The CRM for the agency BD professional running pitch and RFP pipeline.
BD at a 50 to 500 person agency runs 25 to 60 pitches a year, a shared pitch team across accounts, cross-practice selling that fights the P&L structure, a retainer-vs-project packaging decision on every deal, and a forecast built from pitch outcomes that nobody tracks consistently. Strkr collapses the pitch pipeline, the pitch team coordination, the cross-practice map, and the retainer-vs-project packaging onto one surface built for agency BD.
BD at an agency carries a different motion than at a SaaS or product company. The role runs an RFP response cadence (incoming requests from procurement teams at the brand side), a pitch calendar (outbound targeted pitches to named brands), a pitch team coordination layer (strategy, creative, data, media, PM pulled from client work to staff a pitch), a cross-practice selling motion (brand strategy introducing a media practice buy, media buying introducing a creative project), and a retainer-vs-project packaging decision on every deal. The common stack is HubSpot or Salesforce for records, Teamwork or Asana for pitch task management, Google Drive for RFP response library, Keynote for pitch decks, a Google Sheet for the pitch calendar, email for the brand side CMO, and Slack for the internal pitch team. Seven surfaces, no handshake, and a pitch-win-rate number that is a vibe. The five pains below show up on every agency BD buyer call.
RFP response cadence
Every RFP starts from scratch in a SharePoint hunt.
An RFP arrives from the procurement team at a brand. The BD professional has 10 days to respond with a 50 page document covering agency credentials, team bios, case studies, methodology, pricing, and references. Every response starts with a Google Drive hunt for the most recent agency overview, the practice-area case studies, the diversity statistics, the client-list slide, and the biography deck for the proposed team. Strkr holds pitch artifacts, case studies, team bios, and agency boilerplate on the account record and the practice-area template, with Strkr AI drafting the first pass of the RFP response from the discovery notes and historical pricing.
Pitch team coordination
The pitch team gets staffed in a Slack scrum nobody records.
A pitch requires strategy, creative, data, media, and PM pulled from active client work. The BD professional negotiates the staffing in a Slack scrum with the practice leads, nothing gets recorded, and the pitch runs over hours because the capacity assumption drifted. Strkr runs a pitch team coordination view with named roles per pitch (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM), estimated hours per role, and the capacity draw from active client work. The pitch runs on a budget visible to the practice leads.
Pitch revenue forecast
Forecasting a pitch pipeline breaks every B2B hygiene rule.
Pitch cycles run 60 to 180 days, win rates land in the 20 to 40 percent range, and project deals land as 6 month retainers or 3 month projects or an ambiguous hybrid. Forecasting the pitch pipeline with B2B hygiene rules is a lie. Strkr runs an agency-specific forecast with pitch probability tiers (longlist, shortlist, final-round, verbal), expected revenue per pitch (retainer-adjusted or project-adjusted), confidence-weighted total, and the historical win-rate baseline per practice area so the forecast reads honestly.
Cross-practice selling
Brand strategy never refers to media buying.
A full-service agency sells across practices (brand strategy, creative, media, PR, data, experience design) and the biggest growth lever is cross-practice selling. The brand strategy team should refer the media practice into a buy, the media team should refer creative into a project, and the whole agency should map the relationship graph across every practice. Legacy CRMs render that as a static client list that nobody updates. Strkr renders cross-practice coverage on the account record with live project history, open opportunities across every practice, and the originating practice lead for each engagement.
Retainer vs project packaging
The same work gets priced three different ways.
A brand asks the agency to run a 6 month brand platform refresh. BD can quote a 6 month retainer (fixed monthly fee, dedicated team), a project (fixed total, defined deliverables, team flex), or a hybrid (base retainer plus project overlays). The decision is a judgment call that shapes margin, team utilization, and renewal probability. Strkr runs a Products module with retainer and project packaging options on the deal, retainer rate per practice, project margin targets, and the forecast reads retainer MRR and project revenue as parallel columns.
Pitch retrospective
The pitch team debrief dies in Slack scrollback.
