13:58Joanna Wiebe · Tutorial
The Psychology of Storytelling That Will Change Your Life
Eight storytelling principles, each tied to how the brain predicts, remembers and trusts, with a quick test you can run on your own writing.
January 29thThe argument in one line.
Clients never pay an agency for deliverables; they pay for leads or revenue, so the offer should promise a measurable number up front and earn most of its money from back-end offers timed to the client's journey.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You run a marketing or creative agency that sells deliverables, like reels per day or posts per week, and clients keep churning.
- You're an agency founder stuck on a flat retainer and want a structured way to upsell existing clients without feeling pushy.
- You're a freelancer or consultant whose pipeline is thin and who suspects the offer, not the marketing, is the problem.
- You do strategic work like positioning or ghostwriting and struggle to explain how it ties to a client's revenue.
SKIP IF…
- You sell products, not services; nearly every example assumes an agency-client retainer.
- You want pricing psychology or sales-page copy tactics; this is about offer structure and account growth, not persuasion copy.
The full version, fast.
Every agency client expects leads, revenue, or both, so the offer should say so with a number. The method starts with a client money map: put your deliverable in the middle, trace what happens before and after it in the client's business, how each piece is measured and who owns it, then stretch your service toward where the money is. That becomes Go Mode, a one-line promise like 'we drive 50% more booked appointments every month from Instagram reels,' plus a Turbo Mode tier pitched at the close that doubles the result for about 1.5x the price. A client lifeline, mapped month by month, then shows where to engineer a first-week win, where clients start dreading meetings, and when to pitch back-end offers: a 24-hour add-on, a next-level offer after a big win, governance to protect results, and solutions to the new problems success creates.
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00:00 – 01:14
01 · Cold open: all agencies suck
The billboard truck that says 'all agencies suck, ours just sucks less' and why that narrative is avoidable.
01:14 – 02:42
02 · Step 1: The implied promise
Every client hires an agency expecting leads, revenue, or both. Views and followers are not the job. Niching exists only to perfect one of those outcomes.
02:42 – 04:39
03 · Step 2: Leads, revenue, or celebrity
Pick which of the three you sell. Celebrity needs proof first. Even positioning work has to tie back to revenue.
04:39 – 09:35
04 · Steps 3-4: The client money map
Put your deliverable in the middle, then map what happens after and before it in the client's business, how each piece is measured, and who owns it.
09:35 – 12:22
05 · Step 5: Circle where the money is
Find the part of the map closest to money and stretch your offer to include it, so you sell a result instead of a deliverable.
12:22 – 15:10
06 · Step 6: Go Mode
Write the front-end promise with a number on it: 'We drive 50% more booked appointments every month from Instagram reels.'
15:10 – 18:05
07 · Step 7: Turbo Mode
At the close of the sales call, offer a dialed-up version that doubles the promised result for about 1.5x the price.
18:05 – 19:25
08 · Step 8: Conditions for the promise
List what must be true about a client before you sell either offer. Leads that fail the conditions are the wrong ICP.
19:25 – 24:30
09 · Step 9: The client lifeline
Map the engagement week by week or month by month from the client's side, including the momentum-killing onboarding admin.
24:30 – 27:05
10 · Step 10: The deliberate early win
Mark where results show up, then engineer a real win inside week one, before the first deliverable ships.
27:05 – 30:52
11 · Step 11: Kill the dread
Circle every moment the client dreads meeting you. Shorter meetings, celebrating wins, and personal gestures keep them from drifting toward firing you.
30:52 – 34:50
12 · Step 12: The 24-hour add-on
Within a day of the yes, sell the thing that makes them most likely to succeed, like a $5K studio kit with setup.
34:50 – 37:45
13 · Step 13: Sell more of what worked
When the client hits a big win, call them with the next step instead of just saying congrats.
37:45 – 39:34
14 · Step 14: The secured bag
Sell governance and deeper analytics that protect the client's results from a new hire who wants to change direction.
39:34 – 42:32
15 · Step 15: New level, new devil
Results create new problems, like inbound brand deals. Sell the fix, and hire for it when the math across clients works.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Nobody hires an agency for two Instagram reels a day; they hire it for booked appointments or product sales.
- The promise to every agency client is implied even when it's never written: more leads, more revenue, or both.
- The only good reason to niche is to get efficient at producing leads or revenue for one specific audience.
- You can't sell celebrity as an outcome until you've already made someone a celebrity.
- Mapping how the client measures your work often reveals you're optimizing for views when they care about comments that feed a booking funnel.
- Price a premium tier at about 1.5x the base and promise double the result, and the client hears 2x for 1.5x.
- The best moment to upsell is at the close of a sales call, when most salespeople rush toward the signature.
- The moment after a client signs is highly persuadable, and most agencies spend it sending invoices and admin homework.
- A client who has paid a $10,000 invoice and waited three weeks for their first video needs a win before that video ships.
- Every meeting a client dreads brings them closer to firing you, even if you're delivering results.
- Clients tend to credit good results to their own team or their own hiring decision, not to the agency.
- When a client hits a big win, saying 'great job' wastes the best upsell moment you'll get.
- If you don't tell a winning client what to do next, someone in their DMs will.
- A single new hire on the client's team can undo months of results, which makes protecting those results its own offer.
- Success creates new problems, and a client drowning in brand-deal requests is a buyer for brand-deal management.
- One specialist spread across nine or ten clients can turn a new back-end service into a profitable line.
Sell the result, then sell what comes next.
WHAT TO LEARN
Agency offers grow when they promise a measured leads or revenue number up front and time each additional offer to a moment the client is already primed to buy.
02Step 1: The implied promise
- Clients expect leads, revenue, or both from every agency engagement, whether or not the promise is ever said out loud.
- Views, followers, clicks, and opens only matter if they lead somewhere; your job is to tie the work directly to leads or revenue.
03Step 2: Leads, revenue, or celebrity
- The only reason to niche is to get efficient at producing leads or revenue for one audience, so name the outcome, not just the audience.
- Selling celebrity as an outcome requires proof you have already created celebrities; until then, sell leads or revenue.
