Depending on the size of your agency, the staffing of your business development practice may be quite different. For example, the CMO in a larger agency usually just manages inbound interest, while also identifying the long-term goals for new clients.

Small/medium size agencies with real creative (at)traction, on the other hand can afford a small dedicated staff of say, 3 or 4: someone cold-calling, emailing, setting up meetings and tending to old leads, someone working the social media hoses, someone managing the inbound interest and RFPs and still another pitching PR stories about the work, agency leaders and other notables. Altogether, these efforts do make the phone ring. And the smallest agencies really must rely almost exclusively on the strength of their network/rolodex and notoriety/fame (awards). Content creation is of course is key at every level to catch the eye of prospective clients and must sprinkled throughout social, PR and events.

When working with Business Development staff, a reasonable timeframe for a first project with a new client is 6 months. You may have a different experience, of course, but in mine, shorting that time frame arbitrarily will set-up your Biz Dev team to fail, and your agency risks sounding desperate if the process is rushed.

Be wary of the trap “Every (senior) staff person must bring in new business”. It sounds a lot like “Always Be Closing”, which of course is true of great sales teams and owners. In an agency, yes of course everyone must be involved in new business (upselling current clients, looking for every opportunity to “surprise and delight” them, getting referrals, answering RFPs and pitching, etc) – not everyone should be cold-calling, arranging lunches, pitching stories or posting what they think is the agency culture. Most have have teams to manage, markets to innovate and expand, competitors to beat, and clients to keep. Sounds obvious, but I have seen the imperative of all-hands-on-deck biz dev morph into a culture of desperation for new clients at the expense of keeping the current ones with good care and great work - not good.  It is better to have a well defined and focused new business process that can be managed, measured, supported and improved. What that consists of will vary by agency (size) and strategy.