The Case for Repeatability
Listen to an audio version here.
Everyone wants the shortest answer to the biggest question.
In baseball, that answer is WAR (Wins Above Replacement). One number to measure a player’s impact.
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer to the universe’s biggest question is - somehow - the number 42.
For agencies? The question is: “Can we do this again?”
In other words: Is this repeatable?
That’s the most important question in new business - and one we don’t ask nearly enough.
When You Don’t Know What You’re Doing (But Feel Like You Should)
Agency lead gen often comes down to grasping at interesting-looking straws.
When IDEO launches a new homepage focused on purpose-driven work. It looks like a smart move. You assume it’s working. And then you wonder…
“Should we do that too?”
The problem isn’t that you admire IDEO. Or that you want to learn from their success.
The problem is that you’re acting like their conditions are your conditions. That what’s working for them is somehow plug-and-play for you.
Ask yourself:
Do you have IDEO’s reputation?
IDEO’s traffic?
IDEO’s body of work?
IDEO’s audience, budget, or client base?
If the answers are “no” (and they probably are), then what IDEO is doing isn’t repeatable for you. At best, it’s a hypothesis. At worst, it’s a distraction.
The Repeatability Filter
The harder question is: What’s actually working for you - and is it repeatable?
Agencies love to romanticize the random.
You met a prospect at a conference happy hour.
A client dropped your name in a Slack group.
Someone saw a LinkedIn post, booked a call, and *poof* - new business.
These things feel like wins (and they are), but don’t confuse them with strategy.
The magic wasn’t going to the happy hour (sorry!). It was the conversation.
The repeatable part isn’t the Slack channel. It’s the fact that a client thought of you when a need popped up.
Start there.
Referrals? Great. But were they luck or system? Did you ask for them, nurture them, or build a process around them? Or did they just… happen?
Repeatability means you can take a specific action and expect similar results at scale - without needing divine intervention or a cocktail napkin moment.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
The agency world is full of tactics masquerading as strategy.
We get obsessed with the last lead instead of asking how to generate the next ten. We try to reverse-engineer viral moments or mimic competitors without knowing the underlying mechanics.
That’s how you end up rebuilding your entire pitch deck around a one-off win. Or over-indexing on a gimmick because it worked one time.
Repeatability is the difference between chasing momentum and building it.
What to Actually Do
Here’s your homework:
Audit your last 10 wins. What really drove them?
Classify each source. What are the sources that continue to show up?
Double down on the replicable parts. Build systems to do more of what works.
Let go of the flukes. Appreciate the unicorns, but don’t bet the farm on catching another.
The goal isn’t perfect predictability. It’s purposeful action.
You can’t turn agency growth into a factory line. But you can avoid rebuilding the plane mid-air every single time.
