Ran the numbers on a few agency friends' calendars last month. Founders were personally closing 60-70% of their own sales calls, and losing 3-5 hours a week to it that should've gone into delivery or ops.

The math almost never works out. If your retainer is $3k/mo and a call takes 45 min plus prep/follow-up, you're spending founder time worth way more than $3k/mo just to sign the client. Multiply that by every no-show, reschedule, and "let me think about it" follow-up sequence you're personally chasing.

The agencies that scale past $30-50k/mo almost always hand off closing before they hand off delivery — not after. It's the highest-leverage hire you can make, and it's the one founders hold onto the longest out of ego or fear the closer won't 'get' the offer.

If you're an agency owner still closing your own calls: track your close rate for 2 weeks. If it's under 40% on qualified calls, that's not a lead quality problem — that's hours you're burning that a dedicated closer would convert better and free you up for the same or less than what you're already losing in founder time.

I do this full-time for agency owners now (SMMA, marketing, dev). Happy to break down what a good closer setup looks like if anyone wants specifics.