How Do You Answer 'We Are Already Working With Someone'?

The best prospect on the list is the one your AE gives up on

Listen to your outbound calls or read the email threads. The prospect says "we already have an agency for that" and your AE says "okay, thanks for your time, keep us in mind." Deal over in nine seconds. The AE logs it as not interested and moves to the next name, where the prospect has no agency, no budget, and no idea what marketing costs.

Think about what the first prospect just told you. They have a marketing budget. They have decided to outsource it. They are paying a retainer right now. The only question is whether they are happy, and almost nobody who has been with an agency for more than a year is entirely happy. Your AE just walked away from a buyer to go find a browser.

Why the objection stops your team cold

It sounds final. It sounds polite. And it triggers a fear most agency salespeople carry: that pushing past it means bad-mouthing another agency, which feels unprofessional. So the AE takes the exit that is offered.

The fear is misplaced. Nobody has to criticize the incumbent. The prospect will do that themselves if given a small opening. The job is to create the opening with a question, not an argument. That is a skill, and skills are learned by repetition, not by reading about them.

The words that turn it into a conversation

Agree first. "Good, that means you already know what this work costs and what it should produce." Then one question, asked with real curiosity, not as a setup. "How is it going?" or "What would you change about how they work with you if you could?" Then silence. The prospect will either say it is great, in which case the AE asks what specifically is working and learns what wins in that market, or they will hesitate, and the hesitation is the deal.

When they hesitate, do not pitch. Offer something small and specific. "Would a second opinion on one thing be useful, say your paid search account or your last quarter of reporting? No proposal, just a read on it." A second opinion is easy to say yes to. A pitch is not. The second opinion becomes a discovery call, and the discovery call is where your process takes over.

When they say it is great and mean it, book the future. "Glad to hear it. When does the contract come up? Would you take a call a month before, just so you have a comparison?" Most incumbents are on annual terms. A calendar reminder is a pipeline.

• Agree: they already buy what you sell
• Ask one honest question about how it is going
• Offer a second opinion, not a pitch
• If they are happy, book the renewal window

Never criticize the incumbent, and why that wins

The moment your AE says something negative about the other agency, the prospect defends their own decision. They chose that agency. Attacking it is attacking them. The AE who stays neutral and curious lets the prospect do the comparison in their own head, which is the only place it counts.

This matters for the second opinion too. When the AE reviews the account, the tone is what a doctor uses for a second opinion, not a rival. Here is what is working. Here are two things that could be stronger. Here is what that would take. The prospect concludes the incumbent is coasting. The AE never said it.

Drill it until the words are automatic

Your team will not run this on a live prospect until they have run it many times on a fake one. The moment of "we already have an agency" comes fast, and an AE who has to think about the response will default to the polite exit. The response has to be in their mouth already.

In Revenue OS, the AE practices against an AI prospect who opens with exactly that objection, by text or live voice, with 5 personas plus custom personas built on your market and 3 difficulty levels. The hard version says the incumbent is a friend, or the contract runs another year, or the last agency that asked for a second opinion trashed their work. Each attempt is scored in about 60 seconds on five criteria at 20 points each with a coach's note, 70 clears, and three scores under 60 in a row open a manager enforcement action.

Then the real calls tell you whether it stuck. Outbound calls uploaded to the Intel Suite are scored on six skills plus your process at 60% weight, best and worst moment timestamped. The nine-second hang-up shows up as a call that never got past the opener. The AE who turned it into a second opinion shows up as a call with a follow-up set. Over a month you know exactly who on your team has the words and who is still taking the exit, without listening to a single recording end to end.