- Strategic services like positioning still exist to fix sales and marketing problems, so describe them in revenue terms.
04Steps 3-4: The client money map
- Draw the client money map: your deliverable in the middle, then what comes after it, how each step is measured by the business, and who owns it.
- Back the map up to what happens before your work starts, because that reveals how you are really measured and what the client really cares about.
- The map often shows you are tracking the wrong metric, such as views when the client actually cares about comments that trigger a booking funnel.
05Step 5: Circle where the money is
- Circle the part of the map closest to money and expand your service to cover it, especially when it is owned by an overloaded in-house person.
- Nobody hires anyone for two reels a day; they hire for people entering the booking funnel or buying from the product page.
06Step 6: Go Mode
- Turn the expanded offer into one line with a number: we drive X% more of a leads or revenue metric every month from your channel.
- A numbered promise sets up a retainer focused on optimizing results instead of shipping more stuff.
- Project-based work can keep its deliverable promise up front and pitch the results retainer as the back-end offer.
07Step 7: Turbo Mode
- Pitch a dialed-up tier at the moment of the close, when the buyer is most excited, instead of rushing to the signature.
- Price the upgrade around 1.5x the base so the client hears double the result for one and a half times the price.
- Decide what would have to be true to deliver the bigger number, such as owning the booking funnel, and only sell it if you can deliver it.
- Upgrade revenue across many clients can fund one specialist who runs that piece for all of them.
08Step 8: Conditions for the promise
- Write down the conditions a client must meet before you will promise a result, such as existing investment in the channel or tools already in place.
- A lead who fails the conditions is the wrong ICP, and the answer is to go find the right one rather than bend the promise.
09Step 9: The client lifeline
- Map the engagement from the client's side in a two-column table, including pre-work, onboarding setup, and the kickoff call.
- The moment right after a client says yes is highly persuadable, and invoices plus admin homework are where that momentum dies.
- Track the hidden workload you put on the client, like filming prep and onboarding a new creative director, and mark where they start doubting you.
10Step 10: The deliberate early win
- Mark where results reliably show up, then look at the gap before that point where the client has paid and seen nothing.
- Engineer a real win inside the first week, even if it means improving an existing asset instead of waiting for the first new deliverable.
- 'I'm strategic, quick wins don't apply to me' is not acceptable; most clients have been burned by past agencies and need early proof.
11Step 11: Kill the dread
- Every meeting a client dreads moves them closer to firing you, even when results are good.
- Clients tend to credit results to themselves, so they have to like working with you along the way.
- Shorter meetings, celebrating wins, and personal gestures matched to how the client likes to be appreciated are what higher prices pay for.
12Step 12: The 24-hour add-on
- Within 24 hours of the yes, sell the add-on that removes the biggest obstacle to their success, such as a filming kit plus setup.
- Find back-end offers by reviewing what got in the way of past clients' success, then sell the fix, like team training.
13Step 13: Sell more of what worked
- When a client hits a big win, call them with the specific next step people at their level take; don't stop at congratulations.
- The next-level offer adds on top of the existing retainer, and a client fresh off a win is far more likely to accept it.
- If you don't tell them what comes next, a competitor in their DMs will.
14Step 14: The secured bag
- Proven results are at risk from a single new hire who wants to change strategy, so sell governance and deeper analytics as protection.
- Back-end offers work best when they build causally on results you already delivered and fit what you can actually resource.
15Step 15: New level, new devil
- Results create new problems at the next level, such as a flood of brand-deal requests after a follower spike, and solving that problem is itself an offer.
- Before hiring for a new back-end service, check whether one specialist's cost can be spread across nine or ten clients.
Terms worth knowing.
- Client money map
- A diagram that places your deliverable in the middle of the client's business, then traces what comes before and after it, how each step is measured, and who owns it, to show where money is actually made.
- Front-end offer
- The offer a new client buys first, usually the core service tied to a promised result.
- Back-end offer
- Any additional service sold to a client who is already paying, such as add-ons, upgrades, or new services triggered by results.
- Go Mode
- The base front-end offer written as a promise with a number on it, such as a percentage increase in booked appointments per month from one channel.
- Turbo Mode
- A dialed-up version of the base offer, pitched at the close of a sales call, that promises roughly double the result for about 1.5 times the price.
- ICP
- Ideal customer profile: the description of the client who meets every condition you need in order to deliver your promised result.
- Client lifeline
- A week-by-week or month-by-month table of what the client and the agency each experience during an engagement, used to spot slow periods, friction, and upsell moments.
- ManyChat automation
- An automated Instagram direct-message flow, often triggered by a comment keyword, that delivers a lead magnet or pushes people toward booking a call.
- Product-led growth (PLG)
- A growth strategy where the product itself, through free trials or self-serve signup, drives customer acquisition instead of a sales team.
- New level, new devil
- The idea that each new level of success brings new problems, like a sudden wave of brand-deal requests, which an agency can solve as a paid service.
Things they pointed at.
02:42productDragon Fruit (agency)
02:42channelAli Abdaal
02:42channelDan Martell
02:42channelCody Sanchez
05:26toolManyChat
05:55toolStan Store
Lines you could clip.
11:23
“Nobody is hiring you to do two Instagram reels a day. They don't care about that.”
16:38
“What the client hears is twice the results, two times the results for 1.5 times the price. The math is just good.”
21:00
“They've just said yes to you, and then what happens? They get an invoice, they get a bunch of administrative work to do, and this is where momentum dies.”
27:56
“Every time your client doesn't want to meet with you, they are that much closer to firing you, even if you are delivering results.”
37:26
“Do not make your client come up with what to do next. They don't know, and someone else is probably in their DMs.”
38:24
“As soon as you say the word governance, everything gets more expensive.”
Word for word.
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This is how you build an offer so good your clients feel stupid saying no. Now most business owners copy and paste the same offer to every customer and wonder why they never get anywhere but the top 1 % have a step -by -step method of determining how to price their services that are customized to every client. I have landed massive companies like Canva, AWS and Shopify as clients and I've taught over 70 ,000 marketers how to sell and this is the exact 15 step method I teach every founder I coach so today I'm walking you through all 15 steps to create an irresistible offer from figuring out what your clients will pay you for to the exact offers you pitch on the sales call to the extra offers you sell once they're already paying you, which is where the real money is.
