How to Build a Top-Notch Sales Team for Your Agency, with Joey Gilkey
🎙️ Happy Clients Podcast Recap: How to Build a Top-Notch Sales Team for Your Agency, with Joey Gilkey
Building a reliable, high-performing sales team is one of the biggest challenges agency owners face. Many founders carry sales on their shoulders far too long, believing no one can sell their services as well as they can. But as Joey Gilkey, CEO of Apex Revenue and host of the Best Damn Agency Mastermind, explained on the Happy Clients Podcast, this mindset limits growth and keeps agencies stuck.
Here’s what Joey shared about shifting that mindset, hiring effectively, and creating sales processes that drive predictable revenue and retention.
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🎙️ Happy Clients Podcast Recap: How to Build a Top-Notch Sales Team for Your Agency, with Joey Gilkey
Step One: Get Out of the “Only I Can Sell” Mindset
According to Joey, most founders start with a belief that no one can sell their service as well as they can. And to some extent, it’s true — founders know the product, the market, and already carry inherent trust. But this self-limiting belief prevents agencies from scaling.
The shift? Realize that if other agencies build strong sales teams, so can you. It starts with acknowledging that while you may close faster, a trained salesperson with the right process and tools can eventually match — and even exceed — your results.
The Three Essentials of Sales Success
When bringing in salespeople, Joey outlined three key elements agencies need to put in place:
Process – A clear, documented sales framework that salespeople can actually follow (not just “watch my recordings and figure it out”).
Management – Ongoing leadership, accountability, and coaching to help salespeople improve.
Enablement – The tools, scripts, templates, and resources that give sales reps the confidence to succeed.
When these three are in place, a salesperson’s job becomes manageable and repeatable. Without them, sales often stall.
Full-Cycle Reps vs. SDR/AE Models
Agencies often debate how to structure sales roles. Joey recommends full-cycle reps — salespeople who handle outreach, nurturing, and closing deals — especially for agencies selling high-ticket services.
Why? Because it builds accountability and ensures that the same person who starts the relationship also builds trust and credibility to close it. Joey uses a framework he calls the “Two A Assessment”:
Attitude – Culture fit, hunger, and drive.
Aptitude – Skills like outbound prospecting, building trust, and demonstrating credibility.
This blend creates salespeople who can thrive in the complex agency sales environment.
Founders Must Get Out of the Seat
One of Joey’s strongest points: agency owners must “get out of the seat” they want someone else to occupy. If a founder clings to sales calls, the new salesperson will never fully succeed.
Yes, there will be short-term sacrifices. You’ll lose a few deals as a new rep learns. But in the long term, freeing yourself from sales is the only way to scale your agency sustainably.
Don’t Overlook Client Retention
Sales isn’t only about acquisition. Joey emphasized that agencies often lose clients not because of poor results, but because they fail to communicate value consistently.
Agencies should:
Show clients clear before-and-after results.
Remind clients of wins regularly.
Introduce upsell opportunities mid-engagement, like audits or strategy intensives.
Retention is the real profit center. Every renewal or upsell reduces acquisition cost and boosts long-term margins.
Quick Wins and Big “Don’ts”
Joey’s top quick win: Always book the next meeting before ending the current one.
Most agencies lose deals in the days between calls, not on the calls themselves.
And his biggest “don’t”? Don’t give clients too many options. Present yourself as the expert, recommend the best path forward, and keep momentum strong.
Final Takeaway
Agencies that want to scale must stop treating sales like a founder-only function. By putting the right processes, management, and tools in place, and by focusing on both acquisition and retention, agency owners can build sales teams that actually fuel long-term growth.
For more insights, check out Joey Gilkey’s work at Apex Revenue or learn about his Best Damn Agency Mastermind.
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