The Email That Explains Why 68% of Agencies Aren’t Growing
“Please if we wanted to reach out we would. I know you want to help but we get a lot of these emails everyday. Again, thanks but let us do the reaching out.”
This landed in my inbox a few weeks ago from an agency principal.
I wasn’t bothered by it.
I know every one of you reading this post gets 20 or 30 lead gen-centric emails every day, many of them terrible.
So I get it, and it was even nicely written, so I wasn’t aggrieved.
But I was taken aback a bit, for lack of a better phrase, by the mindset.
Can you imagine if every salesperson just took this advice?
The business world would grind to a halt.
And more importantly for agencies, our latest business development report (2025 RSW/US Survey Report – Rolling Into 2026)* reinforces why this “don’t call us, we’ll call you” mentality works against the growth these firms need.
The Reality Check: Growth Won’t Happen by Accident
Here’s what this agency principal doesn’t realize: 68% of agencies report that their current clients will spend the same or less this year.
Read that again.
More than two-thirds of agencies are looking at flat revenue from their existing client base.
So when an agency says “we’ll do the reaching out,” they’re essentially betting their growth on hope, or at least that’s their mindset.
As the saying goes,
Hope is Not A Strategy.
Agencies can continue to hope, however.
Hope that existing clients will suddenly increase their budgets.
Hope that perfect prospects will stumble across their website at the exact moment they’re ready to switch agencies.
Hope that referrals will magically appear in sufficient quantity to offset client losses.
Net new business isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the only reliable path to growth.
And net new business doesn’t happen through hope.
It happens through action.
The Opportunity Window: Prospects Are Moving (Just Not How You Think)
That same agency principal who told me to stop reaching out?
She’s operating in a market where 45% of firms say prospects are getting more serious about making changes.
According to our report and your peers, nearly half of potential clients are actively considering switches, and looking for better solutions.
Only 20% of firms in our report disagree with this assessment, meaning the overwhelming majority of agencies recognize that the market is in motion.
The tide is turning, however gradually.
These prospects aren’t reaching out to your firm, certainly not if they aren’t aware you exist.
What are they doing?
They’re doing research. They’re having internal conversations.
They’re getting ready, but they’re not reaching out, which creates something of a disconnect.
Agencies are waiting for contact from prospects who are actively looking but not actively reaching out.
Meanwhile, the agencies that are working it, reaching out when others aren’t, those are the ones getting the opportunities.
The Investment Reality: Agencies Are Betting on Growth
48% of agencies plan to increase their marketing and business development investment this year.
Nearly half of all firms are putting more money behind growth initiatives.
They’re investing in websites, content marketing, event sponsorships, and sales enablement tools—all designed to attract and convert prospects—but they ostensibly draw the line at direct outreach?
It’s like buying a lottery ticket and then being annoyed when someone calls to tell you the numbers.
The agencies that succeed will be the ones willing to engage in the full spectrum of business development activities, including, yes, proactive outreach.
The Hard Truth: Passive Strategies Have Active Competition
I’ll be blunt: if every salesperson followed the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” philosophy, nothing would ever get sold.
More specifically for agencies, this approach creates a dangerous vulnerability.
While you’re waiting for prospects to reach out, your competitors are actively building relationships with those same prospects.
They’re having conversations, understanding pain points, and positioning themselves as the solution, all before the prospect even knows your agency exists.
The most successful agencies we work with understand this.
They invest in both inbound and outbound strategies AND together, we build meaningful relationships through direct engagement.
The Call to Action: You Can’t Have It Both Ways
Here’s the bottom line: you can’t simultaneously bemoan flat client spending, acknowledge that prospects are ready to move, increase your business development investment, and then tell potential partners to stop reaching out.
Growth requires active pursuit, not passive hope.
This doesn’t mean accepting every cold call or responding to every email of course.
It means being strategic, and recognizing that the best opportunities often come through direct engagement, not accidental discovery.
The agencies that will thrive in this environment are the ones that embrace a plan for business development.
Because at the end of the day, growth must come from somewhere.
And somewhere is rarely the phone ringing on its own.
Ready to have a strategic conversation about your agency’s growth? Maybe it’s time to be the one reaching out.