So the prevailing narrative for agencies is that all agencies suck. You see this everywhere. There was a tweet recently where an agency was parked at an event with one of those trucks that has like a billboard on the side of it.
And the billboard said, all agencies suck. Ours just sucks less. And I retweeted this like, why is this the narrative that we have right now for agencies?
It's not cool. We can do. than that.
Almost every agency shies away from promising results, but the reality is your clients go into every engagement, no matter how much you charge, expecting results. So it's an implied promise that if you start putting it on the page and speaking to it in your messaging, you can actually attract better clients. There are two things every single business on the planet wants from you if you run an agency.
Just two things. This is it. Two things.
This might not seem like a shocker, but they want leads, or they want revenue, or they want both. What they do not want is views, subscribers, followers, clicks, opens, none of that crap.
That can all lead to these things, but your job is to make sure you find a way that your work actually directly leads to leads or revenue or both. That's the job. Your client expects this.
The promise implied to your client is always, if you hire us, you will get more leads, more revenue, or both. Whether you're stating that or not, that's the promise. When we think about running an agency and how to create an offer and who it's you're often thinking about should I niche, should I niche?
The reason, the one reason to niche is so that you can perfect generating leads or generating revenue or both for one particular audience or niche. So one industry. So you don't say on your website, we serve course creators.
You say we help course creators get more leads as in booked appointments for your high ticket offers, or we help course creators get more revenue as in run more successful launches. And that's it. That's the reason to niche.
so that you have efficiencies in doing those things and only those things. Step number two, pick whether you're selling leads, revenue, or celebrity. So you think of an agency like Dragon Fruit, which has made celebrities out of Ali Abdaal, Dan Martell, Cody Sanchez.
They can put that on their website and you can go, okay, I'm going to pay Dragon Fruit premium prices because they deliver celebrity. That is the one case where it's not about leads or revenue, but even then, it's still better. to have celebrity plus leads and revenue.
Now, the only way to sell celebrity though is with proof that you have already created celebrities. So until you have that proof, you need to go with leads or revenue. When you get that proof, then you can add in celebrity at that time and raise your rates accordingly.
Because nobody is running a YouTube channel just to like post on YouTube. So for example, when I say this to the agencies that I coach, invariably there's a positioning consultant in the room and they're like, well, I don't do leads or revenue, we help. businesses position themselves.
Why are businesses positioning themselves or repositioning themselves? Typically what's going on is there's a sales team involved, or there's a marketing team responsible for results involved. And they're like, we need more leads, more revenue, or both.
And they have then identified that they're in the wrong category or they need to reposition themselves. So you are, even as somebody who's doing strategic work, you are still coming in to help with real business problems. Your challenge is figuring out how to tie positioning to leads, revenue, or both.
So what you say then as that positioning consultant is we help your team get the right sales pitch in place by identifying the right positioning for your product in the market, which ties directly to revenue. And of course, the more you know about the ICP and how you're positioned for them, the better you are able to actually sell to them.
Step number three is drawing a client money map, which starts with what you do in the middle, what you deliver, and then what came before for you. clients in their world and what comes after for them okay so let's take the example of an instagram agency you post two reels a day for your client this is you instagram real agency two times a day excellent so you write that in there for your business how is it measured is the question okay how does the business measure it you have to answer that so a lot of instagram agencies go i think it's measured in views so they write in views okay write in what you think is how your deliverable gets measured by the business, not by you, by the business.
Write that in. So the next step I like to take is what comes after for your client. So you're posting two reels a day.
Why? In the client's mind, why are they posting two reels a day? So map out for them.
This is their money map. What comes next for them? So we do this.
There's usually a couple of things. We're just going to show you two in this example. So after a reel gets posted, what does the client want to happen?
Well, they want a ManyChat automation to trigger. Okay. So we do ManyChat automation to trigger.
What else might they do? Well, we also want them to go to our link in bio. Okay.
So link in bio. That happens after the reels. That's the ideal state for your client.
Great. Now you're asking, okay, how are those things measured and who is responsible for them? How is ManyChat measured?
By booked appointments, let's say. Okay, so we're going to book appointments. And who runs it is an in -house technical person.
Link in bio. How is your client measuring a link in bio? Well, that's maybe where they have a stand store set up or they're just like selling products there.
So we have revenue here. They're trying to move units. And who was responsible for it?
The link in bio was set up by an in -house marketer like a year ago. Okay, so we're going to put marketer. There.
Now you fill this in for your own business. Okay. So now we know in the client's mind, when they are hiring you to get two Instagram reels a day on their Instagram, here's why.
Now these keep going all the way to where the money is and then beyond it to where more money is. But let's say for example, in this case, ManyChat is going to drive to an appointment booking funnel. So we put that in place as well.
And your link in bio is going to drive to a cart and checkout or product page. Appointment booking funnel, and then product. detail page so we have appointment booking funnel product detail page those will also be measured certain ways usually in keeping with what came before them and run by somebody or you'll identify if they're not run by anybody or they're run by somebody who's running a whole bunch of different things so what we're seeing now is where the money flows and how you might fit in this is what's going on for your client Got to be aware of what's going on for your client outside of the thing that you deliver.
We're going to come back and look at this more. Step four is backing up the map to everything your client does before your work ever starts. Okay, so just like before, we're going to have what came before those two Instagram reels.
So what is the business doing on their end or have they hired an agency to do? So we do the exact same thing as before, knowing that there's going to be quite a few things going on. For this, we're just going to map two of them.
You map the real things that are really going on for your client. So in -house for your client, what is likely happening that makes them want to post on Instagram at all to drive into these various places is they're coming up internally with topics. Maybe these are related to campaigns, but there's topics they want covered.
So topics, topic ideation, we'll say. for ideation. And the other one is likely to be lead magnets.
So we'll do lead magnets. Okay. Lead magnets and ideas that for like what you're going to talk about on Instagram.
