Greg Hickman

AltAgency

We help agency owners, freelancers and service providers grow and scale without working nights and weekends. 

Less Done-For-You. More Leverage. Better Results. It's a Win-Win.

Owner and Founder AltAgency

System.ly

We help online entrepreneurs create RELIABLE marketing systems that maximize profits for their products and services. 

GET IDEAS THAT IMPROVE YOUR FUNNEL, NOT JUST BRAINLESS EXECUTION:

We’re marketers first, funnel and automation experts second. While we implement whatever you dream up, we make strategic recommendations to improve your systems and grow your business.


FOCUS MORE ON YOUR BUSINESS INSTEAD OF THE HEADACHES OF WORKING IN IT:

Time is money. You shouldn’t be spending yours learning how to build funnels or automate workflows. You time is better spent working ON your business not IN it. While we handle the nitty gritty behind the scenes, use your extra time creating content, engaging your audience or creating new products and service.


INCREASE CONVERSATIONS WITH PROVEN SALES FUNNELS AND MARKETING AUTOMATION:

We’ve developed funnels that generate millions of dollars a year and save our customers time. Why re-invent the wheel? Let us show you how you can be making more money by implementing systems that convert and save you time.

Founder & CEO

Mobile Marketing Engine

We help small businesses unlock new revenue by empowering them with technology, guidance and services to succeed with mobile marketing & automation. 

As both an Infusionsoft Certified Partner and Mobit Certified Partner, we can help you develop and implement your mobile marketing automation strategy. 

Mobile Messaging Campaigns
Mobile Marketing Automation
Mobile Wallet Campaigns

Mobile Mixed

Mobile Mixed is a mobile marketing talk show, blog and resource. It's an entertaining and informative show that features interesting conversations with top mobile marketers and resources to make your next mobile marketing initiative successful.

You can get Mobile Mixed shows directly to your email daily or weekly absolutely free by becoming a subscriber (you can also subscribe via RSS).

Read more: http://www.mobilemixed.com
The Mobile Marketing Training Group You Wish You Had: http://mobilemarketingtribe.com/

Founder & CEO of MobileMixed.com - A Mobile Marketing Training & Consulting Company

Cabela's

Led the mobile strategy, mobile product development and mobile customer experience for the Cabela's brand and all of its retail locations.

I am proud of have launched the new Cabela's mobile website which you can visit at www.cabelas.com from your phone. To date, the site is performing off the charts. Triple digit percentage growth in visits, orders and sales. Our new user experience has dramatically increased conversion while giving the customer the best possible mobile experience. 

Was responsible for launching the SMS pilot program and planning the national launch for 2014 with my amazing team. The redemption rates to date are impressive and this will be a powerful component of the mobile strategy at scale. 

Developed the strategy for the new smartphone app approach for the brand and helped develop the feature and functionality requirements to begin development on this project.

Mobile Marketing Manager

PlaceWise Media

I've defined and built Placewise Media's mobile strategy and suite of mobile products and services for the retail industry. 

I manage the development and execution of mobile marketing campaigns for a network of 300 shopping centers across the United States. 

I've managed the mobile product development for SMS (text) solutions, mobile web, mobile applications, QR codes, Location Based Services (LBS) and other emerging mobile technologies

Mobile Marketing Strategy | Mobile Product Development | Mobile Marketing Education

ThumbFound, a Mobile Marketing Agency

A Mobile Marketing Consulting Company. We help business integrate Mobile Marketing initiatives into their marketing mix. 

This includes: 

- Mobile Marketing Strategy Development
- Mobile Marketing Training 
- Mobile Marketing Education
- Mobile Marketing Coaching
- Campaign Development & Execution
- Mobile Product Development
- SMS Messaging
- Mobile Web & App Devleopment

Thumbfound's service offering is now available through Mobile Mixed, a High Road Labs Inc company.

