The Agency Sales Process Behind 5-6 Figure eLearning Website Clients

According to Chris Badgett, effective LMS and eLearning companies gain valuable clients by serving as strategic business partners rather than just creating websites. Agencies should charge for a systematic discovery process that produces a clear blueprint before any work starts, rather than diving right into development or offering planning for free. He likens it to building a custom home, where no expert begins work without first drafting architectural blueprints. Before investing in a major project, this strategy guarantees that the agency and client are in agreement, minimizes misconceptions, and establishes expectations.

Creating a professional sales process, or what Chris refers to as a sales motion, is one of the episode’s main themes. Agencies should initially qualify new clients using a brief application form before scheduling sales calls or submitting offers. The form should indicate whether the possibility is a good fit for the agency’s specialty, has a reasonable schedule, and has the funds to support the project. Chris proposes that agencies could infer budget by understanding the client’s audience, business size, and present operations rather than directly asking about it. Similarly, the ideal clients are those that have a clear strategy and enough time to carry it out well rather than those who expect a project right now. Chris suggests a two-step dialogue procedure after a lead is qualified.

The first is a quick 15-minute qualifying call that is intended only to verify the details from the application and assess the compatibility of both parties. There ought to be no pressure to close a deal. If the match is good, the customer is asked to a lengthier strategy call where the objective is to sell the paid exploration phase rather than the website project as a whole. The agency emphasizes that careful preparation has genuine value and should be compensated by making this paid discovery its initial offering.

One of the most significant services offered by the agency is the discovery process itself. Chris suggests distributing the process of discovery over three organized sessions. Understanding the client’s long-term vision, pain spots, and company goals is the main purpose of the first session. In the second, potential solutions are mapped out, necessary technologies like CRM connectors, AI, automations, hosting, and LMS features are identified, and any knowledge gaps are filled.

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Episode Transcript:

You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. In this episode, I’m gonna help show you how to do sales professionally as an agency building e-learning or online education websites for clients. So if you don’t know who I am, I’m Chris Badgett, CEO and co-founder of LifterLMS, the leading lent- learning management system for WordPress.

And in this episode, we’re gonna dive deep into the agencies and the freelancers that build LMS websites for clients. I actually started as an agency owner, as a freelancer. I’ve been on all sides of this game. You may see me as a software person with LifterLMS, but I’ve built tons of sites for clients and done tons of client sales, and w- I wanna share with you If you build LMS websites for clients, how to do better sales, how to build better projects, and how to get paid what you’re worth.

Now, if you’re listening to this or watching this and you’re not an agency, if you are an e-learning DIY person yourself, it’s really good for you to listen to this so you can see how a professional agency builds a learning management system website, and more than that, an online learning company business.

You’ll get some things out of this, even if you’re not an agency or a freelancer. If you’re thinking about hiring an agency, this will show you how to find a really good agency who actually goes through the process that I’m describing here for things like seeing if you’re a fit for each other, doing a discovery process, and so on.

So the thing I wanna start with you is that what you wanna do as an agency is do not skip over the architect part of the job. This is where you build the plan in the beginning. And what a lot of freelancers and agencies do is they just do that part for free, or they skip it altogether, and then they wonder why the LMS website project goes off the rails.

The client’s not happy, the agency’s not happy, and there’s a bunch of conflict. If you are building a custom home, it’s really important to actually go through the architect or architecture part on the front end. You wouldn’t just say, “Sounds good. Let’s do this. I’ll pay the first invoice,” and then a bunch of people show up on your land with tools and materials to work with no plan at all.

So I’m gonna go into the actual phases and process of sales, which is actually not just sales. It’s not about making money or getting a website project kicked off. It’s about correctly planning and architecting the plan for a successful education company that’s looking to create, launch, and scale online learning on the internet.

So if you’re an agency and you’re doing the blueprint for free or the planning process, that’s not the way to go. You should charge for the plan, not just the build. That’s called a discovery process. We’ll get into that in a little bit. But the plan is a product. It’s actually the first step, so sell it like one.