Now who owns ideation? Well, it's the same marketer because this one person owns everything. And how are those ideas measured?
They will be measured in comments to get the lead magnet because these are going to be tied together in this case. So we have comments. Great.
All right. Lead magnet. Exact same question.
Who is running lead magnets? Well, the marketer oversees them, but AI actually creates them. So we have AI creating lead magnets.
And how is that measured? That's going to be measured the exact same way, which is comments. Okay.
Now when we look at this, and we're still going to go back further, right? We've got these all tie into a campaign, for example. So you'll keep going back and really fleshing out what life looks like for your client and how you fit into that.
Mapping this out is going to take about 10 minutes. minutes. You should really pause this video right now, grab a sheet of paper, just map the thing out as you know it to be true.
And then if you don't know, ask your clients. What we're going to see in the end is how you fit in here, what you do and how that may be tied to other parts of the business and how maybe you're wrong about how it's measured. For example, when you look at this, you might go, huh?
we're being measured on views but I don't think our clients even care about views I think what they care about is comments that drive to many chat automations that drive to the appointment booking funnel so our Instagram reels might actually be better measured by comments and you can start making those changes as you go I'm gonna write comments in because it's more likely what will actually drive a result than a view step five identify on the map where the money is for your client circle that part and see how you can move what you do to incorporate that thing so that you're no longer the agency that sells a deliverable but rather sells a result on repeat so let's start with the example of an e -commerce client let's say you serve e -commerce clients we are still delivering two instagram reels a day that's still the thing but now we know our e -commerce client wants to sell more of their product by getting more people to click their link in bio.
And that link in bio has to make it really desirable to get to the product detail page. So we circle that. This is what our business can now look like.
So here we can see we are still doing the same thing, but now we've added in link in bio. We know it's measured in terms of revenue generated, which is great. And And we know it's already done by a marketer who's did it a year ago and is otherwise busy with other things.
So there's good reason to believe that there's an opportunity here for you to grow your business by saying, we're not just the Instagram reel that, or we're not just the Instagram agency that posts reels twice a day. We're the Instagram agency that helps you sell more of your products with Instagram reels. But let's pretend that you instead have a client that's trying to get booked appointments.
It's a high ticket coach, let's say. All right, so you're still doing Instagram reels, but you know, they're driving to a ManyChat automation.
Maybe they have one ManyChat automation in place and it's just like keywords, just like keyword death out there trying to get everybody into the same ManyChat funnel. So you're like, I know booked appointments are important to you. Let's start.
This is a new way. We're going to, in this case, add in ManyChat funnels for this. So now we've got still posting two reels a day and taking care of ManyChat funnels to make sure that we're getting more people into your appointment booking funnel.
Much more value for the client here. The takeaway here is nobody is hiring you to do two Instagram reels a day. They don't care about that.
They care about people in their appointment booking funnel, people getting into their product detail page and buying. We know this because we've mapped it. This is what clients care about.
Change your offer to get there. Now, this works for everyone, every marketing and creative agency out there, including like a LinkedIn ghostwriter. So let's say you're a LinkedIn ghostwriter and you think that this won't work for you.
What I would say is how is your pipeline looking? If you don't have a crazy wait list running, then you need to identify how LinkedIn ghostwriting is actually fit into your client's money map, how they're really measuring it. And then you do need to adjust what you offer to make sure that you're getting to leads or revenue or both.
Now you can do absolutely the same thing by working up as well. We were just giving this example here. You could go backward to easy peasy.
This is what we call your front end offer. This is what clients will see. They will buy into this, the real money.
is going to be in your backend offers though. We teach eight backend offers to the agencies that we coach. So if you want to see what those are, pop into the description, there's a link for you to get that worksheet.
Step six is writing these pieces into a promise with a number on it. And that promise is going to become the first of two front end offers for you. So this becomes your new line.
This goes on your homepage. It goes in your LinkedIn bio. It goes everywhere for you.
Take what you just learned on the client money map, your adjusted offer that you have now and fill this in. We're going to use the Instagram real agency example. So we drive, this is where you put a percentage or a dollar sign in.
So we drive 50 % more. In this case, we're going to say booked appointments, more booked appointments every month. from or with or using Instagram reels and stories or whatever that other thing is that you might be doing in there.
We drive 50 % more booked appointments every month from Instagram reels and stories. We drive 30 % more sales every month from Instagram reels or stories. And that one would be going to the link in bio.
Now, when we coach our agency founder clients, we call this go mode. You can call it whatever you want to, but this is the better version of what you were already offering slightly tweaked, but promising something that clients actually want tied to leads or revenue or both. What this does is set you up for a better retainer that is focused on you optimizing results rather than just like delivering more stuff all the time.
And it prevents just having certain projects, but rather getting to keep charging clients, working with clients and delivering for clients, which also helps you have opportunities for backend offers. But this doesn't have to be a monthly thing and you don't have to do it every month. You can still do this as a project -based engagement.
There is a client that we have. She does a website in a week. Now the challenge with this, if you say in a week, you're really getting it down to a deliverable.
What they want is a result. Nobody's hiring you for a website in a week either because they've got nothing better to do with their money. They want a website that performs better, drives more leads like into their funnel, drives more booked appointments, drives more sales.
And that's where it is very useful to have at least a backend offer retainer if you don't want to sell that on the front end. In which case, this person who does a website in a week could still say, we build your high converting website in a week.
However, then when on the sales call, you'd want to pitch a retainer that makes sure that you actually perform to those standards. So we drive 50 % more sales from your website every month. And that would be the retainer that that person would pitch on the back end where the moment you put a promise on a page, you actually start scoring real clients.
And it also forces you to start delivering the results that they already wanted in the first place. implied now you're putting it on the page and saying we do this we get measured by it and we charge accordingly step seven is offering what we call turbo mode at the very end of your sales call just as you are closing so you are on a call with the lead you're about to turn them into a client it's a wonderful moment everybody's very excited and a lot of salespeople pull away at that point and just try to get it like signed but this is an actually great moment to upsell them on turbo mode so you say hey cool all right let's do this and you're getting all the pieces together.