CEO and Mobile Marketing Consultant

Ifficient Interactive - The Education Project

Generated over $1 million in new business executing customer acquisition / lead generation initiatives for top-tier advertisers including American Express, SC Johnson, Huggies, The
North Face, Argosy University and Ashford University
(CPL, CPC, CPM to CPA)

Director Of Sales & Strategy

The Concept Studio

• Create and managed mobile marketing programs  (AT&T, Cingular, NY Jets, NCAA, EA and Sony Mobile Games).
• Manage mobile and Internet sweepstakes programs from concept creation through program reporting and analysis.
• Launched Cingular Music and MySpace Mobile services to both employees and consumers.
• Coordinate and program mobile marketing initiatives utilizing numerous platforms (VeriSign, SinglePoint and Air2Web).
• Knowledge with all carriers in SMS, MMS, WAP, LBS.

TracyLocke

Managed clients and internal teams for Lipton and Pepsi Customer marketing to execute integrated programs involving TV, Radio, Grassroots tours, Mobile, In-Store, Online and Print. 

Worked with major retailers such as Walmart, Sams Club, Kroger and 7-11 to launch new products for both Pepsi and Unilever brands.

Account Executive

Helping agencies, consultants and freelancers take back control of their business , create wild profits, and grow with certainty without sacrificing time with family.

🕬 ATTN: Agency Owners, Freelancers & Service Providers

Do You Know the Reason You Cannot lift the ceiling on your client capacity while removing yourself from day-to-day fulfillment ...?

You have not yet had a true SYSTEM to take the best of what you have to offer and transform it into your unique solution, rather than being viewed as a commoditized service provider.

Here's a few things we do that nobody else does:

✅ Create (or makeover your existing service menu into) your productized service suite

✅ Create and build a systematic sales experience so you only sell to the right people while optimizing your time

✅ Structure and deploy a new client on-boarding experience and client fulfillment process that sets clients up for success without your 1:1 involvement

✅ Identify and build the right team of people and processes to free your time as the owner and escape the day-to-day

✅ Scale your team and your systems around each of the critical areas of your business: Sales, Marketing, Fulfillment and Operations

✅ Deliver an operating and communication cadence for you to continually meet the goals of your strategic plan.

If you meet the following criteria we need to talk:

-You're sick and tired of not knowing how to scale your client capacity without getting buried in fulfillment.

-Perhaps you know that you need mentoring to take it to the next level.

-Or maybe you've 'already bought a Guru’s course on scaling’...and it didn't work.

Time and time again, we speak with burnt-out agency owners who know they need to change things in order to scale...

They just need a proven system to do it.

----------------------------------

Now imagine if you had that system...

A systematized process that helped you to design your 100% unique service offering (so that your clients get great results and delivering it is easy and fun for you and your team) 

Imagine discovering how to deliver your service (and what format to deliver it in, so that you maximize profits and time without sacrificing client results)

What if you KNEW that you had a dream team that helps roll out the systems and process to run the business without you involved in the day-to-day.

And...

🎯 How would you like to scale the business up with the latest strategies and systems to build a business that runs without you? 🎯

You can.

That's what we help you do: ► https://altagency.com/mw-watch-li

✉ Email me directly with your questions ☛ hello@altagency.com


Sales Schema

Sales Schema is a consultancy that helps agencies and B2B service companies build a reliable lead generation system through targeted outreach.  We've worked with over 100 organizations since 2014 and generated 10,000+ prospect relationships.  Learn more at salesschema.com.

CEO and Founder

IdeaRocket

As the first employee, I helped launch the premier studio for high-quality animated explainer videos; brought in business and managed productions for Fortune 500s and startups like Venmo.

Senior Account Manager

DXagency

Increased digital exposure for clients, including Monster Cable, Big Ten Network and Marc Ecko.

Account Coordinator

The Duchamp Group

Organized panel media advertising program in NYC hotels, bars, and restaurants.

Marketing Associate

KZSC

Supervised hip-hop department staff; hosted "Danger Zone" radio show and interviewed artists.

Hip-Hop Director

I founded Sales Schema in 2014 as a business development consultancy for marketing agencies.  


