From wasted pitch decks to strategic conversations that close. Aaron Hutchinson reveals the Win Without Pitching methodology that's helping agencies stop gambling on low-probability pitches and start winning profitable clients through expert positioning instead of endless presentations.

Aaron Hutchinson is a sales consultant and trainer specializing in the Win Without Pitching methodology for creative agencies and professional services firms. Based in the UK, Aaron helps agency owners and their teams move from reactive order-taking to strategic expert positioning through the Four Conversations framework. After years as Managing Director of a creative agency, Aaron founded The Hutch Consultancy to address the industry's most persistent challenge: winning new business profitably without wasting resources on futile pitches.

This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're an agency owner struggling with new business, tired of losing pitches you spent days preparing for, finding it difficult to have confident pricing conversations, or trying to hire and train salespeople who can sell expertise rather than just deliverables. Find out why your pitch win rate is probably lower than you think, what the "three years from now" question unlocks in sales conversations, and why presenting three options beats a single proposal every time.

Aaron reveals the frameworks that separate expert agencies from vendor agencies, introduces RAB (Revenue Above Budget) as the metric that actually matters, and explains why 25,000 UK agencies are competing in a market more crowded than McDonald's locations. If you're serious about transforming your agency's sales process or finally cracking the code on profitable new business without soul-destroying pitch work, this episode delivers practical, immediately actionable frameworks.

Topics Covered:

00:00 - Introduction: The agency world's oldest question

02:28 - What challenges are agencies facing with sales and new business?

04:18 - Why there are 25,000+ agencies in the UK (more than McDonald's!)

07:22 - The two-year email: How long-term positioning pays off

09:32 - Why pitching is gambling (and the real win rates you're facing)

12:44 - What is Win Without Pitching and why does it work?

14:06 - The Four Conversations framework explained

19:50 - The magic question: "We're having coffee three years from now..."

24:58 - Expert vs Vendor: The doctor analogy

28:08 - Pricing conversations: Why money talks are so uncomfortable

31:42 - The secret to avoiding awkward "we don't have that budget" moments

33:19 - The power of options: Why three is the magic number

38:18 - RAB: Revenue Above Budget explained

42:02 - Staying resilient in agency sales: Avoiding soul-destroying work

45:25 - Conversations not presentations: Why we don't use decks anymore

47:45 - Book recommendation: The Four Conversations by Blair Enns

From necessity to 20 years of building software that adapts to businesses, not the other way around. Angelo Zanetti co-founded Elemental during the dot-com crash and turned it into a Cape Town powerhouse that refuses to compromise on quality, security, or in-office culture.

Angelo Zanetti

Angelo Zanetti is the co-founder and co-CEO of Elemental, a web and software development agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. With over 20 years of hands-on experience, Angelo has built a lean team of 25 specialists who focus on creating bespoke software solutions that truly fit how businesses operate, rather than forcing businesses to adapt to off-the-shelf tools.

This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're building software products, running a development agency, scoping MVPs, or trying to understand why that vibe-coded prototype isn't production-ready. Find out why founders bloat their MVPs with non-core features, what happens when someone hands Angelo a Replit prototype with no brakes, and why Elemental's entire team works in-office five days a week in an increasingly remote world.

Angelo shares the realities of digital transformation, the security nightmares hiding in AI-generated code, and why great SEO has driven their lead generation for two decades. If you're serious about building software that scales or positioning your agency to stand out, this episode delivers practical, battle-tested advice.

