Spoiler alert: This is not a magic bullet that'll instantly produce X leads in Y days. I think of such promises as empty or ill-gotten gains at best.

The stuff I'll share is so basic that maybe you'll roll your eyes and say: "Yeah, yeah, whatever, nothing new."

But the key piece in all this is not so much the activities themselves, but doing them consistently over a long period of time.

It's The Slight Edge concept from author Jeff Olson:

"Things like taking a few dollars out of a paycheck, putting it into savings, and leaving it there. Or doing a few minutes of exercise every day—and not skipping it. Or reading ten pages of an inspiring, educational, life-changing book every day. Or taking a moment to tell someone how much you appreciate them, and doing that consistently, every day, for months and years. Little things that seem insignificant in the doing, yet when compounded over time yield very big results. You could call these 'little virtues' or 'success habits.' I call them simple daily disciplines. Simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time. That, in a nutshell, is the slight edge."

Simple actions are easy to do, but they are also easy NOT to do.

I shared 4 such simple actions with our Barrel Holdings leaders:

1. Keep the agency website and decks updated
   Make sure it reflects the latest positioning/messaging and speaks to your target audience; feature the latest case studies and team info
   
   
   

2. Outreach messages to 5 people a week
   This weekly outreach habit has yielded us countless opportunities over the years. One person every weekday, that's 250+ touches per year. A former client, someone you met at a conference, the founder of a brand whose product you bought, etc. -- this is in addition to any automated/large-scale outbound campaigns you might be running.
   
   
   

3. Email newsletter at least 1x per month
   If you can't do this weekly, at least aim for 1 a month and keep building a list consisting of clients, referrers, friends, and others who'd like to be updated on what your agency is doing and may find value in your POV.
   
   
   

4. LinkedIn posts at least 3x per week
   Publish content that your ICP finds interesting, share relevant work/results achieved by the agency, and tell interesting stories that others may find useful. Develop your unique voice & writing style and refrain from mailing it in with generic AI copy (use AI strategically).

   
   

   
   

I told you, nothing new, nothing special.

You can layer on the other stuff–outbound campaigns, private dinners, sponsorships, paid ads, gifting, speaking engagements, webinars, etc. and some of these may produce fantastic results. However, some may also fool you into thinking you've "figured it out" only to realize that the great results were temporary.

The simple actions, done consistently, provides you with a backstop, a higher floor. Start today, keep going, don't stop.