A pitch wins or loses, the BD team runs a 30 minute debrief with the pitch team, and the lessons die in Slack scrollback. Three months later a similar pitch runs and the same mistakes repeat. Strkr runs a pitch retrospective view with lessons captured on the pitch record (what the client responded to, what the fee comment was, what the competitive-set was, what the team would do differently) that surfaces on the next pitch to the same brand or in the same practice area.
How Strkr fits the agency BD week
The primitives agency BD professionals actually run.
Strkr for agency BD ships the same CRM every revenue role uses, with pitch pipeline workspaces, RFP response acceleration, pitch team coordination, cross-practice referral tracking, retainer-vs-project packaging, and pitch retrospective capture layered on top. The primitives below map to the agency BD week: pitch calendar planning, RFP response drafting, pitch team staffing, cross-practice referral triage, forecast review, pitch retrospective, and the monthly new-business review. When those jobs live inside one workspace, BD spends the week on client conversations instead of on SharePoint hunts.
Pitch pipeline board
Pitches by stage, practice, and probability tier.
Column-per-stage board grouped by originating practice, pitch probability tier (longlist, shortlist, final-round, verbal), close month, or lead strategist. Drag a pitch between stages and the flow runs entry criteria for the required pitch artifact, surfaces the missing team role, and prompts the next-step date. The BD team builds the view that matches today, not the view the admin shipped last quarter.
RFP response acceleration
RFPs draft from the account record and practice library.
An RFP arrives from a brand procurement team. Strkr AI pulls the agency boilerplate, the practice-area experience statement, the diversity and inclusion statistics, the case study library for the relevant practice, the biography slides for the proposed team, and historical pricing for comparable scope, and drafts a first-pass response. The BD team edits for client fit instead of hunting Google Drive for the most recent version of every component.
Pitch team coordination
Named roles per pitch with capacity visible.
Every pitch carries a team manifest (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM) with estimated hours per role, blended rate, and the capacity draw from active client work. The practice leads see the capacity picture on the dashboard and staff pitches against the real utilization instead of a Slack scrum.
Cross-practice coverage
Every practice open on every account.
The account record carries live project history, open opportunities across every practice, and the originating practice lead for each engagement. BD sees the cross-practice coverage per account on Monday with the practice gaps flagged, which practice can introduce the account to the next scope, and which practice is already running work.
Retainer-vs-project packaging
Products module holds both pricing structures.
The Products module carries retainer options (monthly fee, dedicated team roster, scope boundary) and project options (fixed total, defined deliverables, team flex) on the same deal. BD toggles between structures with the margin math and the staffing implications on screen. The forecast reads retainer MRR and project revenue as parallel columns.
Pitch probability tier
Longlist, shortlist, final-round, verbal on every pitch.
Every pitch carries a probability tier (longlist 10 percent, shortlist 30 percent, final-round 60 percent, verbal 85 percent) with the historical win-rate baseline per practice area overlaid. The forecast reads confidence-weighted total alongside the raw pipeline so the finance team sees the honest number alongside the ambition number.
Pitch retrospective
Lessons captured on the pitch, surfaced on the next.
Every closed pitch (won or lost) carries a retrospective section (client response, fee comment, competitive set, team feedback, lessons learned) that surfaces on the next pitch to the same brand or in the same practice area. The BD team compounds the pitch library across years instead of resetting at every new-business meeting.
BD dashboard
Win rate by practice, pitch velocity, cross-practice revenue.
The BD dashboard ships with pitch win rate by practice, pitch velocity (longlist to verbal), cross-practice revenue, retainer-vs-project split, pitch team utilization, cost-per-pitch, and the monthly new-business review template. The monthly review deck renders in an hour with CSV export for the executive committee.
Pitch workflow built for agency BD
RFP response, pitch team, and cross-practice selling on one workspace.