Topics Covered:

1:07 - How Angelo got into the agency world out of necessity during the dot-com crash

2:25 - Meeting Richard in a Harry Potter-esque location overlooking King's Cross

4:18 - The current setup: 25 people, lean and mean in Cape Town

5:26 - Why COVID was actually good for Elemental's business

6:59 - The advantage of having strong technical backgrounds as co-founders

8:05 - How SEO has been their secret weapon for lead generation

9:51 - Doing exceptional work leads to referrals and repeat business

10:38 - The mistake of trying to be everything to everyone

11:16 - MVPs and the patterns Angelo sees when founders first approach them

12:33 - Why founders jam-pack MVPs with nice-to-have features

14:04 - The "build it and they will come" fallacy

15:55 - Walking through the Change Cars project: competing with Autotrader

18:55 - How the market tells you what features to build next

21:22 - Philosophy: software should adapt to the business, not the other way around

25:18 - Why off-the-shelf tools force businesses into broken workflows

28:21 - The commercial model: discovery, build, then ongoing support and maintenance

32:01 - Why Elemental keeps everyone in-office five days a week

36:06 - The advantages: culture, collaboration, mentoring, and quality control

38:53 - The major challenge: hiring in a world that wants remote work

42:18 - How Angelo stays connected to the technical side without writing code anymore

43:18 - The reality of vibe coding: it looks good but has no brakes

46:32 - Security nightmares in AI-generated prototypes

48:07 - Using AI tools like Copilot and Cursor responsibly

50:58 - Building SEO calculators with vibe coding versus proper development

52:18 - Advice for agencies looking to scale: stop being too generalist

55:23 - Positioning yourself as a specialist and marketing to that niche

57:24 - Book recommendation: $100,000,000 Offers by Alex Hormozi

Learn more about scaling your agency at eComOne.com

From a ski slope conversation to 120+ staff. That's the journey of Impression, one of the UK's fastest-growing performance marketing agencies.

Mikey Emery started in a server room with three co-founders and built an agency that's broken through every glass ceiling—staying profitable, debt-free, and people-first the entire way.

Mikey Emery

Mikey Emery is the Commercial Director and co-owner of Impression, a performance marketing agency with offices in Nottingham, London, and Manchester. After joining the founders in 2014, Mikey has been instrumental in scaling the business from 4 people to over 120 staff while maintaining a relentless focus on automation, AI, and client-centric delivery.

This podcast episode is relevant to you if you're navigating agency growth, struggling with team structure, or wondering how to invest in automation without losing the human touch.

Find out how Impression restructured from channel-based teams to client-centric pods, why they paused client billing during COVID (and grew 50% anyway), and what it really takes to launch into the US market as a UK agency. Mikey shares the honest truths about leadership evolution, making decisions even when you're not sure, and why learning from pitch losses has driven more change than celebrating wins.

If you're serious about scaling your agency while keeping culture intact, this episode is packed with real, usable lessons.

Topics Covered:

1:34 - How Mikey got into the agency world (and why his e-commerce business failed)

3:37 - From bedroom freelancers to first office in 2014

4:46 - Growing from 4 people to 120+ staff across three UK offices

6:22 - The step changes that pushed through growth glass ceilings

8:00 - Why moving into an office space was a pivotal moment

10:18 - Winning seven-figure accounts that changed the trajectory

12:24 - How servicing bigger clients is less operationally complex than you think

14:13 - Splitting time as Commercial Director across growth, marketing, and client services

15:54 - Using data and forecasting to stay 95% accurate on the next 4 months

18:55 - Leadership evolution: from impatient decision-maker to trusting the team

21:22 - Why "a decision is better than no decision" became his guiding principle

23:22 - The agency's approach to AI and automation (it's been core for 10 years)

26:32 - Launching their proprietary AI content production tool

29:19 - Investing in full-time developers and data scientists to build tech in-house

32:16 - The US expansion: why every state is its own country

34:24 - Going from UK-based clients marketing in the US to building a proper US presence

36:02 - Setting up offices in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami

40:14 - The biggest challenge: COVID and the decision to pause client billing

43:52 - Why they chose not to furlough staff and how it paid off

46:59 - The importance of having a war chest of cash reserves

47:58 - What's on the roadmap: US growth, AI acceleration, and restructuring into pods

49:41 - Moving from 20+ people on accounts to lean, client-centric pod structures

52:40 - One piece of advice: Make a decision, even if it's wrong

53:47 - Why failures drive more change than successes

54:26 - Book recommendation: The Good Company by Arthur Blank