9 things won this engagement. Your CRM recorded one.
A professional-services deal is decided over months, in places no report will ever credit — a post somebody read, a case study forwarded from a personal address, what an AI assistant says when it is asked who does this well. We build the things that get read, and we measure the whole distance rather than the last click.
One line in the pipeline report. That is the entire record of an $84,000 engagement. Press the button.
Three failures that look like a lead-volume problem and are not.
01
The form fill is counted, the conversation is not
A channel is judged the moment somebody submits an email, which is the one point in the process where every source looks identical. What separates them happens later — whether the meeting is taken, whether the buyer has a budget, whether anyone signs. Optimising to the form is optimising to the last moment before the difference appears.
02
Nobody can say which touch started the deal
The proposal that closed came from a referral, who had read two articles, after a colleague clicked an ad eleven months earlier. Your CRM records the last step and the invoice records the outcome, and there is no line between them — so the budget conversation becomes an argument about opinions rather than about arithmetic.
03
A long sales cycle is treated as a reporting problem
When money goes out in March and comes back in November, monthly reporting will always make the good quarter look bad and the bad quarter look fine. Firms then cut the channel that was working because it had not finished working yet.
You will meet one of the 6 people who sign this off.
What we would report on, and what each one is for.
You already watch some of these. The difference is that they are managed together, on one definition, so a cheaper lead can never quietly become a worse client.
Qualified meetings, not enquiries
A meeting that a partner would have taken anyway, with the qualification rule agreed in writing before we start. It is the first number in the chain that a channel can actually be judged on.
Cost per qualified meeting, by source
What it costs to put one real conversation in a calendar, held separately for every channel. This is where the cheap-lead source usually stops looking cheap.
Pipeline value created, not leads created
Meetings multiplied by the value of the work actually discussed. Two channels producing the same number of meetings can differ by a factor of five here.
Win rate by source
Whether the people a channel brings are people you beat the competition for. A source with a low win rate is a source selling you into the wrong rooms.
Time from first touch to signature
How long your money is out before it comes back. It decides how much you can afford to spend today and how patient the reporting has to be.
Revenue traced to a first click
The only number that closes the argument. Every deal carries the source that started it, not the one that happened to be last.
Tick what is true. Three or more and this is your stage.
The stage you need is decided by what is already working, not by budget. Switch stage below and the list changes with it.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Tick the ones that are true.
Nothing is submitted and nothing is stored — this is here so you can rule the stage out as easily as rule it in.
Foundation for B2B, line by line.
Every line links to the service page it comes from, with its standalone price, so you can check the arithmetic rather than take our word for it.
Excludes ad spend, which you pay directly to the platforms.
One channel that reliably books qualified meetingsTwo channels unified, and a reason the second one existsEvery stage of a long sale, run as one system
Search media buying on one platform
Up to $10,000 a month in ad spend, on the platform where people already describe the problem you solve. One channel run properly beats three run thinly, and at this budget that is arithmetic rather than preference.
Part of Media Buying → 02Two ad sets a month
Eight pieces sized for every placement, written around the problem rather than the service name. Enough variation that the algorithm has something to choose between.
Part of Performance Creative → 03Meeting tracking wired to your CRM
Before anything is optimised we make an enquiry, a qualified meeting and a signed engagement three different events, checked against your own deal records rather than the platform's word for it.
Part of CRO & Analytics → 04The qualification rule, agreed in writing
What counts as a qualified meeting is decided by you and written down before we spend anything. Every report from then on is measured against that sentence.
Part of CRO & Analytics → 05A monthly strategy call
Thirty minutes with the person actually running the account, not an account manager relaying it.
Part of Media Buying →Media buying across two platforms
Up to $25,000 a month in ad spend. The second platform is added because the first one has run out of people worth reaching, not because it was available.
Part of Media Buying → 02A creative retainer, not a creative order
Eight statics and four videos a month, produced against what the reports say is tiring rather than against a brief written in January.
Part of Performance Creative → 03The organic footprint a referral checks
The pages a serious buyer reads before the call, and the technical work that makes them findable. This is the channel that makes every other channel cheaper.
Part of SEO & AI Visibility → 04Two conversion experiments a month
Run on the pages where enquiries are actually lost, with the result written down whether it worked or not.