So- That’s how this works. And I’m gonna give you the operating system to do this. And this isn’t gonna be about marketing, this is gonna be about sales. A lot of people think sales and marketing are the same thing. They’re actually completely different. There is a period when a lead comes in where marketing and sales kind of overlap, but this is gonna be about the sales process, also known as the sales motion

So Back when I was a freelancer, I just wanna say I feel your pain. I think the first website I sold was for about two hundred dollars, and within three to four years the largest website I sold, which included ongoing work, not just the launch of the website, was one hundred thousand dollars per year. And I did that in three to four years, and that was because I discovered

Excuse me, the discovery process I’m gonna teach you today. So this is for projects that are, not the discovery process, but the project is five thousand dollars and up. This is not for freelancers and agencies that do the small builds. So if you wanna get into that kinda middle tier of website projects, this is for you.

There’s eight steps. So we’re gonna talk about the qualification form on your website, the review, the setting call, the strategy call, the discovery process, the proposal, the follow-up on the proposal, getting paid, and the kickoff. So each of these steps costs time, and each of these steps must earn the next move.

This is called sales motion. If you’ve never heard that word, what I’m teaching you is a sales motion for an agency building LMS or e-learning websites for clients. If you’re not in that niche, you’ll still get a lot of value from this, but this is particularly for people that are building in the e-learning industry.

The f- doing it, doing a proposal for free is what most freelancers and agencies do, or they don’t do at all. They’re just like, “Pay me and I’ll get started.” That’s the less experienced way of doing it. So we’re gonna go into how to properly go through the sales motion of doing an e-learning website.

So again, this is not about marketing, this is about sales. So let’s assume we already have some traffic, we already have some people, looking at the services page on our website. Maybe you’re in the LifterLMS Experts program, which is free to join. It’s a free service ’cause people ask us all the time, “Hey, do you know any freelancers or agencies that can help build my LMS website and my online business with me?”

So we refer ’em to the LifterLMS Experts. That’s a free service we provide just to connect people with qualified agencies and freelancers. Let’s talk about where the sales motion really starts. So you have a page on your website, it’s four- Your services. And at the bottom or at the top or both, you’re gonna have a call to action.

So what is the call to action? What a l– the mistake that a lot of people do is they just go straight to book a call through a button in a scheduling link or something, or they send you to a contact form to get started or directly to some kind of priced product that somebody can buy without ever talking to you as a freelancer or agency.

That is the wrong way to do it. So what we wanna do on our first call to action to begin the sales motion is the first part of sales is known as qualification. So what we wanna do on our qualification is start with a form. So a form allows you to automate the qualification first step and get into that.

The step one of the form you don’t wanna ask a million questions in the form. I actually recommend only asking a few things like obviously what’s your name, email, phone number, things like that. But then only ask three qualifying questions, and you’ll have to figure out what these are for you.

But it could be the first one would be, like, relevance or niche or market. If you exclusively build LMS websites, you don’t want a restaurant, wasting your time to build an online website or online ordering system for a restaurant if that’s not what you do. Now, I will say in the early days of freelancing and agency work, I would take any kind of client that came in just ’cause I needed to make money and move forward, and that’s fine if you’re in that phase, you’re in the beginning phases and you’re learning.

But I definitely recommend niching your agency to a p-particular niche. If you’re in this community and you’re listening to this podcast, I definitely recommend just making sure they’re somehow related to education doing courses, memberships. Maybe it’s a company that needs internal training for their team members and so on.

That is what you’re trying to get in question one. In question two, we wanna find their budget. And just a pro tip here, you can’t ask people, “Hey, how much are you looking to spend?” or “How much are you able or willing to pay?” That is the wrong question. It’s too direct. You have to earn trust before you get there.

But you can ask in a sideways way to figure out- like what kind of budget they have. So certain questions you can ask are things like, “What’s your team size?” So if you know somebody has three, four, five, 10, 100 team members, you know that’s a company that has some kind of budget. Who are their learners?

Or who are they serving? So if they’re cerni- serving a market that has a lot of money, like CEOs or governments or whatever, it doesn’t mean it has to be high-ticket courses or anything like that, but you can figure out their budget based on what they’re doing. I like to try to figure out if they’re already getting paid for what they do.

