Lissa Blackaby Forsterer

Familiar contacts can lead to a proposal or referral, but a conversation that simply keeps the agency in mind is worthwhile too. The approach favors considerate, low-pressure contact over pushiness.

The post suggests checking in with past clients, former coworkers, a client who has moved to a new company, and contacts from pitches the agency lost. Its sample message opens with a brief congratulations and invites the recipient to catch up.

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The proposed alternative is to explain the client’s challenge, what the agency did together, and what changed. That gives prospective clients evidence to judge whether the agency understands their problem.

The post lays out those three questions and argues that owners should not expect prospects to connect the dots on their own. It recasts sharing a result as telling the client’s story rather than praising the agency.

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The posts also describe fractional support for PVS Graphics to expand its client base.

Blackaby Forsterer describes returning to PVS Graphics, Opus Creative Group’s sister company, to support client-base growth. The posts link that work to a 13-year tenure at Opus and long-standing relationships with the companies’ owners.

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Blackaby Forsterer announces a return to Opus Creative Group's sister company PVS Graphics, where they will provide fractional business development support to expand the client base.

• The post notes 13 years at Opus and long-standing relationships with the owners of both companies.
• It describes PVS Graphics as making custom printed and fabricated event, experiential, and retail solutions for Fortune 1000 footwear/apparel, tech, and food and beverage brands, and frames the team as the people you call when you have an idea sketched on a napkin.
• The post also sets out the other half of the work: Cheerful Persistency, an agency growth consultancy that combines coaching for indie agency owners and leadership with fractional business development for a deliberately small group of agencies.

For brands planning a campaign

For an agency weighing a fractional business development engagement, this is the clearest outline of the offer: coaching plus embedded sales support, scoped to a selected group rather than an open roster. It also identifies the client environment — physical and experiential production for large consumer brands — that shapes the client-base expansion work.

The post names the problem directly: agency owners will describe a strong client result in private, then hesitate to share it publicly, with objections including “I don't want to sound boastful” and “I'm not comfortable promoting myself.”

• The proposed reframe is to drop self-promotion and narrate the client's situation instead — what the challenge was, what was done together, and what changed.
• Blackaby Forsterer argues this gives a future client evidence that the agency might understand their problem too.
• They note that the owner usually holds the biggest microphone in the company; without those stories, prospects are expected to connect the dots themselves, which they probably will not.

For brands planning a campaign

This is a proof-through-client-outcomes posture, not a volume-promotion posture. A brief that gives an agency a concrete client result to unpack fits the advice better than one that asks for self-promotional output.

Blackaby Forsterer sets out a warm-network routine: check in with people who already know, like, and trust the agency, including past clients, former coworkers, a client who moved to a new company, a junior account lead who was promoted, and contacts from pitches the agency lost.

• The post supplies a sample message — congratulations on an update, would love to catch up soon — and notes that one conversation can become a proposal, a referral, or simply a reason to stay top of mind when timing aligns.
• It argues that the approach requires no pushiness, only being kind, authentic, and curious, and tags the themes as #RelationshipMarketing, #AgencyLife, and #SalesWithHeart.

For brands planning a campaign

The method relies on warm re-engagement. Before committing, an agency expecting cold-outreach machinery or paid demand generation should ask whether those services are included.

The post names past clients, former coworkers, a client who moved to a new company, a junior account lead who was promoted, and contacts from pitches that were lost as the first people to check in with. The recommended outreach is a short, casual message rather than a pitch, framed as "kind, authentic, and curious" instead of pushy.

Segment the warm network by relationship type, then send brief, personal check-ins that can lead to a proposal, a referral, or a staying-in-touch conversation.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand can evaluate this as a teaching and template angle: warm-network reactivation, re-engagement sequences, and personal outreach rather than paid acquisition. A fractional business development brief would likely focus on list building and one-to-one contact, not broad-funnel advertising.

Examples: Source 1

Owners share impressive client results privately, then hesitate because they do not want to sound boastful.

• The post offers a specific reframe: do not tell everyone how great the agency is; tell them what happened for the client.
• Three questions carry the argument — what was the challenge, what did you do together, and what changed because of the work?
• The post argues this gives future clients evidence that the agency might understand their problem too, and notes that agency owners often have the biggest microphone in the company.

Turn a private result into three public answers: the client challenge, the work you did together, and the outcome.

For brands planning a campaign

Useful for case-study, testimonial, and founder-led content programs. A brand could brief a client-evidence series built around these three questions or ask the owner to share the stories on their own channel.

Examples: Source 1

The posts also describe a renewed arrangement with PVS Graphics, the sister company of Opus Creative Group, to provide fractional business development support as it expands its client base. Lissa notes a 13-year prior tenure at Opus and long-standing knowledge of the owners of both companies.

For brands planning a campaign

The work is described as fractional and selective, not a high-volume agency service. A brief should assume a limited roster and a growth, coaching, and business development remit rather than full-service campaign execution.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The post calls this a return to the "analog" sandbox and a refreshing contrast to current digital marketing and AI topics.

The post’s digital-versus-analog contrast places this physical production work in a different context from Lissa Blackaby Forsterer’s digital growth consultancy.

