You’ve done the thinking, built the plan, and walked into the meeting prepared. Then the client hesitates, latches onto something minor, or asks a question that shows they’re somewhere else entirely.

In this solo episode, I share a story from my work with an agency director whose solid plan fell flat four minutes into a meeting with her founder.

We look at why that happens, the four main ways people take in an idea, and how to adjust in the moment when the person across the table needs something different.

I also talk about why this is a leadership skill, especially if you’re still the only person in your agency who can get a client to say yes.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The four ways people take in an idea: results, possibility, evidence and people
• How to spot your own default and the blind spot that comes with it
• How to read the room and adjust when an idea isn’t landing
• Why being the only one who can land ideas keeps your agency from growing

Key quote

“We tend to present ideas in the way that makes sense to us. Strong communicators learn to present them in the way that makes sense to the people receiving them.”

Your challenge this week

In your next client meeting, notice where you start and what your client keeps coming back to. Then send me a message on LinkedIn and tell me what you noticed. I read every one.

Connect with me

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwanaudrey/

Clients hire the bigger agency expecting more speed and more resources. Then their project waits its turn in a queue behind everyone else's.

Jonathan Cogan has seen it from both sides. He spent more than two decades in healthcare marketing, in both independent and network agencies, before starting his own small but mighty agency.

Jonathan and I dig into where the big agency model gets in its own way and what a small team can do that a large one struggles to match.

In this episode:

• Why clients expect to see action within weeks, and what that means for the time you spend on strategy
• How to talk about the advantages of a small agency without bringing up your size
• What builds a client's trust when you're a small agency
• The question that tells you whether you're making a client's life easier or harder

If you've ever played down your size, this conversation gives you another way to look at it.

Show Notes:

-Sephrina Website: sephrina.ca

-Jonathan's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jon-e-cogan

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep163

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

By the time your ideal client asks for a proposal, how much of their decision has already been made?

Probably more than most agency owners realize.

CMOs are paying attention long before they formally enter the market for an agency. They're looking for signs that a potential partner understands their business, can move quickly, and won't add more risk to an already high-pressure role.

So, what makes a small agency feel like the right choice?

Christian Banach, founder of Next Big Win, and I dug into that question. He has spent more than 20 years helping agencies win new business, and his CMO Journey interview series keeps him in regular conversation with senior marketing leaders.

In this episode, we get into:

• Why CMOs treat hiring an agency as a risk decision
• What a specialist signals before the first call
• What CMOs are still outsourcing, and what's moving in-house
• Where to look for early signs a company may need support
• What to send a CMO once you've spotted a signal
• How thought leadership keeps you visible while timing sorts itself out

Knowing which CMOs to reach out to, and what to say when you do. This episode covers both.

Show Notes:

-The Next Big Win: thenextbigwin.com

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep162

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

There's one thing that consistently saved me from finding out in December that a client had already checked out.

It didn't work perfectly every year, but the years I ran it, I saw the risk coming instead of getting blindsided by it.

In this solo episode, I'm talking about that habit: an existing-client growth review run every September, no matter how packed the month got.

It was a deliberate look at where things actually stood with the clients I already had, quick and practical rather than something that needed a blocked-off week.

Three lenses I'd run every client through:

• Renewal risk
• Expansion opportunities
• Additional services

I get into what I was actually looking for in each one, plus where this went well for me over the years, and where it didn't.

If September already feels like it's running you instead of the other way around, this one's for you.

If you want to connect with other agency owners in person, join us at the Agency Together Mastermind Mingler on September 17th in Vancouver: https://agencytogether.com/mastermind-mingler

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep161

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

Referrals feel great until they stop. And when they do, most agency owners realize they never actually built a pipeline, they built a network and hoped it would behave like one.

Jasma Moody spends her days inside the pipeline of Copper, listening to sales calls, digging through customer data, and figuring out exactly why some leads convert and others quietly disappear.

In this episode, she breaks down the real difference between a network and a pipeline, and why so many agency owners confuse the two until a client churns and they're left scrambling.

Jasma walks through the simplest possible way to start tracking pipeline (hint: it's not a fancy CRM), the three signs it's time to outgrow a spreadsheet, and a weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythm that keeps business development moving even when client work is eating every hour of the day.

