What actually drives agency growth when pipelines are noisy, buyers are skeptical, and everyone sounds the same?

In this episode, Dan Englander sits down with Alex Marshall, a longtime agency growth leader with two decades of experience across holding companies and independents, to unpack what really moves the needle. They explore why trust and relevance matter more than tactics, how storytelling shows up late in the sales cycle, and why relationships compound over time even when results aren’t immediate.

This is a grounded conversation about growth as a discipline, not a hack.

🧭 What You’ll Learn

• The real differences between growth at holding companies vs independents
• Why agency specialization can both help and hurt sales
• How storytelling works after the first sales call
• Why “just checking in” emails fail
• What actually reactivates dormant or boomerang clients
• How to stay relevant to skeptical CMOs
• Why relationship-building beats short-term metrics
• How agencies should think about referrals and alliances

🕒 Timestamps

00:00 – Alex’s background and global agency experience
04:30 – Holding companies vs independents: growth tradeoffs
06:00 – Relationship-building across regions and cultures
10:20 – When specialization helps — and when it limits you
16:45 – Storytelling as a sales tool, not just marketing
20:40 – Coalition-building in complex B2B sales
23:30 – Re-engaging dormant and boomerang clients
26:40 – Why timing and relevance matter more than frequency
29:20 – Managing time across the full funnel
32:10 – Measuring progress without over-relying on metrics
35:00 – Selling to skeptical CMOs in uncertain markets
38:00 – Why referrals and trust compound over time
41:00 – Strategic partnerships and being “something to someone”
45:45 – Making referral asks easier — and more effective

What if the agencies that crush Q1 aren't working harder in January, they're making one or two critical decisions right now, in December?

In this solo episode, Dan reveals why Q1 consistently catches agencies off-guard and what separates those who stumble into the new year from those who hit the ground running. The secret isn't about working through the holidays or setting ambitious goals—it's about installing a systematic referral system during Q4's quieter moments.

What You'll Leave With:

• Why trust, not awareness, became the scarce resource after 2020 and how it changes your approach
• The four stages agencies move through and how to identify which phase you're stuck in
• The "high school gym vs. NFL stadium" test for choosing the right lead generation strategy based on market size
• How to structure connector calls to get 2-5 quality referrals from a single conversation
• The simple human emotion that makes people actually follow through on promised introductions
• A two-pronged outreach system that keeps your pipeline full even when you're buried in client work
• Why making it easier for people to help you eliminates the awkwardness of asking for referrals
• The one free data tool you need to get started without expensive SaaS platforms

Timestamps:

• [00:00] Introduction: The strange Q4 gap period and what's coming
• [02:33] The Cobbler's children phase and why most agencies get stuck there
• [05:00] The four stages of agency growth and how they're detached from revenue
• [09:15] The 2020 trust recession and why cold outreach stopped working
• [12:30] High school gym vs. NFL stadium: Choosing the right strategy for your market
• [16:45] The systematic referral framework: How to generate warm intros weekly
• [21:20] Structuring connector calls to get 2-5 referrals per conversation
• [24:10] The emotional game changer that makes introductions actually happen
• [27:17] Common objections: "This seems like too much work" and "I'm worried about asking for help"
• [29:35] How this scales beyond your initial network (sprint, jog, run phases)
• [31:54] The Referral Engine Program and Referral Network Diagnostic offer

Quotes:

"A lot of agencies end up in level two, which we call the Cobbler's children phase. They have a track record, they've produced results for clients, but new business is very reactive—it's very much catch as catch can." — Dan Englander

"After 2020, we saw a massive shift. Trust became the scarce resource, not awareness. Everyone's inbox is full, everyone's LinkedIn is saturated, and people have gotten really good at tuning out anything that feels like cold outreach." — Dan Englander

"If you're getting on a call a day—like an apple a day keeps the doctor away—or five calls a week, that is usually more than enough to hit 99% of sales goals." — Dan Englander

If you’re planning your 2026 biz dev strategy without real market data, you’re guessing. In this episode, I talk with friend of the show Nicholas Petroski, founder of Promethean Research and creator of the Digital Agency Referral Playbook, about what the numbers actually say—and how top agencies are using referrals, account growth, and GTM clarity to build next year’s plan. This is the clearest look you’ll get at what’s really moving the needle heading into 2026.