Part of CRO & Analytics → 05Pipeline value reported by source
Not meetings counted, but the value of the work discussed in them, traced to whatever the buyer touched first.
Part of CRO & Analytics →Media buying across every platform that earns it
Budget allocated on cost per qualified meeting and pipeline value, moved monthly, with the reasoning written down each time it moves.
Part of Media Buying → 02Creative produced at the rate the channels consume it
Statics, video and the long-form pieces a considered buyer actually reads before a call.
Part of Performance Creative → 03Organic and AI visibility as a managed programme
The full technical, content and authority programme — including how your firm is described when somebody asks an AI assistant for a shortlist.
Part of SEO & AI Visibility → 04Follow-up that runs whether anyone remembers
The sequences between a first meeting and a signature, and between one engagement and the next. In a long sale this is where most revenue is quietly lost.
Part of Lifecycle Management → 05Routing, chasing and reporting handled automatically
Enquiries routed to the right person in minutes, follow-up chased without anyone remembering, and the report assembled from your own deal data rather than by hand.
Part of AI Automation →What this would cost you separately.
Read this honestly: at $1,340 of fixed lines against $1,550, you are not buying a discount here. You are buying one team, one plan and one person accountable for whether a meeting was worth taking, instead of three invoices and nobody who owns the answer. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
At $3,200 of fixed lines against $3,100, the saving is not the argument. The argument is that these four things stop contradicting each other. Paid, organic, creative and conversion work run on one definition of a qualified meeting, so a cheaper meeting can never quietly become a worse client without somebody noticing. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
At $5,950 of fixed lines against $5,900, the price is almost exactly what the parts cost. What you are buying is that they are one system rather than five suppliers. One definition of a qualified meeting, one place the budget moves from, and one person who can tell you which first click produced last quarter's largest engagement. Figures on the left are the closest equivalent line from the à la carte menu; a line inside a stage is never an exact copy of a standalone service, so treat this as a fair comparison rather than an identical one.
What this stage leaves out, on purpose.
Named here rather than discovered in month three. Each can be added, and each links to what it costs.
Search visibility that is not paid for
Foundation buys attention. It does not build the organic footprint that makes a referral trust you when they search your name before the call.
SEO Essential — $850/mo →A website or landing page
Foundation assumes you already have somewhere credible for a serious buyer to land. If that page is the weak link, adding traffic multiplies the problem.
Business Website — from $1,500 →Follow-up sequences after the meeting
What happens between a first meeting and a signature is left to your team at this stage. It is the single cheapest thing to add once meetings are arriving.
Lifecycle Management — $800/mo →Lifecycle work after the signature
Structure gets people into the room. What happens across a nine-month engagement to make them buy again is deliberately out of scope until the front of the pipeline is reliable.
Lifecycle Management — $800/mo →Automation of the follow-up itself
Chasing, reminding and routing stays manual here. It is worth automating once the volume justifies it, and wasteful before.
AI automation Care Plan — $350/mo →A rebuilt website
We will improve the pages that lose enquiries. Rebuilding the site is a separate piece of work with a separate price.
Business Website — from $1,500 →A rebuilt website
We will run experiments on the site and rebuild the pages that lose enquiries. A full rebuild is a separate project with a separate price.
Business Website — from $1,500 →Sales training or a sales team
We put qualified meetings in the calendar. What happens inside the meeting is yours, and no amount of marketing fixes a conversation that goes badly.
Media spend itself
Every figure here excludes the money that goes to the platforms. It leaves your card, not ours.
What we will not do, whatever you pay us.
01
We will not promise a number of leads
Anyone who quotes you a lead count before seeing your win rate, your average engagement value and your sales capacity is quoting a number they intend to hit with the cheapest traffic available. That is how firms end up with a full inbox and an empty pipeline.
02
We will not report on form fills as though they were pipeline
Every report separates enquiries from qualified meetings from pipeline value. If the three ever move in different directions you will see it in the same week we do, which is the point of measuring them apart.
03
We will not route your ad budget through our account
It goes from your card to the platforms. We never hold it, float it, or take a percentage of it as margin. Management up to $10,000 a month of spend is a flat $900 — scaling your budget does not inflate our invoice.
Signature to first campaign: 7 to 12 business days.