The pitch is the deal for an agency BD professional. Strkr holds every artifact of the pitch motion on the deal: the RFP response document, the pitch deck versions, the team manifest, the Products scope, the retainer-vs-project packaging, the cross-practice coverage, the client feedback, and the retrospective. The cards below cover the specific primitives that make an agency BD motion compound across years instead of resetting at every new-business meeting.
Pitch calendar
Outbound pitches scheduled across the quarter.
The pitch calendar renders outbound targeted pitches to named brands by month, by practice, and by lead strategist. BD leadership sees the pitch commitment per practice against the quarterly target and schedules the next wave with the capacity picture already loaded.
RFP response library
Agency boilerplate, case studies, team bios on one record.
The RFP response library carries agency boilerplate (overview, methodology, diversity statistics, awards), practice-area case studies with results metrics, team bios with headshots and credentials, client-list slides by practice, and historical pricing by scope type. The BD team pulls the right component on the first draft without a Drive search.
Pitch deck versions
Every pitch iteration on the deal, timestamped.
Draft the pitch v1, send to the brand, revise to v2 after the chemistry meeting, add the fee-structure addendum in v3. Each version lives on the deal with timestamp, author, and the client comment that triggered the change. The lead strategist reviews the version the brand is actually seeing, not the version the account executive sent two weeks ago.
Team manifest
Named roles with hours and blended rate.
Every pitch carries a team manifest (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM) with estimated hours per role, blended rate, and the capacity draw from active client work. The practice leads see the manifest on the dashboard and approve the capacity before the pitch burns the week.
Products module for retainer and project
Retainer scope and project scope on the same deal.
The Products module carries retainer options (monthly fee, dedicated team roster, scope boundary) and project options (fixed total, defined deliverables, team flex) on the same deal. BD toggles between structures with the margin math and the staffing implications on screen, and the brand sees two side-by-side scope-and-pricing options in the pitch deck.
Cross-practice referral
Every open opportunity across every practice on the account.
The account record carries open opportunities across brand strategy, creative, media, PR, data, and experience design. A referral from brand strategy to media fires a flow that attaches the originating practice lead, routes the referral to the media practice lead, and attributes the deal on both practices for the cross-practice revenue report.
Pitch retrospective capture
Lessons on the pitch, surfaced on the next.
Every closed pitch (won or lost) carries a retrospective (client response, fee comment, competitive set, team feedback, lessons learned) captured in the debrief. The retrospective surfaces on the next pitch to the same brand or in the same practice area so the BD team compounds the library instead of resetting.
Audit trail
Who moved the pitch, when, and why.
Every pitch version, team manifest change, Products scope update, probability tier change, and retrospective entry carries an audit log with timestamp, author, and reason code where required. BD defends the pitch pipeline at the new-business review with a clean trail.
Flows for the agency BD motion
Automations across RFP, pitch team, cross-practice, and retrospective.
The best agency BD teams automate the administrative drag between pitch stages and spend their hours on the three client conversations where judgment matters most. Strkr Flows cover the automations every agency BD team should run as native triggers with no webhook plumbing. The pattern below compounds into a cleaner pitch pipeline, a faster RFP response, a pitch team staffing that respects capacity, a cross-practice motion that fires on signal, and a monthly new-business review that renders in an hour.
RFP intake
Incoming RFP creates the deal with context pre-loaded.
An incoming RFP from a brand procurement team fires a flow that creates the deal with the brand attached, pulls the practice-area case studies and team bios from the library, drafts the first pass of the response, routes to the lead strategist for review, and schedules the response-due reminder.
Pitch team staffing
Team manifest fires capacity approval.
A pitch team manifest fires a flow that routes the capacity ask to each practice lead with the specific role, hours, and active-client-work impact. Practice leads approve or counter-propose on the flow, the manifest finalizes on the pitch record, and the pitch runs on a staffed budget instead of a Slack scrum.
Probability tier change
Shortlist to final-round fires the pitch readiness check.
A pitch moving from shortlist to final-round fires a flow that runs the pitch readiness check (pitch deck v2 complete, team manifest approved, Products scope finalized, chemistry meeting scheduled), surfaces missing items on the BD view, and routes to the lead strategist for the final-round rehearsal.