Maybe they’re doing the education in person and they’re looking to automate, and so on. But there’s different ways to ask about the budget without asking them directly about the money itself. The third thing I like to ask is their desired timeline. What I’m trying to find is the urgency for the project and to see how important it is to them.

Now, there’s a lot of different things they could answer here, and the first answer is counterintuitive, not what you want. If somebody’s already in an emergency and they’re like, “I need this tomorrow,” or, “I need this, next week,” they’re already behind the eight ball and they’re not– they’re in too much of an emergency situation that it’s gonna break your process, and those aren’t the best clients.

So if they’re in a big hurry, if they’re an urgent lead, those are usually the weaker leads. And whenever you get somebody like that’s not qualified, I would recommend just building other people or other agencies you could refer them to. I call it throwing a bone. So even if you can’t help them, you can still direct them to somebody who might be able to help them.

And then maybe that partner that you refer business to also refers business to you when they have somebody who’s a better fit for you instead of them. So always try to help people even if they don’t make it through the initial qualification the other timeline thing, the, the sweet spot is somebody where what they’re doing is a priority to them, but they’re not in an emergency situation.

So there’s a saying we have from the agency world, which is, “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.” I know that sounds rough. I wouldn’t say that to a client per se, but what you want is somebody who’s proactive, they’ve got a plan, they’re looking at the next quarter. You potentially have one, two, three, four months to actually work together and develop an awesome project together.

Those are the ones you want. And on the other side we have what we call people that are just dreaming. They’re like, “I’m not sure. It’s just an idea I have. I’m just exploring options,” which is fine if that’s in- the state they’re in, but those aren’t the best clients ’cause they don’t really have a plan.

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In sales, we call those tire kickers which comes from car sales. They’re not really interested in buying. And it’s fine. This is why that form is there. So if you see somebody who’s like– If you ask in your form “What’s your priority and timeline?” And they’re like, “I don’t really have one. I have…

It’s kind of low priority. It’s just an idea I was exploring,” then I might refer that person to some other marketing resources I have or other things without moving right into the sales process So the best client has at least a month of runway and a real plan. They’ve already prioritized. They’re in motion on a plan that they have.

So in terms of the form, you can use any kind of form tool in WordPress, like Gravity Forms, WS Form, Ninja Forms, WP Form, Formidable Forms, and so on. That’s what I would use on your website to build that kind of qualification form on your website. And just a pro tip for you, when you get these emails, you can actually integrate AI to help with what’s known as lead scoring, which is just a fancy way of saying okay, based on how they answered this form, this is a hot lead, this is a warm lead, this is a lead that’s not relevant to us or, h- has a lower score.

We might refer them out to another agency or other resources and so on. So the next stage after we get through the form, let’s say they’re qualified, everything looks good, they’re in the right niche, their timeline is good, and they have … It appears as though they have budget. You could also do it yourself or use AI to look at the client’s company and business and learn a bunch of things about them through their online presence.

So if they’re qualified, the next step in sales is to move to a two-step process. The f- next step is what I call the 15-minute setting call So in sales, there’s setting and closing. So we’re setting up the lead, and then we’re qu- qualifying them now, not through a form, but through a conversation, and then we’ll move into a closing call in the next step.

But while we’re on the setting call, it’s w- it’s one job to do, which is for a human to, to do, which is to confirm in person what the form claimed. You’re basically moving past the form and continuing to qualify to make sure that the niche is good, the timeline’s good, the budget’s good, and that it looks like not just that the client’s a good fit for you, but that you are a good fit for the client.

So I’m a big fan of non-pushy sales, so every step in this process, it’s a win-win for everybody. It’s not high-pressure sales. At this stage, we’re just trying to make sure we’re a good fit for each other. So the setting call is a 15-minute call. It’s relationship building. It’s getting to know each other a little bit.

It’s confirming their answers on the form are accurate, maybe probing for some more information, giving the client opportunity to ask you questions to make sure that you’re a fit for them. And then what you do here in setting is we’re still qualifying, so to remove the high-pressure sales aspect if they’re qualified is to not try to close them on that call.

