Getting Your Entire Team to Become Client Superstars

As agency leaders, we often describe our role in simple terms: do great work, and ensure clients believe we’re doing great work. In reality, achieving both is hard—and in most agencies, responsibility for the second part sits with a small group of senior people.

That’s where growth quietly stalls.

When upselling gets tricky, stakeholders need inspiring, or amends spiral out of control, the default response is to “bring in someone senior.” But client excellence isn’t a department. It’s a company-wide capability.

In this Agency Growth Summit session, Trenton Moss shares how he shifted his entire delivery team from zero commercial awareness to just 5%—and how that small shift led to a 35% uplift in client revenue and, ultimately, an acquisition.

This session also features as a chapter in the Agency Growth Book.

Why this matters now

New business is harder, more competitive, and more expensive than ever. Meanwhile, the biggest growth opportunity is often hidden in plain sight: your existing client base.

Brilliant delivery teams focused purely on craft will not naturally think about commercial outcomes. And they shouldn’t be expected to become salespeople.

But they can become client superstars.

What actually worked

Trenton’s approach wasn’t theory. It was built from hard lessons inside a growing agency.

1. Incentives that change behaviour

  • Traditional profit share failed because people couldn’t see their impact

  • The “We Made It Fund” gave teams a small percentage of client fees to spend together on experiences

  • This created ownership, collaboration, and organic revenue thinking

2. An org structure that supports client success

  • Small, autonomous pods owning client portfolios

  • Clear targets: revenue, satisfaction, wellbeing, contribution

  • Biweekly non-billable pod time to improve how they worked

  • A “loan system” between pods to create commercial awareness

3. Relentless micro-learning

  • Weekly 30-minute Friday Skills sessions

  • Focus on emotional intelligence, influence, and client leadership

  • Repetition over time built real confidence in client interactions

4. Defining what “good” looks like

  • Clear guides, checklists, and behaviour standards

  • Reinforced visually and through ongoing training

The key takeaway

You don’t need delivery teams to sell. You need them to think just 5% more commercially.

Watch the session video to see how this played out in practice, and download the Agency Growth Book to read the full chapter.

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The Hidden Profit Already Inside Your Agency

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Achieving Growth Without Losing the Human Touch