Even established agencies get stuck in the Feast or Famine cycle.
You can be doing $5M, $10M, or even $20M a year—and still feel the squeeze when the pipeline slows down. I see it with clients all the time: you’ve built something substantial, but new work still comes in fits and starts. When deals are flowing, life is good. When they aren’t, the old stress returns fast.
Strong referrals and inbound leads can mask the gaps for a while. But if you want a more resilient, predictable business—one that lets you step back strategically, not hustle harder—breaking this cycle is essential.
Let’s look at two ways to do it.
Why Feast or Famine happens
The reasons are structural, not personal. Most agencies win new work in bursts, often when the leadership team is focused on business development. But once new projects arrive, attention shifts to delivery—and sales efforts fade.
By the time client work slows down, the pipeline is empty again. The cycle repeats.
This happens even inside agencies with talented teams and a solid leadership structure. Why? Because most agency growth models are still owner-reliant. The founder or CEO—whether hands-on or stepping back—is often the primary driver of new business.
One agency CEO told me recently:
“We’ve got a 40-person team. I’m not in the weeds any more, but my sales team struggles. When I stop working in BD almost every day, deals stop moving. When I’m pulled back in to fixing delivery problems, BD drops off a cliff.”
Sound familiar? You’re not alone. And you can break the cycle.
A straightforward solution: make business development a habit
The simplest way to prevent the Famine is to build a habit of consistent marketing and sales—even when you’re busy delivering.
This doesn’t mean running a full-scale outbound push during every crunch time. It means embedding small, regular activities to maintain visibility and keep potential deals moving forward.
For example:
- Email 1-2 past prospects or “not now” leads each week to check in.
- Publish one useful insight per month on LinkedIn or your agency’s blog—ideally authored by your leadership team, not just you.
- Block 1-2 hours per week for business development—no exceptions, no excuses.
- Encourage account managers to surface expansion opportunities with current clients—and equip them to act on it.
- Schedule quarterly “pipeline review” sessions with your leadership team to maintain shared visibility.
The goal isn’t volume; it’s momentum. By keeping some bizdev activity going at all times, you smooth out the pipeline and reduce the depth of each Famine period.
One agency I worked with added a “Pipeline Rhythm” check-in to their weekly L10 leadership meeting. Twelve months later, they’d increased the speed of their pipeline—and the team stopped dreading their quarterly revenue reviews.
A more involved solution: build a balanced Growth Engine
As your agency scales, a bigger shift is needed: designing a Growth Engine that runs continuously—not episodically, and not founder-driven.
This is about building a system that supports sustained growth without relying on heroic efforts from the CEO or a single rainmaker. Here are elements to include.
1. Marketing infrastructure
Build a steady cadence of content, partnerships, speaking, and PR that draws qualified prospects toward your agency over time.
2. Dedicated sales capacity
Someone (full-time or fractional) needs to be responsible for keeping opportunities moving—even when delivery work is heavy. At many agencies, this starts as the founder supported by a BD lead or fractional salesperson, then evolves to a dedicated sales team.
3. Account expansion process
Implement systematic ways to uncover and propose new value for current clients, turning existing relationships into a more stable and predictable revenue base. This is especially critical for agencies with a large retainer or enterprise client mix.
4. Pipeline visibility
Set up robust reporting and forecasting to anticipate gaps 3-6 months out—so you can act before a Famine hits. Mature agencies move toward pipeline visibility as a shared leadership responsibility, not just the CEO’s mental model.
5. Resourcing model
Tie hiring and delivery capacity to expected future work—not just today’s load. Otherwise, you’ll stay trapped in the cycle of overwork and underutilization.
6. Leadership alignment
Perhaps most importantly: align your leadership team around owning growth, instead of expecting the founder or sales leader to carry it alone.
When you build a strong Growth Engine, you gain space to think and plan. Revenue stabilizes. The team focuses on growth as a system, not a series of sprints. And as one agency owner told me:
“I finally stopped waking up in the middle of the night, wondering if next quarter would fall apart.”
Final thought
At a certain stage, you can’t afford to run the business on bursts of sales and hope.
Breaking the Feast or Famine cycle requires intention—but it’s one of the highest-leverage moves you can make as an agency leader. It unlocks stability, strategic focus, and—eventually—optionality.
Build the habits. Build the engine. Build the business that lets you choose how involved you want to be.
Your small next step
Does this advice resonate? This week, pick one simple BD habit and commit to it. For example: email outreach, leadership posting cadence, or pipeline review. Then schedule a leadership team conversation about building your Growth Engine long-term.
Progress beats perfection. The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll sleep better.
Question: What are you doing to keep your sales pipeline full?