And then you pause and go, have I talked to you about turbo mode? And they, if they're a CEO or decision maker of any kind, want to hear about this turbo mode you just mentioned. And I do recommend that you call it turbo mode.
So turbo mode is a dialed up version of go mode. So again, this is go mode. Turbo mode is going to say, Hey, we'd love to get you 50 % more booked appointments.
We can do this. This is going to be great. What does a hundred percent more booked appointments sound like?
This is turbo mode. Sounds good to me. Okay.
Here's how we do it. You then take what you have here for go mode and you determine using that money map that we already drew what you would need to do to get them closer to getting a hundred percent more booked appointments every month so we cross that out and this is your job to figure this part out so a hundred percent more what would have to be true for you to deliver a hundred percent more booked appointments you would need to control their appointment booking funnel you might need to work with them on their offer itself that's cool you do those and that makes them more successful which makes them want to stay with you that's it that's turbo We drive 100 % more booked appointments every month from Instagram Reels and your optimized appointment booking funnel.
Turbo Mode is typically going to be about 1 .5 times what the price of Go Mode was. That means if Go Mode was $8 ,000, Turbo Mode is 12. What the client hears is twice the results, two times the results for 1 .5 times the price.
The math is just good. So two things about this. One, the name Turbo Mode.
If you don't use Turbo Mode, use something that sounds like it. Almost every decision maker likes the idea of the upgrade, the turbo mode, let's do this better, let's do this faster. And something short like turbo mode is shorthand for this is going to be the better way to go.
Of course you want to take this. Turbo mode. Secondly, the thing that you're going to deliver, you need to be able to do it.
Now, sometimes you will already have resources internally where you're like, we do know about appointment booking funnels. Of course we can do this. Other times you may have to hire for this role where you're like, well, the clients really want it.
So once we get someone to say yes to it, they've gone from 8 ,000 a month to 12 ,000 a month. We've got an extra four grand a month coming in. That will allow us to hire someone who can specialize in appointment booking funnels.
That's their whole job. Now, all we need to do is keep selling that. We have the one person continuing to optimize those appointment booking funnels for all of our clients.
How many can they optimize a month? 10, 20. So to sell this to 20 clients, one person running that for six grand a month for that person.
And you are actually printing cash at this point. Step eight, write down exactly what has to be true about a client before you will offer a client either of these two offers.
So for example, for the Instagram real agency, for them to promise any of this, what needs to be true? Okay, they need to already be actively investing in Instagram. They have, let's say, 20 ,000 followers already.
They have a many chat tool in place. Maybe it's not being well used, but they have it in place. Their sales team won't get in the way of you doing this work.
You'd have to go through and just list out those conditions. They don't have to be 15 of them. But that will also help you better refine who your ICP is and make sure you're set up for success so you can actually deliver on this.
You'll talk about those conditions on those sales calls because if they don't have what you need, you cannot sell them go mode or turbo mode. And that's going to be very important. You want to be able to get those results.
And the only way to get it is to be sure that they can do it. Now, a lead who doesn't meet those conditions is just the wrong ICP. That's okay.
The wrong ICP landed in your inbox. The right one is out there. So your job becomes...
how do I go get in front of that ICP? There are businesses that want more leads, more revenue, or both. If you can deliver this for them, eliminate the bad fit leads and focus only on the good ones.
And that means refining your ICP and then figuring out how to get this across to them in a sales call, which of course we teach in our coaching. That's the front and done. Step nine is drawing what we call a client lifeline, mapping what the client experiences as they work with you month by month, sometimes week by week, so that we can find our backend option.
So this is what we draw with our clients in our agency coaching. All right, so here's how it looks. It's a client lifeline.
What you want is a table that just has the client here, us, you, right there. And then down the side, we want to have either, if we work in like the website in a week example, day one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, or up to five if it's a five business day thing. If it's 12 weeks of an engagement that you do, those will be your weeks, one through 12 weeks.
If it's a retainer, then month one through month 12. Okay. So you write the time along the side here.
We leave this little gap up here because this is the part that we typically don't think about or talk about, which is pre -work, getting your hooks in to the client and kickoff. So pre -work is where you ask for like administrative stuff. Like, can you send us this, that?
And the other thing, getting your hooks in is when you start getting introduced to the team, you get in their Slack or they get in yours, however that works. You've got other tools you're starting to integrate. And then you have, of course, the kickoff call.
actual work of booking the meeting, showing up for the meeting, preparing for the meeting, all of those things. When you write that in, those three things that happen here, we need to know that anybody who works any business that works with an agency very often works with multiple agencies or has worked with multiple agencies before and they've been through this before.
So more administrative work where, oh, another agency where we have to send them more of our brand voice guide, they're using Dropbox, we use Google Drive, all of that kind of stuff, right? There's this stuff that happens here and when you think about it your client has just said yes to you that is a huge seducible moment in the world of like conversion rate optimization they've just said yes to you and then what happens they get an invoice they get a bunch of administrative work to do and this crap this is where momentum dies for you and for your client you've taken this wonderful moment and you've just like sucked all the joy out of it by giving them all this work to do when we can map that and start to things from our client's perspective, how much they have to do in here, all this busy work suddenly.
we can start to see that there are opportunities to improve our service and even what we offer them from the first second they sign up to work with us. Let's go back to the example of the Instagram agency. Okay, so what's happening here when we actually map out what our client goes through and what we go through.
You should map that as well, but we're going to focus on the client experience here because that's where real wins often happen for you and then in turn for them. So Instagram agency, they're going to film with you for two hours every single week. We've got four weeks in a month, one, two, three, four, two hours every week, plus drive time, plus getting ready, maybe hair and makeup in some cases, and then driving home as well from the studio.
