In-house new business vs outsourced agency: which is right for your agency?

New business development is obviously vital for agency growth. But while an in-house team and an outsourced agency both serve much the same function, the key differences between them are worth considering before deciding which will work best for you.

Hiring in-house

One advantage of having an in-house new business team is that they’ll always be on hand to provide full control over your agency brand and messaging. They live and breathe your culture day to day, so there’s no need to brief an external partner on tone, positioning or the nuances of how you like to present yourselves to prospects.

On the other hand, you’ll need to build a team of people with new business expertise and a diverse range of industry specialisms, from research and list building through to copywriting, outreach and negotiation. Finding people who are genuinely skilled across all of these areas, and who can hit the ground running, is rarely straightforward. It also takes time to build the internal processes, playbooks and reporting that a consistently performing new business function relies on, and results are unlikely to appear overnight.

There’s also the question of resilience. An in-house team of one or two people is vulnerable to holidays, illness or staff turnover, any of which can bring your pipeline to a standstill just when you need it most.

Costs of an in-house hire

A highly qualified and dedicated new business team will also come with high fixed costs, including their recruitment, salaries, the usual company benefits, and an investment in technology. Add to this the cost of data and prospecting tools, CRM licences, training, and the management time needed to keep the team focused and accountable, and the true cost of an in-house function is often higher than it first appears.

These costs are largely fixed too, meaning you’ll be paying for the team whether new business is flowing steadily or the pipeline has temporarily dried up. That can make it a riskier commitment for smaller or mid-sized agencies in particular, where budgets need to flex with the ups and downs of the market.

What a new business agency does

An outsourced agency will provide you with a team of experts skilled in finding, qualifying and securing new client leads.

Using the latest industry tools, they can analyse market trends or identify new markets, handle the cold calling, email campaigns and networking. They can if required also work as an extension of your existing team, plugging straight into your brand guidelines, target sectors and ideal client profile so that everything they do looks and sounds like it’s come from you.

Because this is their sole focus, a good new business agency will typically have tried and tested processes already in place, refined across many campaigns and sectors, rather than needing to build these from scratch.

Benefits of outsourcing over in-house hire

An outsourced agency will provide an immediate, dedicated resource for business development, handling the entire business of chasing leads, organising meetings and admin, allowing in-house teams to focus on servicing existing clients.

They’ll assess prospects to ensure they have the budget and a specific problem your business can solve, then set up qualified meetings with the right decision-makers. This qualification step matters: it means the meetings landing in your diary are with people who are genuinely in-market and able to make a decision, rather than early-stage enquiries that go nowhere.

They’ll also have a lower cost commitment than an internal team, but one that’s also scalable if needed, so you can flex activity up during growth periods or scale back if priorities shift, without the overheads or complications of hiring and redundancy. And because you’re working with specialists who run multiple campaigns across the industry, you benefit from insight into what’s currently working for other agencies too, rather than relying on the experience of a single in-house hire.

Working with Alchemis

At Alchemis, everything we do is to generate new business for our clients. Not only were we the first lead generation agency specifically for the marketing industry, our senior team have over 100 years’ collective experience in developing new business campaigns for agencies.

We’ve worked across all marketing and communications disciplines and understand the challenges of running and managing an agency, and of generating new business.

We know how important a solid pipeline of prospects and opportunities is for planning as well as future growth and this is where we can help your business grow.

We use a range of tools to identify and engage with the right prospects for you. Prior to you receiving a lead as a new business meeting, all prospects are fully qualified against your specific criteria via intelligent, in-depth conversations.

To do this effectively is an art and real skill and we have a highly talented team in place to deliver. We’re also comfortable working with and supporting in-house business development teams to offer wider support, helping to generate and maximise any new business opportunities.