We all love the myth of the “natural born leader”. The Alpha that takes charge of every situation, ensuring the job gets done, no matter what. But leadership is so much more than someone with an outgoing personality. It’s a collection of skills. Empathy. Listening. Coaching. Motivation. Powerful leaders act a lot like a Swiss Army Knife, deploying the right tool at the right time to get the desired result.

New hires slog through a lot before they’re ready to operate at the rate of someone who’s been there for years. And should you leave out important steps when getting someone set up, you could end up with a new employee who doesn’t know where to go for help, isn’t sure what they’re supposed to be doing every day, and ends up regretting their decision to join your company. New hires are also judging you during their first weeks at the company.

People love to give advice. And when the whole world seemed to go remote in 2020, the advice of how to best work remotely started to flood in. Some advice was sound. Other advice was downright harmful. There are threads all over Reddit, Twitter, and at least a dozen established Facebook groups with countless experts in remote work—”experts” who have barely been doing it for a year.

Can you hop on that meeting? Will you take a look at this graphic? Give me your thoughts about this initiative quickly. What do you need me to do here? Here’s a task I need you to complete by the deadline. Which of these common workplace requests sound like collaborating? I’ll give you a hint: it’s none of them. The truth is, most of us aren’t really collaborating at work.

Business growth is the focus of so many company goals but the very idea comes in only a few forms: Sales growth. Profit growth. New products. Traffic or audience growth. These are what most think of when they discuss growing the business, but they’re far from the most important factors. Not only do they contribute to company growth, but also help to maintain it. Most inexperienced business owners never predict what happens to the business’s structure when they achieve those growth goals.

The human brain is powerful. It outperforms even the most advanced computers in absorbing, filing, and connecting information. And it does all this while using less energy than a lightbulb. But there’s one function where the brain pales in comparison to computers: recall. Humans are not great at remembering. Details, events, names, faces—we’re even capable of forgetting what we’re doing while doing it!

Your clients hire you for one reason and one reason only: to get the results they struggled to get themselves. Desired results vary widely. But with the ability to track detailed, granular KPIs these days, it’s very clear to see when an agency succeeds and when they fall short. And if you didn’t do your job, guess what? Your contract won’t be renewed and you’re out a client, forcing you to spend more time and money to acquire new clients.

Horror stories about poor client experiences make the rounds online, in friend circles, and between colleagues. These stories can include anything from a lack of communication to being scammed out of money for deliverables. Either way, your brand reputation extends beyond just your work; it encompasses the entire client experience. One of the best things you can do for your business is give your clients a great experience from the start.

Finding clients is an important job for agency owners. Clients keep the lights on and your employees paid. But even more important is finding a way to keep existing clients happy and coming back for more work. When you do the hard work to land a new client, the last thing you want is for them to leave. It costs 5x to 25x more money to replace a client than it does to retain them. Meaning if you lose too many clients, your business is on a slippery slope towards demise.

If all you ever do is chase, you’ll run out steam and collapse. Any business that is reliant on cold outreach isn’t one that’ll last long. Why? Because you’ll always have to hunt for new clients. And if you want that client roster to grow (or need to replace clients that you fired), your outreach machine must be humming 24/7. It can be done, sure. But wouldn’t it be nice to turn clients away instead of chasing them down?