Or if they have to set up a studio in their house, that's all new pre -work that they had to do, and they still have to go to that studio in their house, make sure the dog's not gonna come in, make sure the cats haven't scraped up the furniture already, go in, make it presentable, fiddle with the camera, fiddle with the lights, all of that work that they have to do.
that out now in the first month it's cool it's exciting you're finally getting like serious about Instagram this is great then month two hits and it's like okay more of the same more of the same we're doing all the same stuff week after week month three hits and your agency is growing they are growing because you sold them on go mode at least or maybe turbo mode so they're starting to see results which is good if you're getting them results so now we have to ask are we getting them results yet because they're certainly expecting it when you think chaos so again you're growing you've got a new career director to put in here because wow you're growing so fast it's so great you're taking off with all these cool people and the client gets moved appointments gets a new creative director they have to onboard who doesn't understand them the same way more chaos for them than anything so if we can start mapping that we can start to see other opportunities to improve everything for them so keep mapping it all the way down this feels tedious it's the job map this the whole way through across all the months or weeks that you work with a client and map what
you're doing in that time and map where results are being delivered. Okay. Now what's really critical here is mapping where those results are delivered.
So mapping if week by week, you're not getting results. So let's say the first bit, you're just setting things up. You're like, it's cool guys.
We're not getting results yet, but like we will. Month one goes by. It's okay.
Month two, you're starting to see cool wins. Oh wow. We're getting a lot of like views on this.
I think we've figured out what our topics are, what our format should be. People are starting to follow us. But we're still not delivering on that booked appointment goal.
So we have to work on doing that. Two months go by, the client's not seeing killer results. That is worth documenting.
So we start identifying when things get really weird for our clients. When they're starting to question, is this, are these guys really going to do this? Is this actually going to work?
And they're asking that at many points in the experience. And it's your job to map those and then do something about those moments across the board. Looking at that lifeline.
Step 10 is getting your client a deliberately early win faster than you think you can. Okay, so go across and map where you know you get results already. So you know by month three, you are definitely getting results.
Okay, make those green if you're mapping this out. Wherever you can happily report results because you've seen with other clients that things get really, really good at those times. Great, map that.
That will show you where you're not getting wins. So let's look at week one. Week one, you are coming in and you're setting everything up.
You're an Instagram agency. You're trying to figure out tools that the client is using. You're coming up with topics.
You're looking at their brand, all of this stuff. Week one and two, you're doing that work. Week three, you've done your first filming session and by the end of it, somewhere around here, you are going to actually get their first real live.
That feels like such a win for you. For the client, they have spent this time as well as these weeks getting jacked. They're not getting anything and they paid a...
$10 ,000 or $12 ,000 invoice already to get their first 60 second video live on Instagram. That is an opportunity for you to improve things. So we know that they need a win before this moment.
They paid the invoice. Your job now is right in this first week. What can you do in that first week to get them a serious win really, really fast?
I mean, that's your job. Got to figure that thing out. It's different for every agency.
It might just be for the Instagram real agency. if you're doing the many chat automations as well, you go in and you quickly update, put the best many chat automations in place and go back to some of their more popular Instagram reels that they have and maybe find a way to edit in that CTA and just repost those Instagram reels as well or figure that out.
That's the job. Your client doesn't care that it will take a while to get results. They want those results immediately, whether they're telling you that or not.
Okay. Now, a lot of people at this point say, well, Joe, there's just no way. There's no way.
way, there's no way I can get a quick win for them. I'm strategic. I can't do this for them.
Not good enough. Your client, no matter what, wants some level of assurance that they have done the right thing by investing in your agency. Remember, most clients have been completely burned by past experiences with agencies.
That's why you're there right now, because the last one didn't work out and other ones probably didn't work out. It's not as simple as that won't work for me. What do you got?
That has to work for you. Your job has to be to figure out how to get that. quick win.
And that's huge because the second you crack that, now you've got that quick win for them. You bought yourself some time before you get that Instagram reel out, the first real one out the door, and you can still keep leveraging that as you move forward with a client. Step 11 is circling every moment on this lifeline where the client starts dreading the next meeting with you.
Now, no one wants to think that their clients dread meeting with them. Let's think of it from their busy perspective though. If you are delivering results, which you should be, you are meeting with your clients at least once a month and that's where you are holding like a review session to say here are the great results that we got for you here's what we have on the agenda next that's good it should not feel like a meeting though it has to feel better than that your clients deserve better than that and so do you meetings suck so you don't want to do anything that's going to make it feel like oh I don't want to work with you you also want to make sure that you are not interjecting yourself into their lives more than you need to so it's finding that balance for example we worked with an agent where one of the team members kept giving us unsolicited advice, unsolicited feedback.
And that started to make us dread being around them because we were going to get that from them. So we didn't want to attend that many meetings with them anymore. So you got to watch for that kind of stuff.
Every time your client doesn't want to meet with you, they are that much closer to firing you, even if you are delivering results. Because what's usually going on for them as well is they are busy attributing results to themselves. Oh, our sales team.
is really good at closing all those appointments you're booking. And, oh, I was really smart to hire you in the first place. So they're aligning themselves with the results rather than you.
Now you can control that, but the point here is you have to make sure they do not dread meeting with you. They have to like you along the way. Depending on your brand and how much you charge, actually how much profit you have, you can do a lot of very cool things along the way to make your clients excited to be around you rather than dreading being around you.
You can still hold meetings. But how can you make the meeting a little more special, let's say? Taking a little less time, getting to the point a little faster and celebrating wins for your clients that are attached to what you do and also not attached to what you do.
So when you think about your brand, how can you celebrate your clients? Can you send a celebration box when something cool happens for them? They just published a book.
Cool, that's awesome. Send them something memorable and then follow up with a text. Like, I'm so proud of you.
This is a really big deal. You can say though, things.
People like to hear those things. Going that extra bit further is what charging more actually allows you to do because you have more profit to work with to make moments more special. So you as the agency founder and your team, they need to be outstanding at every moment.
And you need to go through this and look for those moments where you can go back into your client's life and make things better for them. And that often means like, what is their love language? Do they love like words of affirmation?
Like, wow, your business is outstanding. or your customers are so cool, or what other thing do they need to hear? Do they like spending time with you?
There are many ways that you can actually optimize this, but if all you're doing is meeting with them at the end of every month and maybe sending them a few messages now and then when you get a cool win, that's going to deflate the experience. Your job is to go through and spend some time figuring out how you can make these moments really cool, especially in these early days when things feel wonky.
especially in here when they're doing work and they're like, I thought we were paying you for this. And especially as things start dragging along through here, right? When it gets to be like a bit of a lull.
