In this week’s AgencyHabits Podcast, Peter and Sei-Wook break down one of the hardest transitions in an agency: scaling business development beyond the founder.

The core insight: business development isn’t one function. It’s five.

Most founders don’t realize this because they’ve been doing all five themselves.

That’s why hiring “a salesperson” usually fails.

They break it down into five functions:

1. Marketing & awareness: Content, events, PR. Everything that makes your agency top-of-mind when a need shows up.
2. Partnerships: Referral relationships with other agencies, consultants, and platforms.
3. Outbound: Cold email, LinkedIn, direct outreach.
4. Sales process: Discovery, scoping, negotiation, closing. (Also, the part founders are most reluctant to give up.)
5. Account growth: Upsells, cross-sells, deepening relationships. Often underdeveloped, despite being the highest-leverage opportunity.

They also walk through sequencing:

• Account growth
• Partnerships
• Marketing
• Outbound
• Closing (last to shift)

And one key warning:

Don’t bundle roles too early. It creates confusion and weakens performance.

Want to continue the conversation?

Scaling business development doesn’t start with hiring.

It starts with understanding how work actually flows into your agency.

And for most agencies, a big part of that flow isn’t outbound. It’s ecosystem.

Our next FREE AgencyHabits Knowledge Share is happening tomorrow, March 25 at 12:30 PM ET, and we're diving into a topic that shapes how agencies grow, get referred, and win work: Your Agency Ecosystem.

We'll break down:

• Where your agency actually exists in conversation
• How to map the networks, platforms, and communities that drive your referrals
• The difference between a contact list and a true ecosystem
• When to go deeper vs. expand to adjacent spaces

The right ecosystem compounds. The wrong one wastes your time.

Who are we?

Hi, we're Peter and Sei-Wook, co-founders of Barrel Holdings, a portfolio of agency businesses. We also run AgencyHabits, a resource for agency operators featuring lessons learned from our various agency businesses.

Thanks for being a subscriber. If you or anyone you know is interested in selling their agency business, please check out what types of agencies we're looking for and email hi@barrel-holdings.com.

Also: Peter posts a lot of agency content on LinkedIn, give him a follow!