We help increase agency dealflow by: 

1) ATTRACTING IDEAL CLIENTS (targeted lead generation)
2) KEEPING YOUR PIPELINE CONSISTENTLY FULL so you know where tomorrow's business will come from
3) GIVING YOU A SCALABLE AND REPEATABLE NEW BUSINESS CHANNEL so you can grow steadily and reach new buyers and markets


I increase 4 KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:

✓ Number of “ideal” qualified prospects in your pipeline
✓ Revenue per client
✓ Sales conversion rate
✓ Overall revenue, Profit Margins and ROI

CLIENTS we seek to partner with: 

✓ Marketing service companies w/ $500k-50M in revenue
✓ Ad agencies
✓ Branding agencies
✓ Creative services
✓ PR and communications agencies 
✓ Design and development 
✓ Market research 
✓ Direct marketing agencies 

CONTACT ME:

Link and message me, or email Dan@SalesSchema.com. 

Specialties: lead generation, targeted email campaigns, LinkedIn lead generation, outbound lead generation, sales training, account management training, marketing automation.

Dan Englander

Agency owners: 

If your close rate is sky-high, it might not mean what you think.

I hear this often: “Once I get a prospect on a call, we almost never lose.”

That’s usually a sign of something else - not strength, but scarcity.

If you’re winning nine out of ten, you’re probably not having enough conversations. You’re playing too few hands to learn anything meaningful. Every win or loss becomes oversized. You start drawing big conclusions from a handful of data points and end up steering the business by instinct instead of feedback.

When that happens, strategy changes get made on flimsier hunches: new markets, new pricing, new offers, all without enough signal to guide them.

Growth doesn’t come from perfect batting averages, it comes from more at-bats. From faster losses that free up energy for better opportunities. From dozens of qualifying calls that save you from chasing the wrong people.

If the idea of losing more often makes you uncomfortable, that’s fine. Most people avoid this part because it feels messy and inefficient. But this is what building a repeatable new-business system looks like.


P.S. Want to learn how to more biz dev more reliable via targeted referrals and strategic partnerships? 

I'm covering everything I know tomorrow/Thursday at the All-In Agency Summit (virtual and free), alongside Karl Sakas Carl Smith Marcel Petitpas Chris DuBois Garrett Jestice and more great speakers. 

👇 Grab your spot via the link in the comments...

JSESSIONID

li_at

Build an agency you like—for an exit you’ll love | Agency Advisor, Author, and Speaker

I ❤️ The Bureau. It's where leaders and their teams find connection, growth, and friendship. Recovering founder, zero successful exits, advocate for humanity in leadership.

Helping Digital & Creative Agencies Measure and Improve Profitability Best Selling Author, Keynote Speaker & CEO

Helping marketing agencies gain control of their pipeline | Positioning + Marketing Engines for Sub-$1M Shops

Community Founder | Startup GTM Advisor | Former CMO | BBQ Judge | Dad x4

I help agencies scale through systematic referrals and strategic partnerships.

An agency owner I talked to this week wants to drive an extra $2-3 million in business next year. 

The bottleneck isn't his sales team or his marketing, it's his reliance on reactive referrals.

→ Reactive Referrals: You wait for someone to think of you. Or you ask a vague question like, "Do you know anybody who might need our services?" This puts all the cognitive load on your contact. They're busy, so they forget.

→ Proactive Referrals: You systematically identify who you want to meet. You then find the warmest path to them through your existing network and make it incredibly easy for your contact to make the introduction. You do the work for them.

The issue isn't that referrals don't work, it's that most of us don't have a system for generating them.


🚀 We still have a few Q4 openings for The Referral Engine, our done-alongside-you system for making biz dev consistent through targeted referrals and strategic partnerships. Details in the comments.

It’s easy to get stuck planning for problems that don’t exist yet.

I was speaking with an agency owner who didn’t want to put himself front and center in his marketing. His concern was that it might make the business harder to sell someday.

That kind of long-term thinking is understandable, but it’s often misplaced.

When you focus on hypothetical future roadblocks, you take your eye off the real constraint in front of you.

The challenge right now probably isn’t founder dependency, it’s consistency. It’s having enough qualified conversations every week, enough warm intros, enough follow-ups that actually lead somewhere.

The agencies that grow fastest are usually the ones willing to do what doesn’t scale at first - personal outreach, thoughtful follow-ups, direct relationship-building. Those early, hands-on efforts are what make scale possible later.