She also reframes something almost every agency owner gets wrong: what to do the moment someone says "not right now."

This one's for anyone who's ever looked up from a busy season and realized their pipeline went cold without them noticing.

Jasma is leading a conversation on pipeline growth at the Agency Together Mastermind Mingler in Vancouver on September 17th, one of five conversation streams you can choose your way through. Learn more here.

Show Notes:

-Jasma's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jasmamody

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep160

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

There's a version of the "we need to talk about scope" conversation that plays out in almost every agency, and it usually gets treated as a project management and profitability problem.

Talia Palermo doesn't see it that way. She compares it to going in for what you think is a shoulder injury and finding out the real issue is somewhere else in your body entirely. Project management issues, she says, are often just the symptom. The real cause is usually hiding a few steps back.

Talia is the innovation manager at Function Point, where she talks to agency owners all day and hears what's actually breaking before most of them have language for it. One number she shared stopped me mid-sentence: 56% of agencies say they don't have enough information at the start of a project to scope it properly.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why over-servicing keeps showing up as the top frustration agency owners bring to Talia, and what's really driving it
• How value-based pricing works differently on the outside than it does internally, and where agencies get that twisted
• The mindset shift that makes time tracking feel like advocacy instead of surveillance
• Why profitability has to be part of the entire project life cycle, from estimating to active work to review, not just something you check at the end

This one will change how you think about the numbers you're not looking at.

Want more conversations like this one? Talia is leading a conversation on project management, profitability, and pricing at the Agency Together Mastermind Mingler in Vancouver on September 17th, one of five conversation streams agency owners can choose their own adventure through. Learn more here.

Show Notes:

-Talia's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/taliapalermo

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep159

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

You're doing a piece of client work you've done a hundred times. You open a tool, and it does in minutes what used to take an afternoon. And instead of relief, there's a stomach drop: if it can do that, what am I still charging for?

Here's the real risk. Your clients are having that same realization, whether you talk about it or not.

And if you stay quiet about what's changed in how you deliver your work, you're not protecting yourself, you're just waiting for them to notice on their own, and start wondering what else you haven't told them.

In this episode, I break down what it actually takes to stay irreplaceable to a client right now. It's not one thing, it's a sequence, and there's a last step that's harder than the rest, the one this whole episode is really about.

Hit play if you've felt that stomach drop and haven't figured out what to do about it yet.

And if this one hits home, come talk it through live. We're digging into this exact question at the Strategic Partnership Mixer on August 6th, online.

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep158

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis

Most agency owners have felt the sting of being ghosted after a great sales call, the kind where the conversation goes well, real interest seems to be there, a proposal goes out, and then nothing comes back.

It happens often enough that it gets treated as simply the cost of doing business, something you absorb by giving your best thinking away for free and hoping enough of it converts into paying work.

What that approach quietly costs, though, is time: hours that could have gone into your actual clients, your actual offer, or just having an evening back.

Daniela found her way to a different approach, but not by design. Like a lot of agency owners, she learned it the hard way, through the overwhelm of free consultations before building a sales process that leads not just to a signed client but to a 12-month retainer, and that process is what she unpacks in this episode of the Small But Mighty Agency podcast.

Daniela Furtado is the founder of Findable Digital Marketing, an agency that works exclusively with design and construction firms, though it took her years to arrive at that focus.

For a long stretch early on, she ran her business across two completely unrelated industries at once, and it wasn’t until she finally chose which one to build around that everything else, including the sales system she still uses today, became possible.

That system starts with an $800 consultation, an offer that both saves Daniela time and primes prospects for the retainer conversation that follows. She walks through the details in the episode, along with how she pitches a 12-month commitment in a way that rarely comes down to the number twelve at all.

It took Daniela two years to build this system. The episode covers what she learned in that time, so you do not have to spend two years finding out for yourself.

Show Notes:

-Findable Digital Marketing Website: findabledigitalmarketing.com

-Instagram: findabledigitalmarketing

-Daniela's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/daniela-pimentel-furtado

Get the full show notes and more information here: https://audreyjoykwan.com/podcast/ep157

Podcast Edits by Lindsay Curtis