Making good work easier to find
This agency had never needed to sell. One client credited the agency on its project, and people who saw the credit got in touch. The founders wanted steadier work and more say over where it came from. We spent a few hours a week with them for three months on their sales calls, their pricing and the investors behind their clients. By the end they were hiring to keep up and turning some work away.
Founder-led agency // Client story
7
people added to keep up
Three hires in the first two months, then four more contractors a month later as new work came in.
5 weeks
to close two large deals
A retainer and a project, both five figures and already in the pipeline. The founders closed them with our coaching.
3 months
to turning work away
We worked a few hours a week. By the end the agency had more leads than it could staff.
Where the work started.
The founders are very good at the work, and for years that was the whole sales process. Most new projects traced back to one client's credit and referrals, and a single partner supplied about a third of revenue. Nobody tracked where leads came from. Sales calls were friendly and often ended without a next step, so good leads went quiet.
//sales_calls
Calls that end with a date
We listened to their recorded sales calls and wrote up what we heard. The calls were warm and the advice in them was good. They were missing an agenda at the start and a booked next meeting at the end. Lost momentum is what kills most deals, so we added both, with follow-ups one, three and five days later. On pricing, when a buyer asks for a lower price, the scope comes down with it and the list price stays where it is. Two large deals closed within five weeks.
//investor_referrals
The investors behind the client list
The agency's clients are venture-backed, so their investors had already seen the work inside their own portfolio companies. We matched 28 clients to their investors and ranked more than 90 by how many of those clients each had backed. A second researcher checked every match. The founders started with the investors who knew them best. When an accelerator opened its cohort to them, we helped them cap the number of places, so they could keep their price.
//visibility
Paying clients to show the work
Most of their leads came from people who'd seen the agency's credit on a client's project, and some clients had started asking to take it off. The standard contract now offers 5% off for a case study and a short video, and another 5% for keeping the credit. The first proposal to carry the offer came in on the buyer's budget, and it signed.
//lead_handling
An automation with a brake
The founders told us most of the leads they lost, they lost by replying too slowly. We built an AI routine that checks their booking tool every four hours, finds where each lead came from and logs it in the CRM, so every new lead reaches the team within four hours. It credits a referrer only with evidence it can quote. If a run finds more than ten new leads it stops and asks, since a number that high usually means something broke. A second routine turns sales calls into a task list.
What the team was left with.
The agency has more leads than it can staff, so the founders' job now is delivering the work and choosing which projects to take. They run sales calls from a checklist, work through a ranked map of the investors closest to their clients, and use a contract that rewards clients for showing the work.
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