I’ve been trying to figure out new business for years. I read tons of marketing books evangelising strategies that sounded great, but when I tried to apply them to my agency, they didn’t work. I’d post on LinkedIn hoping to stay top of mind (even though I had nothing useful to say) and I’d churn out lead magnets offering generic advice that no one read or downloaded. Often it felt like the only option was to spam everyone I could on LinkedIn, take endless calls with unqualified prospects, and then hang around for months (sometimes years) until they finally had a brief.

Exhausted by these calls, I turned to the typical advice on positioning which cleverly positioned positioning as the solution. The promise was simple: get this right and inbound leads would flood in, ready to pay whatever price I asked. So we committed to a niche (videos for fintech) and things did get a bit easier. Suddenly it was clearer which agencies could refer us leads, which events we should sponsor, and what kind of content we ought to make. Most importantly, we now had a reason for prospects and partners to engage with us. We were “the fintech video specialists,” so we must know something useful, right? And yet, inbound leads were still a near-mythical occurrence.

Even as I sold my agency there was so much that confused me and as I started to help others with their new business there was still a lot I couldn’t explain:

• If positioning is so essential, why do so many agencies succeed without it?
• Why does outbound work brilliantly for some agencies and flop for others?
• If case studies are the key, why do the most visible founders often win work while the real experts are overlooked?
• Which tactics must be done by the founders, and which can be delegated? And if you delegate, what needs to be in place for the investment to pay off?
• How does what you sell shape the strategies that will grow your agency? And how do you create more sellable assets, regardless of positioning?

Most advisers (including yours truly at one point) try to sell you a silver bullet: “just do outbound.” Or “just build a personal brand.” Or “just niche down.” While we might be sceptical of these charlatans, we still assume they must be at least partly right. So we collect scraps of advice not designed for us, patch them together, and hope something sticks. We waste our limited time on a jumble of tactics and, if something finally works, we often can’t tell which part did or why. This is why we need to face the truth about agency growth.

The Truth About Agency Growth

The reality is that different agencies grow in different ways, under different conditions. What works for one won’t necessarily work for another. That’s why prescriptive, oversimplified frameworks so often fall flat.

The good news is there are plenty of strategies that do work (over 100 by my count), which means you have real choices. Indeed, despite what anyone is peddling, you can afford to pick tactics that feel right for you.

One of the biggest challenges for agency owners is understanding how business models, business development, and marketing interact. Agencies (and most B2B businesses) are fundamentally relationship based. This means the usual marketing rules only apply partially, and many tactics behave differently when relationships are the currency.

This creates nuance that often gets lost. The same activity can be done for completely different reasons, with very different outcomes. Take LinkedIn: posting on your feed might build your personal brand and ultimately help you land an initial chat with a prospect. Or it might be used to share value proposition driven content designed to generate a direct opportunity to pitch. On the surface it is the same tactic, but strategically it plays two very different roles. And many activities can pull double duty, contributing to both aims at once.

For years, I bounced between tactics without a way to connect them. Outbound sometimes worked, sometimes didn’t. Positioning felt essential for one agency, irrelevant for another. The truth is, every element of new business has to be understood in context.

The New Business Code

That’s why I created the New Business Code: the first structured and comprehensive way (at least that I’ve found) to decode how agencies really grow.

The Code helps you:

• See the full range of growth tactics or plays that actually work.
• Understand how tactics combine.
• Spot which ones create real leverage for your agency.

The point isn’t to hand you a one-size-fits-all answer. It’s to give you a map so you can choose the path that fits your model, your resources, and your ambitions. Instead of betting on the next silver bullet, you can see the moves available, understand how they interact, and design new business on your own terms.

The Three Building Blocks

The New Business Code is built on three layers: Models, Assets, and Channels. Together, they define the building blocks of agency growth and we can combine them in different ways to create different “plays” or tactics.

1. Models
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Each type of agency can make use of the plays of the ones below it. Though crucially, this isn’t meant as a hierarchy and there isn’t necessarily a reason to climb. That said, the more you move up this list the more work marketing can do in driving prospects towards you and the less growth depends on sheer numbers, luck, or who happens to be “in market” at the time.

1. Service Agency: Selling a service or collection of services to a wide range of clients.
2. Positioned Agency: Selling a particular service to a small range of clients.
3. Solution Agency: Selling a solution to solve a particular problem to a small range of clients.
4. Product Agency: Selling a defined (productised) solution to solve a particular problem to a small range of clients.

The aim here is to make your choices clear and explain why evolving your agency type might be a good idea (depending on what plays you’d like to employ).

2. Assets
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These are the raw materials you can combine to create growth plays. Some assets that you leverage yourself. Here's a few examples:

• Events: Bringing prospects together around a theme or experience.
• Niche: A defined audience, vertical, or problem-space you’re known for.
• Personal Brand: Visibility, trust, and authority built around you or your team.
• Core Services: The actual work you deliver.

And some are people you can ask to leverage the same assets for you:

• Clients: Happy clients who refer others because of your results.
• Employees: Sales reps or business development staff who actively hunt leads.
• Specialists: Third-party providers you can outsource lead generation to.
• Partners: Complementary businesses who promote you or make introductions for mutual gain.

Importantly assets can (and should) stack. Many agency owners will try to sell their core services directly to a market whose prospects are (mostly) not ready to buy. Smarter agency owners might combine events with their core service and aim to sell tickets first (and services later). This works because most prospects are up for attending an event regardless of whether they’ve got a brief.

In this way, assets aren’t just standalone. They can form chains that compound in value over time. The best agencies often stack lots of assets together in unique and interesting ways.

It’s also worth noting that assets can act like delivery vehicles for each other. For instance, an event could be an asset or a way to deliver some content (another asset). This system is flexible enough to capture these complicated (but effective) strategies.

3. Channels
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These are the channels you can run your assets through:

1. Warm Outreach: asking your existing contacts for something.
2. Cold Outreach: asking new contacts for something.
3. Organic Content: posting content for your owned audience.
4. Paid Media: paying to show your content to someone else’s audience.

Marketing terms like “channel” are often used in an incredibly vague way. It can seem like there are hundreds of channels to choose from, which can be paralysing. But when you boil it down (building on Hormozi’s framework) there are really only four ways to sell anything.

From Blocks to Strategies

A play is a single combination of model x assets x channel. For example:

Example Play 1​
Niche x Events x Cold Outreach = Inviting prospects to a bespoke event that you’re hosting for their niche

Why this works: When you combine a defined niche with events, your cold outreach becomes much more targeted and valuable. Instead of generic outreach trying to sell services, you can invite fintech marketers to a specialized fintech marketing event. This transforms your approach from “doing them a disservice” to “doing them a favor” by providing relevant networking opportunities.

Example Play 2​
Niche x Events x Event Guest x Warm Outreach = Asking an event guest to promote your event in exchange for something (e.g a free ticket)

Why this works: Notice how this builds on the first example. Having marketed an event and booked a guest, you now have a new asset: an event guest! You reach out to this person and leverage them into further guests by asking them to invite someone they know or share it in a Slack group they are part of.

Each play is just one move, but the real power comes from how they stack and chain together. One asset creates another, one play unlocks the next, and over time you build a system of compounding opportunities instead of isolated (sometimes conflicting) tactics.

Get Proven Growth Play Every Week

Over the last seven agencies I’ve scaled or advised, I’ve tested hundreds of plays. I’m now compiling over 100 of them into the Vault: a library of proven new business tactics you can combine into a unique playbook for your agency.

From the Vault, I share one play each week in my newsletter, Growth Plays. It’s the simplest way to get a steady stream of practical ideas for winning new business.