| Minutes | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1 to 5 | Their business. Open with the observation that got you the call, then get them talking: how's the season, where do new customers come from today, what made them take this call |
| 5 to 9 | The number. Find the outcome that would make this obviously worth it (two questions below) |
| 9 to 12 | The audit and the plan. Show their own presence: stale posts, unanswered messages, reviews with questions. Four sentences of plan, not a strategy deck |
| 12 to 15 | Price and close. State the pilot price plainly, name what it includes, ask for a start date |
"If this worked perfectly in ninety days, what would be different?"
"What's one new customer worth to you, roughly?"
The second question gives you the arithmetic of your own price. An owner who says a new customer is worth eight hundred dollars will not blink at a five-hundred-dollar retainer that produces two of them a month. Write their words down; quote them back in the first monthly report.
| The number, in their words | One new customer worth, roughly |
|---|---|
So here's what I'd suggest. A thirty-day pilot on your Facebook and Instagram: three posts a week, messages and comments checked every weekday, and at the end a one-page report showing calls, messages, and bookings that came through social. Four hundred dollars for the month. If the numbers look right to both of us, the ongoing rate is seven hundred a month. Can we start Monday with me grabbing access to the accounts?
Course pricing design: pilot $300 to $500, tiers $500 to $800 and $900 to $1,500/mo; scripts use $400/$700 examples. Silence after the price is not a problem to fill. The first person to speak after a price has a long history of conceding.
I can't honestly guarantee customers, and I'd walk away from anyone who says they can, because they don't answer your phones. What I guarantee is the work: posts out on schedule, every message answered same day, and a report on the first of each month showing exactly what activity produced. If the work is there and the numbers aren't, we'll both see it and decide together.
"The pilot is the pilot because it's already the smallest useful version. I can go down to two posts a week if budget's tight."
Hold the pilot price and flex the scope, never the other way. An owner who cannot find four hundred dollars for a month of proof is telling you something about year one of that relationship.
"Happy to. Let's do this, I'll send it Tuesday and call you Wednesday at ten to walk through it, does ten work?"
A proposal with a meeting attached survives. A proposal alone dies in an inbox.
From "Hard truths": the fix for scope creep is a sentence, said kindly, every time. Swap or add-on. Nothing else.
Happy to do that. It's outside the current package, so it's either a swap for something this month or a small add-on. Which would you prefer?
Two things before we plan the fall. The quote requests are up forty percent from baseline, and starting in October the retainer moves from seven hundred to eight fifty, which I wanted you to hear from me now and not on an invoice. Does that work?
| Pattern | What it predicts |
|---|---|
| Fired three agencies in two years | Will fire you in two months |
| Wants to pay per post | Bought posts, not outcomes |
| Will not grant access; "partner handles all that" is unreachable | Delivery strangled in week two |
| Opens with "my nephew could do this" | The price of their attention, stated |
Exception worth patience: skepticism because the last agency genuinely burned them converts into the most loyal clients in the industry.