Coaching Agency Owners to Charge More

The program ran alongside the agency I worked for, and members could share their screens with coaches several times a week. Many were agency owners and freelancers who ran ads well and priced like beginners: one billed $1,000 to $1,500 a client, another made about $6,000 a month from two accounts.

Their skill had outgrown their prices. They quoted what felt safe to ask for, and one who wanted performance deals was put off by the risk he thought they carried. The clients who most needed them didn't take them seriously at those prices, so they kept working for small budgets.

Most of the coaching was on the price and on the nerve to hold it. I held one member to a $5,000 minimum every time he brought a lower number to a call, and kept coaching him to see the value he provided. We helped him put a case study together from his own results and rebrand around it. Another member restructured his accounts with us and moved to charging on performance. A third wanted performance deals and was afraid of them, so we worked through how to structure and negotiate each one. I also told prospects when the program was early for them. It usually suits someone already making $20,000 to $30,000 a month, and I said so on the sales call.

• Group coaching with screen-share account reviews
• Pricing and performance-deal coaching
• Case studies built from members' own results
• Facebook Ads

One member raised his fee from $1,000-1,500 to $5,000 and up and took on two more clients. Another went from about $6,000 a month to multiple five figures and built a team around written procedures. A third negotiated a few performance deals. A fourth, who came from small businesses with almost no budget, went on to run the entire funnel for a client selling a $10,000 to $15,000 offer. An owner who joined with a good-size agency roughly doubled it while he was in the program.

Each member grew on skills they already had. They charged more for those skills, and the higher price brought clients with real budgets.

Coach the price before the tactics. These members already ran ads well, and the number they said on a sales call was what kept them small.