About this episode
Most agencies never crack eight figures. Mark Orttung helped one grow to $130M—by breaking every "safe" rule.In this episode, we dive into what agency owners at the $1–5M mark can actually do to punch past the common growth ceilings.The most important shift?He stopped selling to job titles—and started selling to buyers with something to prove.⏱ Timestamps00:00 – Intro: Why agencies need a rethink00:36 – Mark’s background: Accenture, startups, bill.com, Nexient02:23 – Studying AI in the 90s: symbolic vs neural nets04:30 – Stepping into Nexient at $39M—and losing $5M first06:59 – Early differentiation struggles and customer perception08:29 – Building product-style squads inside a services business10:38 – The big leap: shifting from selling people to selling outcomes11:08 – Simplifying the pitch: “life’s too short for crappy software”13:12 – Saying no to revenue: the scary path to focus14:14 – Selling without data: enterprise outbound as testing lab16:26 – Creating their own conference as a positioning feedback loop19:34 – Cross-industry client base: healthcare to gas utilities to tech20:25 – Specializing by service vs vertical in today’s world24:52 – Growth “walls”: from founder-led to decentralized structure29:21 – Change agents: how to spot internal buyers who take risks32:40 – The next wall at 150M and why he chose to exit36:56 – Getting ghosted on a term sheet, then driving a bidding war40:17 – The Project Works origin story: from spreadsheet to SaaS42:28 – Why every services firm needs better resourcing visibility47:29 – What’s next: proposal automation, AI, and growth tooling48:49 – Where to find Mark and Project WorksKey PointsWhy scaling past the eight figures in a services firm requires breaking the founder bottleneckWhy “life’s too short for crappy software” became a high-converting missionThe opportunity of building or early adopters—not the mainstreamHow to identify and win over internal change agents in large enterprisesHow Project Works helps agencies resource smarter and prevent margin leaksUsing conferences as real-time feedback loops for positioningWhy now is the time to apply AI to services growth ops—especially proposalsLinks & Resources:🔗 Links & Resources🔗 Book a strategy call with Dan: https://salesschema.com/work-with-us/🎙 More episodes of the Digital Agency Growth Podcast: salesschema.com/podcastProject W
