Background

WISE Digital Partners is a San Diego full-service digital agency on the Inc. 5000 for the third consecutive year, with 40–50 industry awards and an eight-year track record. It’s Patrick Dillon’s third agency and fifteenth company. Roughly 40 people, ~$5M annual run rate, and a delivery model rebuilt over the last two years around international talent and AI-integrated departments — built specifically so the business could absorb new clients without adding headcount first.

Their growth engine has been inbound, and it works. For fifteen years SEO drove the majority of revenue across Patrick’s businesses. Last year, GEO — business delivered through AI search – overtook SEO as WISE’s single largest source of new revenue. They have never run a paid ad for themselves.

The problem with an engine that good is that you don’t steer it. WISE says no to 80–90% of what comes through the door, and had no mechanism to go get the accounts they actually wanted: multi-location CPA firms, law firms, and home services businesses where their case studies were deepest. They’d tried to buy that mechanism four times. It hadn’t worked once.

The Challenges

• 100% inbound-dependent – no control over which clients came through the door.
• Four previous appointment-setting partners – two delivered zero clients in 3-6 months.
• Brand risk – an Inc. 5000 agency can’t be represented by generic outreach.