So you can open the call by saying something like, “We’re not gonna … I have nothing to sell you today. I’m just trying to make sure we’re a good fit for each other, learn a little bit more about your business and your goals with your e-learning website.” After that call, if they’re a fit, what I would do is say, “After I get on- off this call with you, I’m gonna send you a link to schedule a strategy call,” which is actually a closing call.

We’re not doing a magic trick or any kind of sleight of hand here. We’re just removing the pressure of “Hey, there’s nothing to buy right now. Sounds like we’re a good fit for each other. I’m gonna send you an email right after we get off the phone with the next step.” If they’re not qualified, what we’re gonna do here on the call or after the call is say “Hey, it sounds like we’re not quite the right fit.

I don’t really work in that niche,” or, “My agency doesn’t really work with the timeline that you need,” or whatever the, the reason is. But then we can throw them a bone here and either do it on the call or after the call in a follow-up email, refer them to some other agency or other resources. But if they are a fit, as soon as you get off the call, we’re gonna send them a booking link to book the 30-minute strategy call.

So that’s moving on to the next step, which is step three, which is the closing call, which is also known in public speak as the strategy call. ‘Cause most people don’t like to show up. Nobody wants to be closed. Everybody loves to buy, but nobody loves to be sold to. And we, I like to call this a strategy call because it’s not it’s not just a sales call.

It’s we’re gonna do some strategy together and draw some insight and ideas. They’re gonna get benefit from it, even if they don’t close or become an agency client for you So now that we’re on the sales call, this is the real sales call, and you’re not just selling a website, you’re selling the solution to what they want for their business.

It’s outcome-focused. So basically, the frame to hold here is that, we’re qualified for each other, we’re a good fit for each other, here’s the next step. So this is where we move from selling the paid discovery. Now, in sales, there’s this idea of holding the frame, and what I mean by that is you should be process-driven.

And I’m literally giving you the process here to hold and to execute on. ‘Cause if you just show up to these calls and you don’t really have a process or guide the client sometimes they’re just gonna take over the call and start, going in tangents, which is fine, but that’s not what you want.

If you have a solid sales motion, you have a process and a choreography that you follow when you do your sales. So the next step is to sell the paid discovery. We’re not even selling the big project yet. We’re just selling the … as an architect, the idea and the plan that we’re gonna do the architecture work and build the plan for the work that we’re gonna do together.

So the build is not for sale yet. We’re selling the plan, and the benefit is that every detail is hashed out so that the client can move forward with more speed, certainty, and insight. In terms of the paid discovery this is where, this is the holding the frame part where you explain what that is, and you can use that metaphor of building a custom home and how it’s very important that there’s a plan in place before all the workers and materials show up to get started.

That’s part of the product, that’s part of the service that you offer in terms of being a web or online business or e-learning business architect. So if some people push back on this idea of putting a plan together, there’s several objection handling that you can do here. One of them is that just explaining matter-of-factly that this is how professionals work.

It’s not posture, it’s not an argument, it’s just holding the frame on your process, being like, “Look, we can’t move forward without a plan together. We need to know what the plan is before we can price the plan.” And then the main thing that closes the sale of the discovery process is letting them know that, “Hey, no matter what…

Hey, this plan is yours. You paid for it. It’s a work product, it’s a deliverable. You can decide to work with me to implement the plan after that, or you can find… You can take this plan, this document, which is yours, that you own, and you can move forward with that with whoever you like.” And this is really what closes the sale.

Most clients that really understand the value of a plan and having a blueprint before actually moving into construction will totally get it, they’ll totally value it. So if they agree to move forward from there, now we’re moving into paid discovery. What we do here is we need to send them an invoice for the paid discovery.

Now, you might be asking, “How much should I charge for a paid discovery for this kind of online business and website build?” There’s a lot of options here, but this isn’t gonna work for low-value clients, in the hundreds of dollars or the lower thousands price points. But as a minimum, what I would recommend is $1,000 minimum for a minimum $5,000 website project.

Again, you could be getting into a 20,000, a 30,000, a 50,000 or even more website project, but it really needs to match the, it needs to, line up and be like a small piece of the bigger project, but you should not be giving it away for free. So it’s a separate deliverable, it’s not a deposit.

