Aligning business development and client services

Most agencies say the same thing when new business lands: great, we’ve hit the target. But what happens next is often where the real pressure begins.

In a recent masterclass delivered by Sally Stevens, she reframed a familiar problem. The issue is not winning work, but it’s what happens when the promise made during business development quietly drifts away from the reality of delivery. That gap is where chaos creeps in, teams burn out, and clients start to wobble.

When growth creates friction instead of momentum

Many agencies are operating in a constant state of firefighting. Senior leaders end up managing tensions instead of leading. Teams are busy but not confident. Clients are demanding more, faster, often with less budget, and the default response becomes yes.

The result is a cycle of pressure-led delivery. Work gets out the door, but it rarely feels intentional. Over time, this erodes trust, internally and externally. Not because people don’t care, but because the way of working has never been clearly designed.

Sally’s starting point was simple: legendary work cannot come from pressure and promises. It comes from clarity, confidence, and consistency.

New business is the start, not the proof

Winning a pitch is not evidence that the agency is successful. It is the beginning of a relationship.

Account management is where intent becomes reality. It is where what was sold is either honoured or slowly compromised. When that handover is rushed, implied, or left to interpretation, the cracks show quickly.

The session highlighted how often expectations are assumed rather than agreed. Clients are expected to understand agency mechanics. Teams are expected to read between the lines of a pitch. Everyone fills in the gaps differently, and friction follows.

Define the experience before you design the work

The first step Sally introduced was defining the experience. Not in abstract brand language, but in practical terms.

How should clients feel working with us? Safe, valued, calm, challenged, supported?

How should teams feel delivering the work? Trusted, empowered, clear on what good looks like?

Where this is left vague, everything downstream becomes reactive. Where it is defined, decisions get easier. The experience becomes intentional rather than accidental.

One of the most useful reframes was comparing agencies to hotel brands. It does not matter where you sit on the scale, functional or high-touch, as long as the experience is clear and consistently delivered.

Process is not bureaucracy, it’s protection

Once the experience is defined, it has to be supported by process. Not heavy manuals or outdated PDFs, but clear ways of working that reduce guesswork.

This is where business development and client services must operate as one system. Clear baton passes. Clear ownership. Clear points where strategy, production, and stakeholders are brought in.

Without this, agencies rely on heroics and psychic account managers. That might work for a while, but it is exhausting and fragile. Process creates guardrails that protect quality, scope, and people.

Embedding is where most good intentions fail

Designing a better way of working is the easy part. Embedding it is where things usually fall apart.

Embedding means training, reinforcement, and psychological safety. It means client services owning onboarding, not just contracts, but how teams and clients work together. It means revisiting expectations at the start of projects, not only when something goes wrong.

When teams know what is expected, they stop firefighting and start thinking. That space is where better ideas come from and where trust compounds over time.

Clarity is a commercial advantage

The final point that landed hard was this: alignment is not a nice-to-have. It is directly linked to retention, profitability, and creative quality.

When expectations are clear and protected, work stops leaking time and energy. Clients stay longer. Teams do better work. Growth becomes more sustainable.

Closing the gap between business development and client services is not about slowing ambition. It is about making sure that what is won can be delivered with confidence.

That shift does not happen by accident. It starts by stepping back, asking better questions, and designing growth with intent rather than urgency.

To watch Sally’s masterclass on-demand, join our Online membership and you will get access to all our previous and upcoming masterclasses.

You can connect or follow Sally Stevens on LinkedIn and find out more about Blueberry Spark.