P.S. What are you up to in 2 hours? Want to hang out? I'm give a talk at the All-In Agency Summit (it's virtual and free), alongside Chris DuBois Marcel Petitpas Carl Smith Karl Sakas Garrett Jestice 

👇 Link in the comments

Most agency owners love to debate lead-gen channels: ads, cold email, growth hacks.

But here’s what rarely gets said: the clients you actually want aren’t clicking “get a quote.”

They move through backchannels - introductions, quiet DMs, private Slack groups, the occasional text from a friend.

This is why so many agencies keep spinning their wheels: chasing visibility, hoping the right person lands on the right page.

The firms winning in upmarket B2B aren’t necessarily louder - they’re better connected.

Referrals and partnerships aren’t lucky breaks, they’re the backbone of agency growth, if you treat them like a process, not a coincidence.

It’s possible to make introductions, referrals, and partner deals happen on purpose. But that means building systems for trust, not just more noise.

If you want to reach the decision-makers everyone else is chasing, get into their circles and make it easy for people to introduce you. Take partnerships as seriously as sales. 


🤝 P.S. I'm looking for agency owners who want to build a custom Referral Map and get targeted intros into high-value accounts in Q4 / early Q1. Details in the comments...

Agency owners: 

Your lead gen strategy should match the size of your market, not the other way around.

Most "best practices" assume you're selling to many thousands of companies. Think mass outreach, automated sequences, complex tech stacks.

These work great if your market fits in an NFL stadium, but what if your ideal clients fit in a high school gym? (more or less). 

A fex ICP examples that match reality for specialized agencies: 

-Growth-stage DTC brands above $5M
-Mid-market FinTech companies
-Enterprise pharmaceutical firms

When I map this for clients, we're often talking about several thousand total prospects. You can get to know a sizable chunk of your market at this level.

At this scale, the math changes completely:

❌ You don't need 10,000 cold emails per month
❌ You don't need a complicated tech stack
❌ You don't need intent data platforms

✅ You need one quality conversation per day
✅ You need warm introductions from your network
✅ You need strategic partnerships with connectors

The agencies that win in specialized markets? They build trust before prospects have a need, not after. 

Because when that CMO is ready to switch agencies and their job is on the line, they're calling someone they've known for months or years, Not the agency that just hit their inbox. This is why 84% of B2B decision-makers start their buying process with a referral. 


🚀 We still have a few Q4 openings for The Referral Engine, our done-alongside-you system for making biz dev consistent through targeted referrals and strategic partnerships. Details in the comments.

Most agencies treat referrals like rain - they celebrate when it pours, complain when it dries up, and don’t think much about where it comes from.

In my session at the All-In Agency Summit, I walked through how to turn that rain into irrigation by building a repeatable referral system that feeds your pipeline week after week.

A few things I covered: 

-Our system for making referrals and strategic partnerships predictable - without cold outreach, spam, or burnout.

-The “2020 Shift” and why trust, not awareness, is now the scarce resource.

-The High School Gym vs. NFL Stadium Test for choosing the right lead gen strategy.

-The Two-Pronged Outreach Approach—how to keep your pipeline full even when you’re a busy agency owner wearing too many hats.

-The Referral Game Changer—how to make targeted introductions stick by removing the most overlooked roadblock.

-The one data tool you need to get started (and why you can skip all the expensive SaaS platforms).

Huge thanks to Chris DuBois and Nick Salvatoriello for hosting, as well as to other great speakers like Marcel Petitpas, Carl Smith, Karl Sakas, Garrett Jestice, Danielle F., Steve Guberman, Sean Lang and others. 

Want the replay link? Comment "Replay" and I'll DM you the link.

Partner & Customer Marketing Consultant | B2B Event Facilitator & Strategist | Podcast Host | Trusted by HubSpot, Drift, 6sense & SmartBug

Helping B2B Professional Service Firms Get Past Growth Plateaus by Building Repeatable LeadGen + RevGen Systems with Intention! Gardener 🌻 Roller Coaster Enthusiast 🎢 Podcaster 🎧

Coaching agency owners to discover their goals, uncover challenges, and conquer both • Host of Agency Bytes, a top podcast for Agency Owners.

Build a scalable, self-managing agency | Agency Scaling Coach | Co-founder of Social Commerce Club | Podcast Host

Most agency lead gen advice assumes a world that doesn’t exist anymore. 