And one pro tip here you can do is you can let them know if they decide to move forward with your discovery, that you will deduct that as a discount on the actual project. You can do that. I’ve done that in the past, and it works well. It removes the risk. And again, they can always take that and, do the actual implementation once they have the plan with somebody else if for whatever reason they want to.

In my experience, I’ve never had somebody not move forward after the paid discovery with us, but it puts the client at ease, and it’s always there. If it’s not a fit, if you or them didn’t enjoy working with each other during the architecture and discovery process, you can always pass that to somebody else, and they can move forward.

Once we get through the discovery process what we’re doing here in actually jumping into the discovery process is I recommend doing like three calls on a weekly cadence. So I’m a big fan with working with clients, with getting things in the calendar and having them on the same time, same day, and then you can develop a rhythm and a cadence together.

So there’s three parts o- of a discovery process. So let’s say you’re gonna work with a client through a discovery process for three weeks, every Tuesday at 1:00 PM. You set that up, you send them the calendar invite after they paid the invoice, whether it was a $1,000 discovery, a $5,000 dis- discovery, or even a $10,000 discovery for a large project.

So the first call is about going deeper from the strategy call, which is where you’re getting into a deeper dive into, to their pains and their goals. Remember, in the qualification call and the closing call, there’s only so much time we have to get into the nitty-gritty details. But call number one, I like to do hour-long discovery calls, three of them.

We’re really digging into their pains and goals, and we’re also digging into your capabilities as a freelancer or agency. Remember, this is always like a two-way process, but you’re holding the frame on the cadence and the process so the client can relax and feel comfortable that you’ve done this before and you- you’re asking the right questions, they’re free to ask questions to you, and so on.

So you’re getting the information you need to basically get to the point where you can construct a detailed proposal. But you don’t have to do it all in call one. Call one is more of a mind meld to really sync up as an agency and a client together about your capabilities and their pain points, goals, and the opportunities that they’re chasing Call two, we’re starting to work towards the proposal more.

We’re filling in gaps. Maybe there’s more information gathering after we’ve got out the call, after we’ve discussed, and more ideas have emerged. We start mapping towards solutions, and we’re setting expectations on how the process works. We’re giving the client ideas about what we see as priorities.

They’re telling us what they see as priorities. ‘Cause remember, clients don’t necessarily know exactly what they want, so we’re trying to flesh all that out, and you don’t necessarily know exactly what the client needs. So we’re mapping all that out, but ultimately with the eye of getting to a specific proposal with- which is in your capabilities.

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So in terms of solution mapping, what I’m talking about is, all right, we need a website. Are we working on an existing website? Are we doing CRM integration? Are we bringing in other tools? Are we bringing in artificial intelligence for something? Are we building in automations? Are we gonna be doing the web hosting?

Is somebody else gonna be doing the web hosting? And so on. So we’re getting everything we need on call two, so that we can put together an effective proposal with all the information that we need So after call two, you take everything you’ve done so far and you actually put together the proposal. And a proposal includes things like timelines, phases, costs, and whether you’re doing project-based pricing, I’ve got some pro tips for you on that in a little bit, versus hourly and so on.

And remember, here’s where you can throw in on this third call you’re presenting your proposal. So you’re actually coming back together for a third time in the discovery process now that you’ve, discovered everything and you have your proposal. It goes through phases. One thing I like to do here is if a project sounds really big, maybe this first proposal is just for phase one, like just the website.

And if they want– if you have like marketing and sales capabilities that you can offer as well, maybe that comes in phase two, and we’re just gonna table that and not even look at that. ‘Cause sometimes clients wanna pack, especially entrepreneur clients, which I can relate to, they wanna pack in this grand vision over years and everything.

But maybe you’re driving towards a proposal for phase one, which is just getting the website launched, courses set up, and all of that. And maybe you do instructional design and help with course development and all of that. It just depends on your capabilities So in call three, we basically are presenting the proposal.

We’re screen sharing, we’re looking at the proposal document. Again, we’re not doing high-pressure sales, so at the end of the call, we’re gonna send them the proposal after we get off the phone and encourage them to m- make the purchase and move forward with whatever phase one is. Maybe it’s the entire project, or maybe it’s like a, a phase one, and move forward from there.

