# Adam Graham

Adam Graham works on new business for B2B agencies, sharing advice on sales cycles, pipeline systems and helping buyers make decisions. Graham also chairs the BIMA New Biz Peer Group and runs agency new-business events.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/adam-graham/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamkgraham
- LinkedIn followers: 18,578
- Topics: sales, b2b-sales, crm
- Based on 9 dated posts, latest 2026-10-09

## Summary

Adam Graham is useful for speaking or content collaboration on B2B agency new business, sales cycles and pipeline systems.

- Best for: B2B agency new-business consultancy or industry association seeking speaking or content collaboration.
- Not for: Consumer brand or app-install campaign seeking paid LinkedIn sponsorship, celebrity-style ambassador post or short-term lead-volume promise.
- Check first: Confirm recent results from comparable content and audience demographics before contacting them.

### Takeaways

- Longer agency sales cycles: follow the buyer's process instead of forcing your own.
- Stop asking how to shorten the sales cycle; ask how to be more valuable throughout it.
- A thin pipeline is usually a system problem, not a lead problem.

## Main ideas

- **Longer agency sales cycles: follow the buyer's process instead of forcing your own**: Graham reports the same pattern from the BIMA New Biz Peer Group they chair: tighter budgets, more people involved in decisions, slipping RFP dates and promising conversations that drag on. The answer is not more pressure. Agencies jump to solutions, technical detail or proposals before the buyer is ready. Instead, ask directly about the buyer's process: "what's your buying process?" Then match the buyer's pace, not the agency's.
- **Stop asking how to shorten the sales cycle; ask how to be more valuable throughout it**: Rather than compressing the sale, Graham wants agencies to build credibility before an opportunity exists through PR, events, roundtables, thought leadership and useful content. They recommend keeping up a communication cadence so people hear from the agency for a reason, not another "just checking in". They also urge agencies to ask harder questions about need, readiness and decision-making, and give buyers smaller ways to experience the firm: the minimum offer that delivers maximum value, such as a workshop, roundtable, diagnostic or small piece of work. That can build trust in a way a proposal cannot. Their takeaway is the reframe itself.
- **A thin pipeline is usually a system problem, not a lead problem**: Writing ahead of Q4, Graham describes a familiar pattern: new business slips as client work and pitches pile up, and January arrives with a thin pipeline. Referrals come in waves, outreach happens when someone finds a spare hour, positioning is nearly right but not quite, and nobody trusts the CRM. Nothing is broken enough to force a fix, so the pattern continues. The argument: agencies should fix how new business runs rather than buy more leads.
- **Honest diagnosis can slow a sale, so help buyers see the cost of standing still**: Graham raises an uncomfortable possibility: complete honesty can sometimes make a sale harder. An agency asking for more leads wants to hear that outreach will launch and roughly how many meetings it will generate. But the real constraint may be an unclear proposition, a messy CRM, a sales process needing work, insufficient capacity to convert, or marketing that is not compelling enough. Buyers retreat to "sort the website first" or "wait until things calm down". Graham argues that urgency cannot be manufactured for someone who is not ready, but good selling means helping them understand the cost of standing still. They see deal velocity as one of the strongest buying signals and note that clients who work best with their firm tend to move quickly.

## Work to read

- [What to do when agency sales cycles stretch out](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamkgraham_everyones-saying-the-same-thing-agency-activity-7510328257959927808-KigK)
- [Why prospects who agree with everything still go quiet](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamkgraham_businessdevelopment-b2bsales-newbusiness-activity-7505182072735535105-Qhk7)
- [The pipeline problem that looks like a lead problem](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamkgraham_newbusinessreset-agencyleadersworkshop-activity-7511400484721676288-kkwA)

## Brand relationships

- **BIMA (British Interactive Media Association)** (mention)
- **Alliance of Independent Agencies** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Suprpwr** (mention)
- **The Great Pitch Company** (mention)

## Partnerships

Adam Graham’s posts show collaboration with other organisations through jointly delivered agency new-business workshops and a long-running, chaired industry peer group. For brands and agencies considering a collaboration, event or speaking slot, the posts point to co-delivered working sessions rather than media-buy placements. One post describes a ticketed afternoon workshop in Manchester on Wednesday 25 November, run with the Alliance of Independent Agencies. Spaces are capped to keep the event conversational, with a usable Q1 plan as the stated output. It follows the format of an earlier Summer Reset. The post links to an event ticket page, not a partnership inquiry route. Ask for the appropriate contact and any sponsor policy, media kit, rate card, paid-format examples or disclosure practices before proceeding.

## Alternatives

- Scott Clark: Choose Scott Clark over Adam Graham when the buyer task is to build a repeatable outbound pipeline engine or improve CRM and data use for leadership, especially where the audience is CEOs, CROs, or technology buyers. Scott Clark's posts make a current case for starting pipeline work before January: they cite a 10.1-month average B2B buying cycle and say 79% of technology buyers knew the product before research. They describe coordinated phone, email, LinkedIn, and digital engagement, account and buyer selection, and business signals for 'why now.' Another post frames CRM as a decision-making system and lists buyer behaviour, pipeline health, offering performance, win-loss trends, partner contribution, and lead-source revenue as leadership questions. That's a tighter match if the session must teach a GTM or CRM operating motion.
- Chris Silverwood: Choose Chris Silverwood when the buyer task is fractional sales leadership inside a growing business: setting sales structure, challenging the pipeline and plan, spotting capability or training gaps, keeping the right customers and opportunities in focus, and helping a founder or managing director make commercial decisions. Chris Silverwood describes nearly 30 years in sales and commercial leadership and a fractional model that runs one or two days a week, with more support early and less later. A second post addresses the common trap of too many ideas and priorities, asking where growth will actually come from, which three or four things move the dial, and who is focused on them. That could help agency leaders choose and hold a small number of growth priorities.
- Nate Stoltenow: Choose Nate Stoltenow when the buyer task is closer to deal execution: improving proposal review, close rates, buyer feedback, and the handoffs that stall deals. One post argues against emailing proposals and describes 25-minute proposal review calls that surface confusion, get feedback, show investment, teach the buyer how to buy, and reveal other approvers. Another promotes a podcast and argues for fixing basics before AI, treating the business as an assembly line from lead generation to collections, and recognising that ideas need implementation and accountability. That fits a collaboration on sales process execution, RevOps, or partnership-led selling.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/