We’re told to build perfect funnels, scale outbound, and carpet-bomb the market with ads. 

But if you're an agency working the mid-to-large accounts, the clients you actually want aren't always filling out forms or clicking retargeting ads at midnight. 

They’re moving through rooms you can’t see. They're securing quiet intros, and chatting in private groups and side conversations with people they already trust.

When you understand that, a lot of the frustration agencies feel starts to make sense. You can’t force your way into these circles with volume or clever copy, and the best opportunities rarely come from a sequence or a post. They show up because someone credible mentions your name before the project is even public, or when the prospect is problem-aware but not yet solution-aware. 

The part most people avoid admitting is that agencies treat referrals and partnerships like weather patterns. They wait for them and hope the timing works in their favor. And when something finally lands, they chalk it up to luck and move on.

That isn’t a strategy, it’s a coin flip.

The agencies that grow deliberately build a system around this reality. They know exactly who they want to meet, and they create the conditions for introductions to happen, not through pressure, but through trust, relevance, and consistency. It’s a quieter approach, but it works because it meets the market where it actually lives.

If you’re exhausted from chasing leads that never go anywhere, it might not be your message or your funnel. You may just be playing the wrong game. 


🚀P.S. We have six spots open between now and the holidays for a no-risk Referral Network Diagnostic.

In 60 minutes, we’ll:

-Surface referral opportunities into real target accounts
-Assess how strong your network actually is for your market
-Determine whether a full Referral Engine build makes sense

👇 Check out the link in the Comments to get the details and grab time with me...

Last week, an agency owner I know closed their biggest deal ever.
The referral came from someone they hadn't spoken to in three years.

It was all luck, but it doesn't have to be this way. 

Stanford's Mark Granovetter proved that 70% of job seekers find work through "weak ties", not close friends, but loose connections.

The same dynamic applies to agency new business.

Your forgotten contacts are gold because:

🔹 They know different people than your close network does
🔹 They sit in different rooms (literally and metaphorically)
🔹 They're not tired of hearing from you yet

Here's how do make biz dev more reliable via weak ties: 

1. Audit your connections
Old clients, prospects who went quiet, former colleagues you lost touch with.

2. Rank by market access
Who knows the most people in your target accounts?

3. Start with high-surface-area connectors
Just one conversation can bring multiple potential intros.

I helped one agency map this out and they found 47 "forgotten" connections who collectively knew decision-makers at 200+ target companies. All from people they'd forgot existed. 

🚀 We still have a few Q4 openings for The Referral Engine, our done-alongside-you system for making biz dev consistent through targeted referrals and strategic partnerships. Details in the comments.

Agency owners, let me know if this sounds familiar:

A. You tried outbound and it failed. 

B. Outbound used to work and then it stopped working.

C. You don't want to do outbound because it feels off-brand and you're pretty sure it won't work anyway. 

This week's episode with Michael Maximoff will explain the WHY behind the above dynamics, and cover what's changed in the last few years. 

A few areas we dug into: 

-How outbound changed as volume and noise increased
-Why small TAMs require more selective, relationship-driven outreach
-The value of full-cycle AEs in mid-market, trust-heavy sales cycles
-How balanced sales + marketing investment strengthens pipeline consistency
-What agencies can learn from a shift toward signal-based engagement and timing 

👇 Get the full episode from the link in the comments

Most agency owners I talk to bounce between two modes:

A. Entrepreneur as Athlete

Goal-driven. Motivated by performance. Measures success by the numbers. Builds leverage through people.

B. Entrepreneur as Artist

Craft-driven. Motivated by creation. Measures success by depth and connection. Builds leverage through systems.

We all move between these roles at different times, but one of them will matter a lot more for the agencies that win in 2026 and beyond. 

Read the full essay below...

One thing that’s gotten harder over time for agency owners is knowing who to listen to. Whether you’re figuring out how to specialize, build a more re

Athlete vs. Artist - The New Dichotomy for Agency Growth

Agency owners: 

Remember when differentiation was enough?

When showing your case studies and explaining your process could win deals?

Those days are fading fast.

Here's what changed around 2020:

Digital agencies grew 54% between 2018-2023. 