But we’re not gonna do the high-pressure sales and ask them to pull out their credit card or whatever on the call. We’re just presenting the solution. We’re letting them know cost and timelines, phases, milestones, deliverables that you’re gonna deliver, deliverables they need to deliver, like course content or logins to certain things so that you can do your work, and so on.

And so that completes the discovery process. You’ve given them the proposal. They can take that, they could shop it to another company, but if you’re at this point and you’ve done a good job, it’s 90% guaranteed that they’re gonna move forward with you now that you, as an architect, have given them the blueprint, the cost, and the timeline and all of that.

But they keep the plan no matter what. And most are gonna stay with you. So just to dive into some pro tips on the actual proposal itself, you’ve got timelines, you’ve got milestones. Maybe you’re doing things in phases. Maybe you’re putting all the phases in the proposal. Maybe you’re just focusing on phase one.

It just depends on you and what the client needs. You’ve got all of the deliverables and the costs there and it basically confirms what the discovery has already shown and agreed to. If there’s surprises, it means the discovery failed. You didn’t find the information or explain enough what you do and how you do it, how much it costs and how long it takes.

So- one pro tip here is to phase the money. I’m a big fan of… And remember, we’re not doing high-pressure sales. We’re removing risk and pressure constantly. So the simple way to phase the money is 50% upfront, 100, and the rest, the other 50% on completion. But for bigger projects, you might chop it up into three milestone payments or maybe four and so on if we’re working over many months.

And it’s a lot easier for a client to get started, let’s say, on a $50,000 project for 10 grand, and ultimately they pay as you deliver milestones, every couple weeks or month and so on. So that way they’re comfortable. You’ve reversed the risk, so if they’re not happy with the first milestone, they could choose to back out, and you’re also still getting paid for that first part you did.

So I’m a big fan of phasing the money, and if you really believe in the quality of your work, there’s no reason not to do that to make your client’s life easier and earn their respect and trust. And let’s say you work with that client again later on another project or on the same project. Once you’ve worked together, you may be able to switch to a different model where you do half upfront and half up at the end or whatever.

So that’s how you do that. I’m gonna give you a pro tip here on how to price it. So- I wouldn’t just present one number for the whole thing. Show the total, but show the different deliverables that add up to that total. So a simple example would be first step, we’re gonna build a website.

That’s $10,000. Then we’re gonna do all the learning management system stuff, and that includes this many courses, this many quizzes, this many memberships, e-commerce integration, and all the things you do. That’s the second step. Then the third step is marketing automation, CRM integration, and so on, and each of those deliverables has a different cost.

So that’s the way to do it. In terms of pricing, I learned a pro tip when you’re looking at a deliverable, and you can look at the actual individual deliverables that roll up into a milestone, and the milestone has a number on it, and it’s up to you whether you wanna put money beside each deliverable or just the milestone.

But it’s important not just to give them one number for the end. But this is a trip- trick I learned from Chris Lima for pricing. I’m a big fan of project-based pricing instead of hourly work, so you’re pricing based on value versus time, which I’m a big fan of. And the way I decide, if I find a client I really wanna work with, and we just can’t quite really discover with a lot of clarity, and we really need to just get into it, the client has pr- plenty of budget, I trust that they’re gonna be around and be respectful of my time, I’m gonna be respectful of their time, I may go hourly and present an hourly rate with hours estimates.

But I’m a bigger fan of doing milestone-based, fixed price, project-based pricing. So the trick I learned from Chris Lema, you can do this in a spreadsheet as you’re looking at the deliverables that roll up into the milestone, is when you look at something specific, let’s say install and configure all the LifterLMS components based on what the client needs, there would be three columns in the spreadsheet for that each deliverable.

So column one is the least amount of money I would take for this work. Column two is the average price that, I feel comfortable with for this work. And then the, the third column is the amount that is super valuable to the client. Client has good budget, this is what this deliverable is worth.

