Linkbuilding discussion with clients

I work at an agency, and we’ve been doing link building for a client for over 5 years. Given the long-term nature of our relationship, it has become increasingly difficult to secure new link-building deals. To address this, we’ve started working with publishers we’ve collaborated with in the past. What are your thoughts on this approach? Personally, I believe that securing 3-4 high-quality links is more beneficial than focusing on quantity, such as doing 8 deals where some links may have subpar statistics. ( the client wants more deals) How do you recommend handling a client in this situation? P.S. The results have been positive.