Add AI to the mix, and we're in what many call a "trust recession", where trust not information is the scarce resource. 

This hits agencies especially hard because your value isn't delivered until weeks or months after purchase. Prospects have to take a leap of faith.

But there's good news - the best way to leverage trust is the one channel that's probably worked for you all along:

Referrals and strategic partnerships.

📊 Referred clients are 16% more valuable over their lifetime
📊 Deals close 53% more likely with a strategic partner involved
📊 82% of small-to-mid firms say referrals are their #1 source 

But here's the problem:

Most agencies handle referrals passively, waiting for them to happen or asking "Do you know anyone?", which gives your connector a ton of homework.
 
The shift? Make referrals systematic:

1. Map your existing network to target accounts
2. Ask for specific introductions (not vague asks)
3. Make it effortless for people to help you

One agency I worked with found 47 forgotten connections who knew decision-makers at 200+ target companies. That single batch of connections is enough to keep the pipeline full for months. 

The tools? Sales Navigator and a spreadsheet.

The time investment? 2-5 hours per week once it's running.

Not a side hustle or bloated process, just deliberate relationship-building in a high-trust, low-noise way. 


🚀 We still have a few Q4 openings for The Referral Engine, our done-alongside-you system for making biz dev consistent through targeted referrals and strategic partnerships. Details in the comments.

Most agency owners I talk to are planning their 2026 biz dev strategy right now, but doing it without data feels like guessing.

I sat down with Nicholas Petroski to dig into what’s actually happening inside agencies: shrinking TAMs, rising skepticism, and why referrals are still the one channel most firms handle passively. 

Nick has spent years studying how agencies grow, and his new research confirms a lot of the patterns I’m seeing day to day — who should really own referrals, why account growth is so uneven, and how to make this whole process more repeatable without turning your team into salespeople. 

If you’re an agency owner trying to build a more predictable pipeline next year, this conversation will give you a clearer map of where to focus and where teams typically get stuck.

Full episode in the comments 👇

Agency owners:

You might be neglected.

Depending on your market and offering, there are plenty of vendors talking AT you, but not TO you. Especially if you:

[ ] Sell into a relatively small total addressable market
[ ] Offer a complex service built on trust and long-term relationships
[ ] Have an average engagement size above $20K
[ ] Have a “sales team” of one or two very busy people

It’s confusing, because there are tons of services and software products for “agencies”, but that word is a vague catchall.

What actually matters are your constraints (team, time, money), your market (small-ish), and your offer (complex, high-ticket).

The agency with five BDRs selling a productized Facebook ad service to personal injury lawyers is as different from you as a gazelle is from a greyhound.

That’s why so many sales tactics and software tools never quite “fit.”
We buy bloated automation platforms, copy complex funnels, or try outreach processes designed for someone else.

Even when they work, they often collapse under team or time constraints. Entropy creeps in.

So what’s the answer?

1. Clarify your market.

Know exactly how many ideal companies and people exist. Picture them in a real room. Is it a high school gym or an NFL stadium?

2. Work backward from your constraints.

Design your growth strategy based on what you can sustain, not what looks good in a case study or YouTube ad.

3. Build a system that scales trust, not noise.

Referrals, partnerships, and warm introductions compound over time. Make them repeatable before you chase the next shiny tactic. 


P.S. I gave a talk yesterday at the All-In Agency Summit (alongside great thought leaders like Marcel Petitpas Carl Smith Chris DuBois @karlsakason) on exactly how to implement those last three points. If you want the replay, comment "Summit replay"

Most agency owners want growth without chaos, but that balance - scale and sanity - is hard to find.

That’s why I loved this conversation with Brooke MacLean, CEO of Marketwake, one of the fastest-growing agencies in the Southeast. She built an 80-person team with zero debt and no outside funding. 

We talked about:

💡 The 15 Percent Rule - why no client should make up more than 15 % of your revenue
⚙️ How bringing her whole team into sales shortened cycles and built trust
🧭 What real account-based marketing looks like inside an agency
💬 Why relationship sales will always outperform cold outreach

Brooke’s story is a masterclass in building an agency deliberately .