Cross-practice referral
A referral from one practice attributes to both.
A referral from brand strategy to media (or any cross-practice move) fires a flow that attaches the originating practice lead, routes the referral to the receiving practice lead, attributes the deal on both practices, and schedules the warm handoff conversation. The cross-practice revenue report captures the referral path.
Pitch sent
Pitch deck fires the follow-up cadence.
A pitch moving to Verbal or Decision Pending fires a flow that drafts the 72 hour follow-up email, schedules the chemistry-meeting-recap thank-you, routes the Products scope revision to the lead strategist if the brand asks, and prompts BD to request the decision timeline.
Pitch close
Won or lost fires the retrospective capture.
A pitch closing (won or lost) fires a flow that creates the retrospective record, schedules the 30 minute debrief with the pitch team, drafts the retrospective pre-read from the activity history, and surfaces the retrospective to the lead strategist for signature.
Won pitch onboarding
Won pitch fires the client onboarding workflow.
A pitch closing Won fires a flow that creates the client onboarding project, routes the matter components from the Products scope to the account team, assigns the delivery team per the pitch manifest, schedules the kickoff meeting, and surfaces the account on the account-management workspace.
New-business review auto-assembly
Monthly deck renders two weeks ahead.
Two weeks before the monthly new-business review, a flow assembles the BD dashboard snapshot (pitch win rate by practice, pitch velocity, cross-practice revenue, retainer-vs-project split, pitch team utilization, cost-per-pitch), exports the CSV, drafts the executive committee slide copy, and routes to BD leadership.
Head-to-head
Strkr for agency BD vs the HubSpot + Teamwork + Drive stack.
A typical agency BD stack runs HubSpot or Salesforce for records, Teamwork or Asana for pitch task management, Google Drive for the RFP response library, Keynote for pitch decks, a Google Sheet for the pitch calendar, email for the brand side CMO, and Slack for the internal pitch team. The stack is seven surfaces, seven bills, seven logins, and seven places where the pitch pipeline drifts between tools. Strkr collapses that into one workspace with the pitch pipeline, RFP response acceleration, pitch team coordination, cross-practice coverage, retainer-vs-project packaging, and pitch retrospective shipped by default on every paid plan.
What matters
Strkr
HubSpot + Teamwork + Drive + Keynote + Sheets
Number of surfaces agency BD opens for a pitch review
1 (Strkr)
5 to 7 (HubSpot, Teamwork, Drive, Keynote, Sheets, email, Slack)
RFP response drafting
Strkr AI drafts from account record and practice library in minutes
Manual Drive hunt, 10 day response build
Pitch team coordination
Named roles with hours, blended rate, capacity draw on the pitch
Slack scrum with practice leads, capacity drifts
Pitch probability tier
Longlist, shortlist, final-round, verbal with win-rate baseline
Deal percentage on a Salesforce dropdown nobody tunes
Cross-practice referral
Live account record with every open opportunity across every practice
Separate pitch doc per structure, forecast conflates
Pitch retrospective capture
Native retrospective surfaces on the next pitch
Slack debrief dies in channel scrollback
Pitch calendar
Native with outbound pitches scheduled by practice and month
Google Sheet that forks every quarter
Won pitch onboarding
Flow fires client onboarding project with manifest and scope
30 minute rebuild between BD and account management
New-business review auto-assembly
Flow exports BD dashboard snapshot with CSV and slide copy
Three days of manual report pulling
Audit trail
Every pitch version, manifest change, tier change timestamped
Slack scrollback, lost on channel rotation
Monthly cost for an agency BD team of 3 to 8
One per-seat line, see pricing page
Five to seven per-seat lines stacked
See the CRM agency BD teams run pitch and RFP pipeline on.
Start a trial with the full agency BD stack enabled: pitch pipeline board, RFP response acceleration from the practice-area library, pitch team coordination with capacity math, cross-practice coverage on the account, retainer-vs-project packaging on the Products module, pitch probability tier with win-rate baseline, pitch retrospective capture, and new-business review auto-assembly. One bill, one workspace, one source of truth. Migrate from the HubSpot plus Teamwork plus Google Drive plus Keynote stack in an afternoon.