What happens, and what we need from you at each point. The second column is the one most agencies leave vague.
We take access to whatever already exists in your name — ad accounts, analytics, the CRM — and read the last two quarters of enquiries against what actually closed.
Approve access requests from your own logins. No shared passwords, ever.
The qualification rule is written and agreed. One sentence that decides what counts as a meeting worth taking, signed off by whoever takes the meetings.
Thirty minutes with the person who would take the call.
Tracking is wired so an enquiry, a qualified meeting and a signed engagement are three different events, checked against your own deal records rather than the platform's word.
Point us at whatever holds the real deal data — the CRM, the spreadsheet, whichever it honestly is.
First campaigns and first creative go live. You see the plan, the audiences and the spending ceiling before anything spends.
One round of comments, from whoever knows the buyers best.
First full report and the strategy call. It states cost per qualified meeting by source, what closed, and what we got wrong — because month two depends on month one being read honestly.
45 minutes, and a decision on what changes.
What you are committing to.
The same terms apply to all three stages and every service on the site.
- Invoiced monthly in advance. Three-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30 days’ notice. Three months is the shortest honest term for anything measurable.
- Ad budgets are paid by you, directly to the platforms. We never hold, route or mark up your media spend, and the management fee is the only thing we are paid.
- Platform subscriptions stay on your billing. Advertising accounts, email platform, messaging, hosting — all in your name, so none of it is hostage to the relationship.
- You own every account, asset and piece of data created during the engagement, including after we part ways. That is not a courtesy at the end; it is the arrangement from day one.
- Onboarding is 5 to 10 business days from signature to first launch, depending on which services are in the plan.
- Custom scopes are always available. If none of the three stages fits, tell us the goal and the budget and we will price the actual work rather than sell you the nearest box.
- The $95 strategy session is credited in full toward your first invoice, so if we work together the session costs you nothing.
The questions that decide it.
Our sales cycle is nine months. How would we know this is working before then?
By watching the chain rather than the end of it. Qualified meetings move in weeks, pipeline value in a month or two, and signatures when they were always going to move. If meetings and pipeline value are both climbing and nothing has closed yet, that is a cycle-length fact, not a channel failure — and the report says which one it is.
We already get referrals. Why would we pay for anything else?
Referrals are the best revenue you will ever have and the least controllable. They arrive when they arrive, and they cannot be increased on a quarter's notice. The work here is not to replace them — it is to make sure that when a referral searches your name before the call, everything they find confirms the recommendation.
Can you guarantee a certain number of meetings?
No, and you should be careful with anyone who does. What we will do is agree the qualification rule in writing before we start, report every meeting against it, and tell you in month two whether the cost per qualified meeting is heading somewhere you can live with. If it is not, we say so.
Who actually does the work?
The person who runs your account is the person on your monthly call. There is no account manager relaying questions to a team you never meet.
What happens if we stop?
Every account, asset and piece of data created during the engagement is yours, including after we part ways. Paid channels stop when the spend stops; the site, the content and the tracking keep working. That is the arrangement from day one, not a courtesy at the end.
Who this works for, and who it does not.
A good fit if
Most of this work looks like the following.
- You sell an engagement worth roughly $5,000 or more, where one client changes the quarter.
- Somebody can take a qualified meeting within a few days of it being booked.
- You can agree in writing what makes a meeting qualified before we start.
- You will give access to the CRM, the analytics and whatever holds your real deal data.
- You accept that a nine-month cycle cannot be judged on a four-week report.
The wrong choice if
Said plainly, so nobody spends a call finding out.
- You want a fixed number of leads guaranteed before anyone has seen your win rate.
- Nobody has time to call an enquiry inside a week.
- The engagement value is small enough that one client cannot pay for the acquisition.
- You want the spend routed through us so it looks like a single invoice.
- You need signed deals before you will commit any budget at all.
A paid strategy session, credited back.
45 minutes. $95, credited in full toward your first invoice.
Bring your last two quarters of enquiries and what closed from them. We will trace the closed work back to where it actually started — and tell you which stage fits, including if the answer is none of them yet.
- Cost per qualified meeting, calculated on your own numbers
- Which source your best clients actually came from first
- An honest read on which stage fits, or that none of them does yet