👇 Get the full episode in the comments

CEO at Marketwake | Speaker | Marketing Expert | Communications Strategist

Agency owners:

Most of you have a copywriting problem when it comes to B2B sales outreach.

And I'm not just talking about mass cold email - this shows up in LinkedIn connection requests, referral asks, and one-to-one custom messages too.

The issue? You're optimizing for branding and persuasion when the missing ingredient is clarity.

B2B is different: It's complicated and opaque, decision-makers are busy, and as usual, attention spans are short. 

Getting over the copywriting problem is sometimes painful because it means unlearning the marketing skills that work in a different context.

Tangibly, what this means is pretty simple but counterintuitive:

-Make your copy more boring
-Stop using adjectives
-Make everything clear

Imagine your prospect reading on their phone in line at the grocery store, or doom scrolling on a laptop over lunch or in the low-energy late afternoon hours (when LinkedIn posts tend to perform best).

Example:

"I help hotel CMOs get more repeat visitors via geotargeted ads" will almost always outperform "I enable travel and tourism organizations to drive impactful marketing performance through omnichannel marketing."

When someone reads your outreach, they should know exactly what you do and who you help.If they have to decode it, you've already lost. 

📖 P.S. I wrote a book to help agency owners get more prospect meetings from outreach and relationship-driven selling, without spam or burnout. Link in the comments...

When it comes to agency biz dev, the hard reality is simple: most of us overcomplicate the work.

I’ve written before about the “Low Data” agency, the one that changes course based on a single lost deal or a random referral.

But the opposite problem is just as common: the “High Data” agency that tracks so many metrics they lose the signal in the noise. The numbers aren’t useless, they’re just distractions compared to the handful of “brick-to-forehead” metrics that actually tell you how you’re doing each week.

Marcel Petitpas talks about this problem on the financial planning side -agencies obsessing over project-level profitability instead of paying attention to overall utilization. (That’s my takeaway from Marcel, possibly imperfectly recalled.) 

On the biz dev side, the same over-measurement usually comes from agencies trying to “be 40 before they’re 40” and mimicking the dashboards and granularity of funded SaaS teams or much larger agencies with more volume to work with. 

In practice, the cleanest and most durable framework I’ve seen is the LAPS system:

-Leads
-Appointments
-Proposals
-Sales

You can add a stage or two if you must, but the power comes from simplicity.I keep a basic spreadsheet and update the numbers every week.

A question I hear a lot is, “Why not just let the CRM track all this automatically?” 

Two reasons:

1. CRMs get messy fast, and pulling clean, consistent data is harder than it looks.
2. The insight is only half the value, and the other half is the ritual of measuring weekly and the actions that the ritual forces.


Within LAPS, the “A” - appointments - is the part owners can actually move every week through focused effort. 

For most upmarket agencies, a good target is five appointments per week, or one per day, kind of the like apple keeping the doctor away. 

At a modest 10% close rate on qualification calls, that’s roughly one new client every two weeks (not that you necessarily want to sustain that pace).

Once you know you need five appointments, the work becomes backing into that number. In most cases, that now comes from 1–3 lead channels rather than just one (targeted referrals remain the easiest, most reliable channel to ramp without heavy investment).


--
🚀P.S. We have six spots open between now and the holidays for a no-risk Referral Network Diagnostic.

In 60 minutes, we’ll:

-Surface referral opportunities into real target accounts
-Assess how strong your network actually is for your market
-Determine whether a full Referral Engine build makes sense

👇 Check out the link in the Comments to get the details and grab time with me...

A lot of agencies tell me the same thing:

“We want to leverage our team’s networks to win new clients.”

There’s a partner with a big Rolodex, a senior leader who “knows everyone,” an accounts person with deep category ties, so the agency tries to mobilize them.

People get excited, incentive plans get rolled out, and everyone nods along.

Then nothing happens.

It’s not lack of goodwill, it’s that sales is hard.

The team *says* they want to help, but very few will consistently chase down referrals unless they’re an owner or their job truly depends on it. They already have full plates, and prospecting is emotionally demanding.

So what actually works?

One person owns it.

Someone incentivized to care, invested in prospecting, and responsible for turning the potential energy of a rolodex into real conversations and relationships.

That person leads and everyone else supports when asked.