How does Strkr accelerate RFP response for an agency BD team?
The RFP response library on each account record and practice-area template carries agency boilerplate (overview, methodology, diversity statistics, awards), case studies with results metrics, team bios with headshots and credentials, client-list slides by practice, and historical pricing by scope type. An incoming RFP fires a flow that creates the deal, pulls the practice-area case studies and team bios from the library, drafts the first pass of the response, routes to the lead strategist for review, and schedules the response-due reminder. The BD team edits for client fit in a day instead of hunting Google Drive for the most recent version of every component across the full 10 day response window. Strkr AI drafts the first pass from the discovery notes and historical pricing on comparable scope.
How does pitch team coordination work when the team is pulled from active client work?
Every pitch carries a team manifest (lead strategist, creative director, art director, copywriter, data lead, media planner, PM) with estimated hours per role, blended rate, and the capacity draw from active client work. A pitch team manifest fires a flow that routes the capacity ask to each practice lead with the specific role, hours, and active-client-work impact. Practice leads approve or counter-propose on the flow, the manifest finalizes on the pitch record, and the pitch runs on a staffed budget. The practice leads see the pitch commitment per practice against capacity on the dashboard and staff pitches against real utilization instead of a Slack scrum where capacity assumptions drift and the pitch runs over hours.
Can the forecast handle pitch probability honestly across a 20 to 40 percent win-rate motion?
Yes. Strkr runs an agency-specific forecast with pitch probability tiers (longlist 10 percent, shortlist 30 percent, final-round 60 percent, verbal 85 percent), expected revenue per pitch (retainer-adjusted or project-adjusted), confidence-weighted total, and the historical win-rate baseline per practice area overlaid. The forecast reads confidence-weighted total alongside the raw pipeline so finance sees the honest number alongside the ambition number. A pitch moving from shortlist to final-round fires a flow that runs the pitch readiness check and routes the final-round rehearsal, so the probability tier moves on evidence instead of on BD optimism.
How does cross-practice selling work when the brand strategy and media practices have different P&L shapes?
The account record carries open opportunities across brand strategy, creative, media, PR, data, and experience design, with the originating practice lead for each engagement. A referral from brand strategy to media fires a flow that attaches the originating practice lead, routes the referral to the media practice lead, attributes the deal on both practices for the cross-practice revenue report, and schedules the warm handoff conversation. The practice P&Ls stay distinct, the cross-practice revenue attributes to both practices on the dashboard, and BD leadership defends the cross-practice motion at the new-business review with a clean trail. The biggest growth lever at a full-service agency becomes a tracked motion instead of a wish.
How does retainer-vs-project packaging work on the same pitch?
The Products module carries retainer options (monthly fee, dedicated team roster, scope boundary) and project options (fixed total, defined deliverables, team flex) on the same deal. BD toggles between structures with the margin math and the staffing implications on screen, and the brand sees two side-by-side scope-and-pricing options in the pitch deck. The forecast reads retainer MRR and project revenue as parallel columns so finance sees the recurring-revenue shape alongside the project-revenue shape. The retainer-vs-project decision becomes a judgment call grounded in margin and utilization math instead of a verbal preference that nobody can defend.
How does pitch retrospective capture work so lessons do not die in Slack?
Every closed pitch (won or lost) carries a retrospective section captured in the 30 minute debrief: client response, fee comment, competitive set, team feedback, lessons learned. The retrospective surfaces on the next pitch to the same brand or in the same practice area so the BD team compounds the library across years. A pitch closing fires a flow that creates the retrospective record, schedules the 30 minute debrief with the pitch team, drafts the retrospective pre-read from the activity history, and surfaces the retrospective to the lead strategist for signature. The lessons stop dying in Slack and start compounding on every subsequent pitch to the same brand or in the same vertical.
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