The dreams bothered the king. He asked everyone he knew what they meant, but no one could tell him. Then one day, the king’s sommelier told him to talk to Joe, an old prison buddy. Joe was a dreamer himself, and the things he said about dreams had a habit of coming true.

Joe told the king what the dreams meant. Seven years of feasting were coming. Right after them would come seven years of famine. The famine would be so bad that people would forget the good years ever happened.

The king believed Joe so much that he made him second-in-command. Joe’s plan was to save 20% of every harvest during the seven good years. That plan got the kingdom through the seven years of famine. They even had extra food to sell to nearby kingdoms that hadn’t planned ahead.

Agency owners know the phrase “feast or famine.” At any given time, an agency is either swimming in clients and making lots of money or desperate for work and short on cash.

But that’s not quite right. It’s not feast or famine. It’s feast and famine. Almost every agency has both. It’s normal.

You must let go of the idea that feasting means you’re doing it right and famine means you’re doing it wrong. Feast and famine are results. What causes them are seasons. Some stretches are good: clients are buying freely, referrals come in, and prospects say yes. Other stretches are droughts. You can’t cause a good season or stop a drought any more than you can skip winter or make summer show up 8 weeks early.

What you can do is use the good season to prepare for the drought. I recommend two ways.

First, always run a profitable agency. That starts with profitable projects, which means profitable payments. Joe saved 20% of every harvest. When I ran SuperFriendly, I saved 10% of every check. Do what you can. Even 1% makes a difference. Every time a client pays you, the first thing you should do is move some of it to a separate bank account labeled “Profit.” We were profitable from day 1 and used that profit to smooth things out when the drought arrived.

Second, plant seeds during the growing season, not during the drought. In farming, the growing season is when conditions are good: rich soil and the right amount of rain. A drought is when conditions are bad: dry or rocky ground. If you plant during a drought, nothing grows. The soil isn’t right or there’s not enough water, so there’s nothing to harvest. That’s why farmers plant and harvest during the growing season, then live off that harvest during the drought.

For agency owners, planting seeds means doing regular outreach. Most owners stop reaching out when they have lots of work, when they’re feasting. Then they start again when work dries up. That’s backwards. Maybe the drought is hitting the whole market, so everyone is starving. Your outreach won’t work then, because nothing grows in a drought, and everyone else who’s starving is reaching out just as much as you are. Or maybe the drought is only hitting you, even though the market is doing well. The soil might be fine, but your seeds are rotten. Desperation Outreach™ reeks, and it won’t help you land anything. Outreach sent while you’re feasting smells sweet. Clients who want to win like working with agencies that are winning too.

The most successful agencies haven’t figured out how to avoid famine. They saved enough and planted enough seeds while they were feasting that the famine doesn’t scare them.