🧭 What You’ll Learn

• The referral trends shaping 2026 pipeline planning
• Why most agencies misread pipeline health
• What data actually predicts account growth
• The role of referrals in a tighter 2026 GTM
• Who should really own the referral process
• How to identify your most valuable connectors
• Why “good work” isn’t enough to drive intros
• What the best shops are fixing before January

🕒 Timestamps

00:00 – Why 2026 planning requires real data
01:02 – Nick’s new research & why referrals matter now
03:11 – From Random to Repeatable: core findings
05:45 – Why agencies still handle referrals passively
07:29 – The shrinking TAM + rising skepticism problem
09:22 – Who should own referrals (and who shouldn’t)
12:40 – Cross-sell models that actually grow accounts
14:36 – Pipeline health vs conversion vs system health
18:07 – How to operationalize intros without friction
23:59 – The risk of relying on 1–2 referral sources
27:26 – Why referrals must be part of your GTM
29:15 – The mindset shift from “salesy” to consultative
33:00 – What the data says agencies must fix for 2026

🔑 Key Quotes

📢 Links and Resources

From Random to Repeatable: How Agencies Turn Referrals into a Reliable Growth Engine

If you want a repeatable referral system heading into 2026, grab my book 📘 Relationship Sales at Scale

Most agencies try to fix pipeline by working harder, but not by working smarter.

This conversation digs into why outbound has gotten tougher, what’s changed in the last decade, and how agencies can build a healthier, more defensible acquisition motion. We cover the shift from brute-force outreach to signal-driven, trust-based systems, why TAM size changes everything, and how sales and marketing need to operate as a single unit for mid-market deals. It’s a clear look at the mechanics behind winning in a crowded outreach landscape.

Michael Maximoff is the co-founder of Belkins and the team behind Folderly. He’s spent more than a decade solving the same problems agencies face today: building predictable pipeline in a crowded, trust-heavy market, balancing marketing and sales investment, and adapting outbound to a world that no longer responds to direct pitches.

• Why cold outreach used to work with simple tools and high volume, and why that era is over
• How inbox competition jumped from ~100 cold pitches/month per decision-maker to 800+ today
• Why small TAMs require a different playbook and more precision, not more activity
• The importance of costly signals, warm intros, and touch-point-driven credibility instead of direct pitches
• How sales and marketing must operate in tandem to create “surround sound” and increase conversion likelihood
• Why mid-market agencies should hire full-cycle AEs who can build their own book of business
• The danger of giving SDRs outdated brute-force mandates in a world where the role is now a technical, marketing-adjacent function
• How deeper integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce, Clay) are reshaping outreach, personalization, and data orchestration
• Why agencies must choose the channel they have a true “genetic advantage” for.

Links & Resources

• Belkins — https://belkins.io
• Folderly — https://folderly.com
• Michael on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximoff

In this episode, Dan Englander sits down with Garrett Jestice, former CMO and founder of Prelude, to unpack how to turn that randomness into a repeatable Go-To-Market (GTM) system that actually compounds.

Garrett helps B2B agencies and service businesses replace scattered marketing efforts with a focused GTM strategy built on customer proof — clarifying audience, offer, messaging, and channels so growth stops being a guessing game.

They break down why most agencies start with the wrong things (channels before clarity), how to pick the right market segment, and how to make growth repeatable without losing focus or burning resources.

