The two agency BD problems I keep seeing. And how to tell which one you have.

In my last post I made a claim: most agencies misdiagnose their growth problem. The symptoms look the same — inconsistent pipeline, unpredictable new business, too much depending on the founder. But the root causes are different, and prescribing the wrong fix doesn't just waste time. It can actively make things worse.

After four agency engagements I keep seeing the same split. Not four different problems. Two.

The first problem: outbound infrastructure.

This one actually is a pipeline problem, just not in the way most founders describe it. The agency has a reasonable sense of who their best clients are. They have a story that works when the founder tells it. But there's no system for getting in front of the right companies at the right moment. Outreach happens when someone has bandwidth, not when a prospect is actually ready to buy. There's no trigger monitoring, no consistent follow-up cadence, no way to tell the difference between a cold contact and a warm one.

The fix here is what most people think of when they think of BD infrastructure: ICP definition, trigger-based prospecting, a message library, a weekly rhythm that runs whether the founder is busy or not.

The second problem: relationship surface area.

This one is sneakier, and it's more common than most founders expect.

When I look at the win history with agencies in this pattern, every single closed deal traces back to a prior relationship. A former colleague who made an introduction. A past client who referred a new one. A partner agency that sent overflow work. The network is doing the work, not the system.

The problem is that the network has no structure around it. There's no cadence for staying in touch with warm contacts. Referral partners don't know exactly what to send or when to make the introduction. Past clients who would happily refer business have never been asked. The flow of work from these channels is completely passive, which makes revenue feel unpredictable even when the underlying relationships are strong.

The fix here is not more outbound. It's building activation structure around what already exists: a defined partner list with a contact cadence, a clear referral ask, a system for staying visible inside the relationships that are most likely to produce warm introductions.

How to tell which one you have.

Look at your last ten closed clients and ask one question: did any of these involve a prior relationship?

If the answer is most of them, you probably have a relationship surface area problem.

The wins are there. The system to make them predictable isn't.

If the answer is few or none, you probably have an outbound infrastructure problem.

You're starting most conversations cold, which means you need a system for finding the right companies at the right moment before you can convert them.

Both are solvable. But they require completely different work, and building the wrong one is how agencies spend six months and thousands of dollars moving in the wrong direction.