Or in here, you can see there's almost no month that goes by where your client should be ignored by you in any way. And rather, you can find ways to really elevate yourself in those times and what they're experiencing. Okay, now you may be looking at this going, Jo, why did you just beat me up about how bored my clients are along the way or how I need to like be more special?
reason is when you know you can deliver really well for clients, what comes next gets so much easier. And what comes next is directly tied to how much money you make. Now your backend offers start and step 12 is the one you sell within 24 hours of your client saying yes.
So your brand new client has just said yes to you, but you know that they are entering this moment here where they're going to have to do some work and you're going to get them a speedy result soon. Absolutely. But here is an opportunity for us to do something.
more back end offer, we want to look at what are the things that are going to make them the most successful. That's a really good way to start looking at your 24 hour add on. So within 24 hours of them saying yes, you got the signed contract, you call them up.
Hey, Tom. and you're talking with them about the thing that you know they're going to need in order to move forward. This is going to be an offer.
So your offer is, I'm an Instagram real agency. I'm going to get results for them, but I know that a lot of clients have very bad tech and their audio is horrible. Their lighting is always bad.
We do our best, but they've got this little closet that they've decided to film in. So a really good add -on to call them up and offer right now is, I can't wait to get these results for you. I've been thinking.
about your setup though. Here's what most people do when they're like on turbo mode, like you've just gone on. They're ready to just nail it.
We want to do this for you. Here's what we should do. We can send you a kit.
For you, you know, this is like a thousand dollar kit that you just pull together of all your favorite stuff, the things that they should use, the camera, the mic, the phone, or sorry, the camera, the mic, the lighting, the teleprompter, the things that they will need. You put that kit together and you say, we can send you out this kit and And we will also zoom in and help you set the whole thing up and run it however long it takes.
This way, you're going to have the right studio set up right there in your house, right there in your office, wherever you know that that particular client is. It's five grand. Should we add that on?
Ship it to you right now. That's it. Great.
Why would they say no at this point? They've just said yes to the turbo mode offer, even go mode. They want the results.
They've just said yes. That makes it a seducible moment. If you don't know what that is, we have so many videos on moments like this.
now what's happened is they've just said, yes, you've added five more K on. Now that's not actually that much for a backend offer, but you can start to at least see that you are able to sell your client on more things. It's a very simple, basic backend offer that unlocks not only more revenue for you, but the right outcome that will get you closer to delivering for your clients.
You don't have to just include that. You can charge separately for that as a backend offer. They have the right to say no, of course, later on, they're going to to say yes when they start to see how the studio looks.
Now that's one example of a back end offer. If you want more examples of what you can do, and importantly, when you can deliver those and pitch those to your client, go down to the description, get the back end offer worksheet. Another great way to look at where your back end offers are hiding is go back and look at past clients that you have served and what got in the way of their success.
So was it that their team member got too involved or they didn't have enough team members staffed or those members that they brought in to help weren't educated on what it takes for you to deliver really well. So if you are an Instagram real agency, creative director maybe has a print background.
And so you could have a back end offer where you do a one day workshop or every month you are meeting with their team to coach them on the better practices so that they're not getting in your way going forward. You don't have to complain about the client's team getting in your way. You can sell a way to make that client team better and you're actually getting paid for improving them and this does not mean you are replacing yourself rather they can see that you have a level of expertise like nothing else and that they could not possibly replace you a few months in step 13 is selling more of what worked the moment your client hits a big win for example I had an agency that got me so many views out of the gate we were taking off on social media it was fantastic and what I would hear from them is great job, Joe, things are going really well.
What I as a business owner wanted to hear is now that that's happened, this will unlock even bigger growth. Or now that that's happened, this will help turn all those views into leads. I didn't hear that.
I didn't hear either of those. I just heard great win. What your clients need from you is what do I do now?
How do I graduate to the next level of who I've just become because of the results you brought for me? So how do you find this? You look for a really big win.
that you typically have for clients. So let's say you're the Instagram agency, you typically find yourself getting a million views on a reel at the end of month two. So let's say there are great results here, it's the end of month two.
That is a moment to call your client up and help them understand what they could do now to really double down. This is often gonna be tied to their identity. So people who do this next take this action.
So if you really wanna succeed on Instagram, people who are blowing up on Instagram after they have that million, view, their first million view reel, here's what they do next. And this is the backend offer that you choose.
And you can have many backend offers at this point. You choose the right one that you want to sell. So this Instagram agency could be like, this is a time to consider collaborations with others who are getting a lot of views as well.
This is a great time to double down on what we're already doing. So instead of two reels a day, let's go to four reels a day. Instead of just doing reels, let's also add in stories, add in other things.
You have to remember your client doesn't live in the world that you live in. So if you can just call them and say, now is a great time to do this, to unlock even more wins, and you know it'll actually unlock even more wins, it is on you to call them and sell them on this.
Now, they're not replacing Turbo Mode. They still stay on Go Mode or Turbo Mode that you got them on, although Go Mode should upgrade to Turbo Mode at this point. But they're also adding on a new backend offer.
So this is where you can really start charging more, especially if these results are quite so for example if turbo mode is 12k a month you might add on like how badly do we want these results 10k for the next thing so now they're paying $22 ,000 a month instead of $12 ,000 a month but they've unlocked something that will actually help them grow further and because you have proven that you can get results and this is the key moment at which to pitch this it goes over far better with your clients and they have pretty good take -up rate on a back -end offer like this and if you don't do this you missing out.
Do not make your client come up with what to do next. They don't know and someone else is probably in their DMs seeing those wins and going, I can get you the next level. So it's your job to make that call with them.
Step 14 protects all of that from a single new hire on your client's team and it can be a back -end offer all of its own. So let's pretend you are a product -led growth agency for this example. So you have gone in, you've integrated product -led growth into what they do.
You've turned them from having PLG as like some tertiary thought to the number one way that they are growing their business. What is at risk here?
