In the agency world, we treat something as normal that actually isn’t.
It’s not unusual to see a 10-person agency working with a multi-billion-dollar company. That almost never happens in most other industries. A small software company wouldn’t pass security reviews. A tiny manufacturer wouldn’t meet compliance or scale needs. But agencies do it all the time.
What rarely gets talked about is how those wins actually happen.
Most of the time, they don’t come from brand marketing or lead generation. They come from relationships. A founder knew someone. A former colleague made an intro. Trust existed before the first meeting. And once agencies land one or two of these clients, they assume they can repeat the outcome by doing more outreach.
So they’re told to run more campaigns. Send more cold emails. Buy more tools. Push harder on lead generation.
That advice works for agencies selling to small and mid-sized businesses. It breaks down completely at the enterprise level.
Without an existing relationship, most small agencies simply don’t exist to enterprise buyers. They can’t afford broad brand marketing. Traditional lead gen gets ignored because there’s no trust behind it. The problem isn’t effort or volume. It’s credibility.
What agencies should be hearing, but rarely are, is that enterprise growth requires a different approach altogether.
It’s not about getting louder. It’s about creating access.
Access doesn’t come from status or brand recognition. It comes from utility. You don’t need to be invited into executive rooms to build trust. You need to create a reason those rooms exist. That starts with tight positioning around a specific problem and curating conversations where peers can learn from each other without selling.
Early on, you’re not expected to be the expert in the room. You’re the organizer. The connector. The one making something useful happen.
Over time, familiarity replaces cold outreach. Trust compounds quietly. And when timing is right, you’re remembered.
Takeaways for agencies:
- Stop applying outdated SMB growth tactics to enterprise buyers.
- Recognize that enterprise growth is a trust problem, not a lead problem.
- Create access by being useful before you’re known.
- Narrow your positioning so executives know exactly when to think of you.
Small agencies can win big clients, but only if they stop chasing attention and start engineering trust.