For brands planning a campaign

Relevant to physical brand experience, retail display, event fabrication, and experiential briefs. The post distinguishes this production world from digital and AI marketing, so a brief should specify which side it needs.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

One post offers the outreach method; the other shows what to say once a result exists. Both target agency owners and leadership, not brands directly.

For brands planning a campaign

A brand considering a coaching or fractional growth engagement can ask how these habits are put in place — for example, through a check-in cadence and case-study routine — and what evidence would show they are working.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

They describe it as a blend of coaching independent agency owners and leadership on agency growth and providing fractional business development services to a selected group of agencies.

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They describe a team producing custom printed and fabricated event, experiential and retail work for Fortune 1000 footwear/apparel, tech and food/beverage brands. They frame the work as fractional business development support, not an employment role.

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The posts do not say when their employment ended.

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Seeley describes assembling an expert network to help founders make fewer, better decisions before risk compounds, and launching the Vantage venture development platform for founder-supporting organizations.

• Blackaby Forsterer coaches agency owners and provides fractional business development to a selected group of agencies.
• Each also sets out a clear order of work: Seeley’s Relevance, Reality, Resilience sequence, and their practice of checking in with the warm network, then putting the resulting client outcome into words.

Seeley writes about venture building across hardware, manufacturing, consumer products and other emerging technologies, and about the ESOs, universities and economic development organizations that support founders. Blackaby Forsterer writes about winning and keeping clients at independent marketing agencies, and about PVS Graphics and Opus Creative Group’s printed and fabricated experiential production work.

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Congdon’s post on inflated job titles ends with a lesson about looking at scope rather than title.

• Similarly, Blackaby Forsterer’s client-story post closes with a reframe and three questions an owner can answer publicly.
• Readers who follow them for the agency-owner perspective can turn to Congdon for the hiring and career side of the same industry.

Congdon focuses on recruitment and career moves: he recruits search and growth marketing people for agencies, eCommerce and SaaS businesses, and writes about how senior-sounding titles distort candidates’ sense of their market position. Blackaby Forsterer focuses on client acquisition and growth habits: who to contact, what to say and how to turn a private client result into a public example.

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The posts advertise recruitment for digital agencies, eCommerce and SaaS businesses, covering paid search, paid social, SEO, growth marketing and e-commerce leadership roles in London, the wider UK, the US and Miami.

• If the agency decides it needs to hire a performance lead or growth manager before taking on three to five new accounts, this points to hiring rather than business development.
• One post also addresses a problem the agency may recognise: inflated agency job titles, such as giving someone a Head of Digital role without the scope to match, can cause good people to rule themselves out of sensible moves because the new title feels like a step backwards.
• That is useful context for an owner structuring a role before recruiting.

This is search and placement work, not fractional business development.

• Lissa Blackaby Forsterer’s posts do not offer warm-network reactivation, client-story coaching or accountability for winning accounts.
• The budget goes to new hires rather than new clients, and the agency still needs someone to turn a hire into revenue.
• Recruitment also leaves untouched the agency’s other stated problem: an owner who dislikes self-promotion and has never worked systematically through past clients, former colleagues and lost pitches.
• Two LinkedIn posts are available.
• Ask for pricing, placement volume, success rates and client references before judging whether the service can deliver.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts describe Liminal Group’s work turning early ideas into investable, defensible ventures across hardware, hard-tech consumer products, manufacturing, CPG, softgoods, food and beverage, health and sciences, home goods, IoT and AI.

• They also describe Vantage, an expert-powered venture development platform that gives organisations already supporting entrepreneurs another layer of specialist capability.
• That fits an agency whose next move is building a new offer, productising its expertise or partnering with institutions that fund and support founders, such as universities, economic development organisations and startup support programmes.
• The stated method is explicit about sequence: start with human need, move through execution, then scale what is worth sustaining, because getting that order backwards is where most ventures break.

The posts describe venture building and capability-building for founders and the organisations that serve them, not agency client acquisition.

• Neither shows the two things an agency seeking fractional business development needs: a warm-outreach routine for existing contacts and a way to help an owner talk about client results without sounding boastful.
• Expect a longer horizon than a roughly 90-day pipeline sprint, focused on shaping what the agency sells rather than reactivating past relationships; the agency must still do the selling afterwards.
• Two LinkedIn posts publish no pricing, engagement length or named client outcomes.
• Ask directly about scope, availability and client results before proceeding.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2

The posts cover industrial and infrastructure delivery: a first membrane bio-reactor unit being loaded for commissioning at a footwear manufacturer in Ranipet, and progress on an expatriate housing project at Oragadam in South India, including puddle flange installation, civil works, and quality and safety monitoring. That is relevant to a buyer sourcing environmental engineering or construction project delivery, not to an agency trying to win five new accounts.

Lissa Blackaby Forsterer’s posts do not touch agency growth, business development, coaching or client acquisition.

• A buyer substituting this for fractional business development would get no help winning new clients.
• Across the options considered here, nobody else is shown offering fractional business development or agency growth consultancy to independent agencies; the nearest matches are recruitment help and venture-building help.
• Source a genuine like-for-like alternative before treating any of these options as a substitute.

Examples: Source 1 · Source 2