We noticed a trend of a few prospects going quiet after strong initial conversations. Ones we were confident we could help, and who seemed genuinely excited in the meetings. When we finally got honest feedback from a few of them, it hit me: they weren’t saying ‘no’ or stalling because they didn’t believe in the work or in us, they were saying no because buying an agency is more of a complex and often daunting process than we recognise at times.
For us agencies, pitching a new website or a media retainer is routine, it’s what we do every day. But for a client, it’s often a huge decision, full of unknowns, internal pressure, and perceived risk. We’d become so used to selling our services that we were moving too fast and forgot how scary it can be to buy them, which was holding us back from winning deals.
In short, our sales process didn’t empathise with the prospect well enough.
So we changed the way we sell. We decided that we would be the one to ‘slow things down’. To do this, we broke down the journey into clearer and lower-risk phases, introduced smaller, fixed-scope pieces of work to start the relationship off and included more clear break points throughout where the client can pull out before making any bigger commitments.
These increments of work are built to give clients real value faster, build more trust quicker, but also to give clients space to breathe before making the big decision.
We realised the big thing clients want isn’t so much just the website or a marketing campaign (obviously that’s the end goal), but it was certainty & safety. Certainty that they’re solving the right problem, choosing the right partner, and spending their budget as wisely as they can. By leading with things like discovery and offering smaller upfront engagements & projects with optional breaks as part of the big process, we’re not just easing them in, we’re earning their trust early and proving we fully understand the big picture before jumping the gun.
It wasn’t easy because it forced us to slow down the sales cycle and rethink how we define success. In an agency world where speed and conversion rates are everything, deliberately adding a step and being the one to ‘slow things down’ before the main project can feel counterintuitive.
It’s completely changed the way we engage with clients. We now start relationships from a place of clarity and alignment, rather than assumptions and guesswork. Clients feel more in control, more confident, and more bought in, which makes the work better from day one.
It’s also improved our win rate AND our average contract value. By offering a smaller first step, we’ve removed a huge barrier to entry. Clients get a taste of how we think and work without over committing too soon, and by the time we get to the bigger project, we’re already on the same side, there’s less pressure, fewer surprises, and a high likelihood of much stronger results.
As a result of all of this, it’s also improved results on the delivery side. This is because we’re giving our clients & ourselves more thinking time, but without stalling. We’re getting more buy-in from the client and exploring more options, instead of just jumping into delivering whatever the brief says, meaning we’re more precise in what we deliver now. It’s very much a ‘measure twice, cut once’ approach!
You should stop assuming your prospects understand what they’re buying and why they’re buying it. Even the most experienced marketers can feel overwhelmed when the stakes are high. Break things down. Start smaller. Make it easier to say yes.