What You’ll Learn

• Why most agencies get stuck after $1M — and how to fix it
• The four foundations of a real GTM system: Audience, Offer, Messaging, Channels
• How to pick one market segment and own it (without overthinking TAM)
• Why you can’t scale custom work — and what to do instead
• The “maintenance and support” offer that helped one agency grow faster
• When to productize vs. stay bespoke
• How to make referrals and warm intros systematic, not lucky
• Why every audience–offer combo needs its own GTM strategy
• How to align sales, marketing, and delivery around the same message

👉 Want to build referrals systematically instead of relying on luck? Grab my book 📘 Relationship Sales at Scale: https://salesschema.com/book

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In this episode, Dan Englander talks with Brooke MacLean, CEO of Marketwake, one of the Southeast’s fastest-growing digital agencies and a five-time Inc. 5000 honoree. Brooke shares how she bootstrapped Marketwake from a solo consulting gig into an 80-person powerhouse serving clients like Yamaha, University of Georgia, and Machete Jewelry — all through relationships, trust, and disciplined growth.

They dig into the nuances of business development, leadership, and scaling without losing your creative spark.

🧭 What You’ll Learn

• Bootstrapping an 80-person agency: how Brooke built Marketwake with no funding and no debt
• The 15% rule: why no client should ever represent more than 15% of your revenue
• Bringing your team into sales: how involving account leads early shortens cycles and builds trust
• Time as a sales lever: why real urgency beats fake scarcity every time
• Account-based marketing, redefined: how Marketwake blends data, relationships, and timing to reach dream clients
• Referrals, chemistry, and “the spark”: how authentic connection drives growth more than any funnel hack

In this solo episode, Dan Englander breaks down a truth most agency owners quietly suspect: the majority of sales and marketing advice out there was never written for firms like yours.

Most “agency growth” tactics are built for high-volume, productized services with large addressable markets—not for boutique, complex-service agencies selling trust, nuance, and strategy to a few hundred ideal clients.

Dan calls this dynamic “The Great Mismatch.”

He unpacks why the standard playbooks fail, what constraints actually define upmarket agencies, and how to replace random referrals with a systematic, high-trust growth engine.

In this episode
• The Great Mismatch: How agency sales advice got optimized for SaaS and high-volume lead-gen firms, not for complex, relationship-driven work.
• The Three Constraints Framework: Why your resources, offer, and market size determine your best-fit growth strategy.
• The Trust Recession: Why decision-makers are slower to move, and how to build credibility in smaller, skeptical markets.
• High School Gym vs. NFL Stadium: How to visualize your true total addressable market and stop over-optimizing for scale.
• The Two-Pronged Framework: How to balance direct outreach with systematic referrals and partnerships.
• The Referral Engine Playbook: Step-by-step—identifying “Referral-Ready Connectors,” mapping your market in LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and running collaborative intro calls that produce real pipeline.
• Partnerships Without the Awkwardness: Why commission-based partner pitches don’t work and how to build trust-first collaboration loops.

Key Idea
“Most of what’s being sold as ‘agency growth’ advice assumes you have a sales team, a simple offer, and a massive market. But if your service is complex, your team is lean, and your clients are few, you need a different operating system entirely.” — Dan Englander

Resources Mentioned
Relationship Sales at Scale → salesschema.com/book
Referral Network Diagnostic Workshop → salesschema.com/diagnostic

Takeaway
For boutique agencies, growth doesn’t come from chasing more leads—it comes from getting more leverage out of the relationships you already have.

The sooner you recognize The Great Mismatch, the sooner you can build a system that actually fits your market, your team, and your offer.

Every few months, I like to pause and look back at the ideas that resonated most with agency owners on LinkedIn — the ones that got people talking, DM’ing, and quietly saying yeah, that’s been my experience too.

This episode isn’t about tactics. It’s a quick tour through the lessons that seem to keep coming up again and again in our world, the stuff we all wrestle with if we’ve been selling complex services for a long time.

Stuff I cover

• The trouble with the awkward commission pitch and a better way.
• The Low-Data Agency trap — why relying on reactive referrals clouds judgement.
• Going from reactive to proactive — what happens when you finally own your pipeline.
• The real meaning of specialization — how narrowing your market opens everything up.
• Why you should ship a “crappy” campaign and the power of imperfect action.
• The limits of intent data and why trust beats timing every time.
• Planning for an exit by dead-simple milestones.