Are you an agency owner struggling with a dry agency prospect pipeline? If your pipeline report looks more like a desert than a river, you're not alone. Many advertising, PR, and digital agencies are facing a severe pipeline problem in the second half of 2025, with the number of prospects turning into opportunities slowing to a trickle.
The Anxiety Is Real — But So Is the Opportunity
It's not you; the market has changed. If you’re wondering if this slowing of new business is just a blip or something more structural, I'd say that what you’re seeing is the new normal. Until you stop hearing the word "tariff," I'd plan on prospecting being more painful and less successful than in years past.
I was recently at an agency conference this spring, and across the board, everyone agreed that prospects are taking longer to make decisions. They’re better at using technology to ignore you. And those that are looking for a new agency, they’re researching you long before you ever know their name.
Now, you could pour that anxiety into the usual suspects — more cold calls, more email blasts, more proposals. But I’ve spent the better part of two decades studying what works and what doesn’t when it comes to agency business development. Here’s the inconvenient truth: more activity won’t fix what’s broken. If your pipeline has dried up, the problem isn’t a lack of quantity. It’s quality.
The Myth of More: Why Sales Isn’t a Numbers Game Anymore
Somewhere along the line, our industry bought into a dangerous myth. The idea that business development — especially agency biz dev — is just a big, relentless numbers game. Make enough calls. Send enough emails. Submit enough proposals. Eventually, something sticks. 
That myth worked when prospects didn’t have access to every piece of information at their fingertips. Back when they needed you to introduce yourself to them. Today? They’re self-educating, cloaked behind their Klingon shields, and only raising their hand when they’re 80% down the path of choosing a partner.
So when you crank up the cold calls and push out generic outreach, you’re not solving the problem. You’re making it worse. You’re showing up late to a party you weren’t invited to — and then wondering why nobody wants to talk to you.
The Real Work: Rebuilding Trust and Connection
If the last quarter’s slowdown has you rattled, you have two choices. You can chase more. Or you can get better. The agencies that will navigate this slowdown with grace and growth are the ones that see this moment for what it is — an invitation to slow down and build better.
Better relationships. Better conversations. Better insights into what your prospects actually want and need.
This is where The Propinquity Principle™ comes in. It’s the simple yet profound scientific law that states: the more often and meaningfully someone encounters you, the more likely they are to trust you and choose you when they’re ready. It’s not about spamming inboxes or throwing darts at a list. It’s about showing up in the right places, with the right message, at the right moments — so when your prospect needs what you offer, you’re the obvious choice.
Let me share a real example of how this changes your approach.
One of my agency clients targets Fortune 500 CMOs. These are some of the busiest people on the planet, buried in cold outreach and generic pitches, especially from agencies. She felt that same anxiety: should she start pounding the phones or sending more emails? I reminded her that you don’t want to be that person who crashes a party you weren’t invited to, with nothing interesting to say.
So we did something different. We built an AI Agent that systematically located the last two quarterly earnings calls for every Fortune 500 company. The agent downloaded them, analyzed them, and provided a succinct overview of each. More importantly, it scored each company on how well its stated challenges matched my client’s unique offering. We even pulled quotes to use in outreach efforts.
Now, instead of blindly reaching out to every CMO, she’s prioritizing the ones she can genuinely help right now — and she’s showing up to the party with something worth talking about. But she’s not stopping there.
We’re also hunting for the right stages to speak on, the right guest articles to write, the right podcasts to appear on — all outlets these same CMOs already rely on for ideas and insight. Done well, my client will appear to be “everywhere” these decision-makers turn when they need trusted guidance — when in reality, she’s just in the few places our research shows they already trust.
That’s how you create meaningful propinquity. That’s how you spark actual conversations in a noisy room and become the agency they feel they know long before they ever reach out.
What To Stop Doing Right Now
If you’re feeling that pit-in-your-stomach fear about your pipeline, here’s what I want you to stop doing:
- Stop measuring success by how many calls or emails you send. Activity does not equal progress.
- Stop treating every prospect the same. They’re not. Some are self-educating and silent. Others are window shopping. A few are actually ready to hire an agency. Know the difference. Prospect accordingly.
- Stop chasing RFPs you have no chance of winning. If you can’t bring unique value to the table, don’t waste your time.
More is not the goal. Better is.
What To Do Instead: Have Fewer, Better Sales Conversations
So, what should you do as you stare down the back half of this unpredictable year? Here are the six things I’d start doing right now if I were in your shoes:
- Double Down on Listening: Call your best clients and ask what they’re seeing, what they’re worried about, what they wish someone would solve. The gold is in the gaps.
- Scrape Baby Scrape: Leverage AI to hoover up every publicly available piece of information indicating who's having the kinds of problems your agency uniquely solves better than anyone else in the world. (If you don't know how, I can help you.)
- Optimize First Impressions for Self-Educating Buyers: Mystery shop your agency. Google your name. Read your website. Pretend you know nothing about you. Is it clear what you do and who you do it for? Is it clear what you stand for or how you're different? Or do you sound like everyone else? Self-educating buyers have a low interest in generic agencies.
- Build Authority, Not Just Awareness, with Value-Driven Content: Start creating content that actually helps people do their jobs better, without having to call you. This isn’t about SEO for SEO’s sake. It’s about building trust with the invisible buyer. It’s about nurturing propinquity.
- Create Intrigue, Not Interest: Prospects are researching you long before they reach out. Give them a reason to raise their hand and let you know they're there by showing them something they've never seen before.
- Dance With The One That Brung You: You're welcome... it's an old saying from my Texas youth that means, don't neglect the Client you have today in search of the prospect you desire tomorrow. Double down on your client service. Pay more attention than ever. You might see a new problem they're having that you solve, or could solve, if they'd give you a chance.
The Hidden Opportunity in Your Agency Pipeline Slowdown
Every slowdown feels like a crisis when you’re in it. I’ve been there. But in hindsight, these moments are a gift. They force you to ask better questions. To get clearer about what makes you different. To build trust before you need it. To go beyond interesting and become intriguing.
You can’t out-hustle a broken business development process. But you can rebuild one that’s resilient, relevant, and rooted in genuine relationships — powered by The Propinquity Principle™.
Your prospects don’t want more emails. They want more reasons to believe that you see them, understand them, and have something meaningful to offer. Be the agency that gives them that — not through volume but through value.
Because when the pipeline dries up, the agency that survives isn’t the one that screams the loudest. It’s the one that shows up first, listens hardest, and stays in the conversation long after everyone else has given up.
That’s the agency worth hiring.
Hire the Solution to YOUR Agency Pipeline Problem Today
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. Till next time.
This post was originally published on Painless Prospecting, the weekly sales and marketing blog created by the fine folks at Converse Digital. If you want to learn how to create, engage in, and convert conversations into new clients and customers, give them a call.