Great wins, great results. What's at risk for your client? What's at risk is some new team member comes in and goes, cool, yeah, PLG is cool, but let's go sales led.
And they start shifting everything around. And now these wins start losing because of misdirection from new team members. This happens all the time.
So what do you do? You can do a quote unquote, even more secured bag is what we call it, which is where you say, hey, these results are great.
Now what's at risk is what if somebody changes that up? So governance, deeper analytics, any of these other things that you can put in place to help them protect themselves from their own success. You call them up, you offer that strategic advisory going forward on how to ensure that we keep PLG going with the right governance models with deeper analytics.
At this point, we're looking at $50 ,000 a month because as soon as you say the word governance, everything gets more expensive. But whatever the case is, whatever you're charging at that point, this is a whole other opportunity for you to make more money while ensuring your clients stay successful.
So those are a couple back -end offers, and they are the way that you really start making money as an agency, as a consultancy, as any kind of service -based firm. But in order for you to be able to sell them well, there's two things to keep in mind. The back -end offer that you are going to be pitching to your clients needs to be causal, as in it's building on results you already delivered for them, not adding something new in out of the clear blue sky.
And two, it has to make sense for you too. There's going to be a lot of things that your clients could do once they start seeing results?
What can you, ideally with the resources you have, deliver and charge three or four times more for? Step 15 is when your results create a new problem for your client. As you bring your clients to new levels of results and performance, that typically introduces challenges.
We call this new level, new devil. This is a type of backend offer as well. So in this case, let's say you're that Instagram agency and they've blown up.
The results are great. They've got suddenly a million followers. They don't know what to do with it.
and brands are reaching out to them. So the new devil here is, guys, we're getting all of these people saying, hey, can you promote our product on your Instagram? What do I do?
Now, you don't go like, cool, nice job, good luck. You say, gotcha, we can help you with these brand deals. Here's how we can do that.
And then you pitch them on that new level, new devil back -end offer. That as long as you can actually resource for that, then you can do it. So if you actually have somebody in -house who can help with brand deals and like brokering those for your clients who are so successful you can sell that as an additional offer now importantly here sometimes you will actually have to hire new people to do these offers and that's why you want to be able to charge more for them because you're going to need more talent to do that work but when you think about it if you start offering brand deal management for your clients who are getting killer results that's only going to make them happier it's also going to mean that brand deals are now funding what they're paying you, which feels really good to report to them.
And you can charge so much more for that work, but you'll have to hire someone. Okay. Who do you have to hire?
How much do they cost? And can you spread that work across multiple clients? Do you have more clients who are on the rise and who are going to need brand deal management?
If so, you could hire a brand deal manager, a brand deal broker for 10K a month, really good salary. One person can be spread across nine or 10 clients. potentially, and you can charge every month for that person to do brand deal brokering.
If you charge $10 ,000, $20 ,000 a month, depending on how much they could make off the brand deal, they might be spending a lot of money with you because they're making a lot of money from all the brand deals. So if you can charge them $25 ,000 extra a month for brand deal brokering, then charge 10 different clients that.
Now you're bringing another $250 ,000 a month month, you've got a whole new service that you're offering. You can absolutely afford to bring somebody in to do that.
That's the kind of thing where you'd want to think about, should I hire someone for it? There are a lot of backend offers that you could have. The ones that will make the most sense for you will make you the most money and you can do them the most efficiently.
If you like this, you want to learn more about how to get more out of the agency you've got or that you're trying to build, obviously subscribe to the channel, look below for links and come check out the big, small, where we coach agency founders from above. a million to five million bucks a year.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Most agencies sell the same deliverable to every client and wonder why it feels like a commodity. This breakdown lays out a 15-step method that rebuilds the offer around the one thing every client actually buys, leads or revenue, and then shows where the real money hides: in the offers sold after the client has already said yes.
Named ideas worth stealing.
00:29list
The 15-Step Irresistible Offer Method
- Sell leads, revenue, or both
- Pick leads, revenue, or celebrity
- Draw the client money map
- Back the map up to before your work
- Circle where the money is
- Go Mode: a promise with a number
- Turbo Mode at the close
- Conditions that must be true
- Client lifeline
- Deliberate early win
- Circle the dread moments
- 24-hour add-on
- Sell more of what worked
- Secured bag
- New level, new devil
Steps 1-8 build the front-end offer around a measurable outcome; steps 9-15 find and time back-end offers along the client's journey.
Steal forstructuring any service offer or retainer ladder
04:39model
Client Money Map
- What you deliver (middle)
- What comes after for the client
- What comes before your work
- How each step is measured by the business
- Who owns each step
Reveals where money flows around your deliverable and which adjacent piece you can absorb to sell a result.
Steal forrepositioning a deliverable-based service
12:41model
Go Mode promise formula
- We drive
- X% / $ more
- leads or revenue metric
- every month
- from / using your channel
One-line promise for the homepage and bio, e.g. 'We drive 50% more booked appointments every month from Instagram reels and stories.'
Steal forhomepage headline and sales-call pitch
15:10concept
Go Mode / Turbo Mode pricing
Turbo Mode doubles the promised result for about 1.5x the Go Mode price ($8K becomes $12K), pitched just as the client is about to sign.
Steal fortiered offers and close-of-call upsells
19:25model
Client Lifeline
- Pre-work
- Getting your hooks in
- Kickoff
- Week/month 1 to N for client and agency
- Where results land
- Where dread and doubt land
A two-column timeline of the engagement used to find the early-win gap, dread moments, and back-end offer timing.
Steal foronboarding redesign and retention
30:52list
Back-end offer types
- 24-hour add-on
- Sell more of what worked
- Secured bag (governance)
- New level, new devil
Back-end offers must be causal, building on results already delivered, and must fit what the agency can resource.
Steal foraccount expansion plans
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
42:10product
“If you like this, you want to learn more about how to get more out of the agency you've got or that you're trying to build, obviously subscribe to the channel, look below for links and come check out The Big Small.”
Soft and brief. The stronger CTA is the mid-video workbook plug at 12:22 and 33:32, placed right where the viewer wants more back-end offer examples.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
Visual structure at a glance.