In practice, the referral motion looks like this:

Salesperson: “Here are the people I need introductions to, and here’s the email to send. Can you help?”


--
🚀 P.S. We still have a few Q4 openings for The Referral Engine, our done-alongside-you system for making biz dev consistent through targeted referrals and strategic partnerships. 

👇Get the details in the comments.

Most agencies underestimate the value sitting in their “loose ties.”

Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter’s famous research on weak ties showed that people don’t advance through their closest relationships, they advance through the looser ones. The people who know you just enough to vouch for you but live in a different corner of the map.

It’s the same when it comes to agency new business. 

Your loose connections, the people you haven’t spoken to in years, the clients you forgot about, the prospect who ghosted in 2019, are often far more valuable than your “inner circle.” They know different people, they sit in different rooms, and they open different doors.

A referral map is how you turn that abstract idea into a system: 

You rank connectors by how many people they actually know in your target market, and you start with the ones who create the most surface area. One conversation might unlock many meaningful intros, and a lot of those paths run through people you’d never think to ask.

Your closest contacts give you support, but your loose contacts can make your pipeline reliable long term. 

--
🚀P.S. We have six spots open between now and the holidays for a no-risk Referral Network Diagnostic.

In 60 minutes, we’ll:

-Surface referral opportunities into real target accounts
-Assess how strong your network actually is for your market
-Determine whether a full Referral Engine build makes sense

👇 Check out the link in the Comments to get the details and grab time with me...

Me:

 "I get a lot of calendar spam - people I don't know inviting me to lame events about AI or whatever. Assuming they're not automated, what are PG-rated ways one could show up and completely derail these events in a humorous fashion?"

ChatGPT:

"Here are clean, harmless, PG-rated ways to derail an event without being a jerk — just enough to confuse everyone and make it funny:

1. The Hyper-Specific Question
 Wait patiently, then ask an extremely niche, oddly earnest question no one can answer:
 “Can this workflow integrate with my 2009 Zune-based lead management system?”
 Then look disappointed when they can’t help.

2. The Overly Polite Clap
 Every time the presenter finishes even a half-sentence, give a small, sincere clap. Not sarcastic — just prematurely supportive.

3. The “Wrong Webinar” Persona
 Join and say, “Is this the Fermented Vegetables for Beginners workshop? No? Are you sure?” Stay anyway.

4. The Delayed Reaction
 React to everything 10 seconds late.
 Nod intensely at irrelevant moments. Laugh after the joke has died.

5. The Single-Item Poll Terrorist
 If they run a poll, only choose “Other,” and when prompted, write “Left-handed wizards.”

6. The Accidental Host
 Keep saying, “Great point. Let’s move to the next slide,” as if you’re the moderator.  If they push back, apologize but continue.

7. The Ridiculously Formal Introduction
 When they say “Any questions?” raise your hand:
 “Yes, thank you, Chairperson. Dan Englander, Sales Schema. Two-part question…”

 Then ask something mundane like “Will this be recorded?”

8. The Emotional Support Mug
 Show up with an absurdly large mug labeled “Soup?” and sip dramatically every 20 seconds.

9. The Enthusiastic Agreement Guy
 Nod aggressively the entire time.
 Give double thumbs-up when someone shares a screen.

10. The ‘Testing Audio’ Loop
 Randomly unmute every 8–10 minutes and say, “Testing… can you hear me now?” then mute before anyone answers.

All clean, all harmless - just enough to lightly scramble the vibes without ruining anyone’s day."

It is indeed still possible for ads to be genuinely funny and here is proof.

Farmers are the backbone of our nation's farming. You know – the gritty, calloused types. Who gaze upon their crop, bend down and grab a little handful of soil, letting it sift through their fingers...then look right back up. At the land.

I'm proud to honor those farmers with this here commercial for spicy candy.

Now go take a long hard look at Alex's credits list and ask yourself how you can work with every single one of those names. It'll be the most valuable thing you do all day, maybe.

(also these are the most delicious candies I've ever eaten in my life)

taplio

The Battle

Greg Hickman

Dan Englander

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreDan Englander's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Greg Hickman

Dan Englander

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Dan Englander's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreDan Englander's LinkedIn Performance