Full transparency, I’m a big Winmo fan and daily user going way back to when they were the List. I blog about it, speak about it, use it every day and brag about my successes.…
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Best of Times or Worst of Times
Do you think this is the best of times or the worst of times for your agency? Have you adjusted your agency new business strategy? If you attended Mirren Live last week, you heard about…
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10 Agency Growth Tactics
Let’s say you completed my CORE Identity Exploration process and have your manifesto, brand narrative, anthem, positioning, messaging, and sales copy in hand. Now, what do you do? Most agency consultants hand you the deck…
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From Chasing Anything to Strategic Business Development
In the fast-paced advertising world, agencies often rely on a whirlwind of short-term new business prospecting tactics, hoping for quick wins in client acquisition. However, a new business engine for agencies to enhance client prospecting,…
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Find Your Agency’s “Aha!”
There is no doubt about the importance of understanding the difference between two or more choices. That difference has never been more critical for agencies, but more on that later. Whether between mobile phones, fast…
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Winning the battle for new clients
As the pace of change continues, agencies must adapt to the ever-evolving landscape to win the battle for new clients. Reports indicate increased difficulty obtaining new business opportunities, necessitating more innovative, efficient, and practical approaches…
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Ad agency business development is hard–It doesn’t have to be
It’s been my world for more than 20 years. Not as a consultant but in the trenches perfecting my craft at small, mid-size, and large agencies selling marketing services, AOR engagements, and everything in between.…
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Perfect is the enemy of good
No truer words for ad agencies this time of year. “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.” Gen. George Patton. The clock is ticking. Don’t overthink it. I…
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The allure of a silver bullet
In the fast-paced, ever-evolving advertising world, staying ahead of the curve is crucial for survival. New trends and techniques emerge daily, promising to revolutionize how we reach potential audiences. It’s tempting to chase these shiny…
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The ad agency sales cycle
Agency business development is a long game, unfortunately. The average client-agency relationship is about two and a half years. The average CMO tenure is between three and four years. Marketing budgets typically run for 12…
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5 Reasons You Need a Consultant NOW
The first half was slow. Declining agency tenure, increasing client turnover, in-housing continues, project relationships, and tighter margins put even greater pressure on the need to add, replace, and expand the client base. Yet, many…
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From referrals to outreach
It is a common experience. For years, an agency startup thrived on a steady stream of referrals, never having to do proactive business development. The founders had stellar reputations for delivering exceptional results and breakthrough…
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Can anyone really predict the first bite
When you embark on a new business planning process and look at all the time and effort required to develop an effective program, one question is top of mind. How long will it take to…