At TDP, we take a holistic approach to agency new business. Even so, we have a bias towards proactive sales because that’s what we do. In this post, we’ll look at two other key ingredients agencies must develop to sustain their growth: organic growth and client retention. 

Along with a proactive sales program, organic growth and client retention serve as the core pillars of agency growth. When they work together, these three elements become a sustainable growth engine for your agency. 

Let’s take a look at how that happens. 

The Growth Triangle: Stronger Together

We might think of our core pillars as three legs on a stool. Each has a critical role to play in an agency’s success. They might exist independently, but they are better, stronger, and greater than the sum of their parts when combined. 

Client retention and organic growth build a solid foundation for proactive sales efforts. When we’re building new business relationships, we want to do that from a position of strength. Following a strategic sales program through times of success is also important to ensure consistent pipeline development.

Many agencies fumble this because they get busy servicing accounts when things are good and have a false sense of security about their business. But it’s precisely at these moments that you must keep your foot on the gas to capitalize on your success through sales outreach. If you wait until you’re losing business, you’ll not only be coming from a weaker position but you’ll face a longer delay due to typical new business cycles and an underfed pipeline. 

The 2025 Agency Growth Formula

Growth in 2025 means fortifying all three legs of your stool. That’s especially true in a project-driven new business landscape. One of the smartest ways to grow an agency today is with a deliberate “land and expand” strategy, turning smaller projects into stronger relationships with larger budgets. That makes agencies’ ability to retain and grow accounts more important than ever. 

When you think about how you might allocate your efforts across the three key growth pillars, consider a 40/35/25 split where each pillar is fairly evenly distributed, but putting greatest priority on client retention. As you move forward, monitor your results to make adjustments here as needed.

In terms of resource allocation, ensure specific team members are responsible for “owning” each key growth area. Shared KPIs and integrated reports will encourage collaboration and transparency across pillars, roles, and departments. 

When it comes to budget allocation, investment should be balanced across all three areas–and you likely already have the necessary tools to support this effort. Those might include sales enablement technology, relationship management systems, account management tools, and marketing automation platforms (for example, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Basecamp). 

Business development training will also help your team get better at finding and closing opportunities that emerge through organic and external channels.

Making It Work Together

Success comes from creating synergies between all three pillars. For example, with a unified data strategy, you can:

• track client satisfaction metrics
• measure organic growth opportunities
• analyze cross-selling success rates
• monitor sales pipeline health

A unified data strategy will also allow you to report on integrated growth metrics, instead of using siloed reporting.

When your team is aligned across the three pillars, you can develop cross-functional teams and work towards collaborative growth targets. Alignment is also important to facilitate information sharing. Making space for these conversations will help you generate new opportunities (even out of losses), collaborate on strategies, and learn from outcomes. 

In support of your efforts, you might define a set of weekly activities, such as client satisfaction check-ins, prospecting sessions, pipeline updates, and opportunity reviews. On a monthly basis, you might want to look at things like resource allocation, growth metrics analysis, team performance evaluations, and strategy adjustments. 

Integrating the Three Key Elements

With all three agency growth pillars thriving together, that’s when the magic of sustainable growth really happens. 

Here are some examples of how your agency can benefit from this cross-pollination:

• Stronger client relationships yield more success stories and testimonials to use in new business pitches
• You can apply insights from new business research to existing clients, getting more value from it—and potentially generating additional opportunities
• New learnings and ways of working with additional brands can infuse fresh perspectives and ideas across your client portfolio
• A “new business mindset” crushes complacency and gives you a competitive edge because you’re always looking for opportunities and ready to impress your most critical audiences: those who don’t know you
• Building case studies and award entries make current clients look great (while also generating proof of effectiveness for future sales efforts)

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Aligning your team around a 3-pillar growth strategy is a great way to get more value from the work you’re already doing and reinvigorate your growth potential. But, as you make plans to strengthen your core growth pillars, watch out for these common traps agencies fall into:

• Overemphasizing one growth pillar at the expense of others
• Neglecting any of the pillars (a common one is failing to maintain consistent sales efforts during busy periods)
• Not investing in proper tools and training
• Siloing information between teams
• Neglecting to measure and adjust strategies

These pitfalls are easily avoided with thoughtful planning and the leadership team’s support.

Looking Forward

The agencies that will thrive in 2025 are those that master this three-pronged approach to growth. By maintaining focus on retention, nurturing organic growth, and consistently driving new business development, you will create a resilient agency model that can weather market changes and capitalize on opportunities.

Remember, it's not about choosing between these strategies – it's about finding the right balance for your agency. When all three elements work in harmony, you create a sustainable growth engine that drives both short-term wins and long-term success.

The key is to stay committed to all three areas, even when one might seem to be performing better than the others. This balanced approach ensures you're not just growing, but building a stronger, more resilient agency for the future.

What's your agency's approach to balancing these three crucial elements? Share your experiences and strategies in the comments below.

Read more:

• Building Better Agency-Client Relationships In The Name Of New Business
• How Client Management Affects Agency New Business
• Are Agency Account Managers A Dying Breed?
• 5 Ways For Agencies To Regain Power In Client-Agency Relationships
• Stop Clients From “Ghosting” Your Agency