If they’re really paying, not top dollar, like you’re ripping them off or something like that, but like, when you’re like, “Yeah, this is really worth this in a perfect scenario.” And so you have these three different numbers. The low number, the average number, and the high number. And then what you do is you do a scoring across those, where the low number is worth one point, the average number is worth three points, and then the big number is worth one point, and you average that out.

And what that does is, let’s say it takes you a s- much longer than you thought it would take, and that’s on you for not knowing how long something would take you. You may end up at the low number. Let’s say it does exactly what we think it’s gonna do, and we’re happy with it. You’re gonna end up at the average number.

Let’s say it actually goes quicker and everything turned out amazing. You’re gonna end up at the high number. So across all the deliverables, when you’re coming up with your pricing for a value-based price project, I find that super helpful. Now, that way of pricing, value-based pricing, is in for internal purposes only.

That’s for you. It’s not for the client to see. It’s just you as a business owner figuring out your deliverable and ultimately milestone pricing, and that all kind of rolls up into the total project price the next thing we wanna get into, you’ve finished the discovery process, you’ve gone over your proposal, they’ve seen the timelines and the pricing and everything.

And again, we’re gonna remove high-pressure sales and just present the proposal, give them the PDF, and then let them know we’d like to move forward, and they have basically a yes/no answer to decide to work with you or not. And they need to know that once they say yes, then you can put them on the production schedule.

But, like, when this project start is dependent on their confirmation that they’re ready to move forward with you or not. And again, I don’t like to pressure them on the call. After I get off that third discovery call, they’ve got the proposal, I’ll send an immediate follow-up email. There’s a saying, “The fortune is in the follow-up in sales.”

So it’s all about following up. Remember, we’re going through a choreography, a sales motion, and a process here. So in the follow-up, I’d be like, “Hey, it’s great to work for you,” or, “Great to work with you. I hope you enjoyed the discovery process. I had a lot of fun. It’s awesome getting to know your business.

I’m confident I can help you, and I feel really confident about our proposal. Let me know if you’d like to move forward so I can get you on the calendar. I’ll send the invoice, and once that’s paid, we’ll get started and get rolling.” So that’s the main follow-up, and most of them, if they’re gonna close, should close pretty fast, like even the same day or within a week.

If they don’t respond, I would do a couple more follow-ups. So follow-up two would just be like, “Hey, just checking in. I really enjoyed the discovery process.” And just reinforce what you said about getting on the production schedule and moving forward with the kickoff call, which we’ll talk about in a second.

And then the third, I might follow up a week later and be like, “Hey, it’s been a week.” Maybe they have to consult with other stakeholders or a business partner or spouse or something like that. But just check in and be like, reinforce the value again, let them know you’d love to work with them, remind them about the getting on the production schedule and let them know if they’re ready, if they’re ready to roll that you can send the invoice and get on the calendar and move forward.

And through those three follow-ups, you’re highly likely to close that sale. If it– If they’re like, “No, thanks,” you could always throw them the bone again, maybe refer another agency or send them more resources and information so that’s the last part of the sales motion in terms of the discovery process.

And now, just like we were talking about sales, we’re not really talking about marketing, and we’re not really talking about implementation, but there’s these gray areas right between sales and marketing and then sales and customer success. So customer success, I mean moving forward with the project.

They paid invoice number one, and they’re ready to roll. So one of the reasons they hired you is because you’re being a good communicator. You’re getting on the phone or the Zoom or w- meeting, online meeting with them. You’re adding value. So what I like to do is actually, especially for, mid-market projects, these are like 10, 20, $30,000 builds I like to do a weekly call with the client.

Now, this works with solopreneurs and agencies. If you’re a solopreneur, it’s just you. You’re doing all these steps. If you have an agency, there’s a project manager perhaps. They’ve paid, they’re moving forward with phase one, and everything is moving forward. So the kickoff call, they pay the invoice.

What the client wants to see is fast action, and you have to be honest about your capacity. Maybe you’re really booked out and you can’t do that kickoff call until a month later or even two months later, and that’s fine. But if you’re not busy and you’re ready to roll… And remember, you’re incentivized to roll and build this project so that you can get the future payments or the la- all the way to the last payment and so on.

You’ve already built a rhythm, let’s say meeting at, on Tuesdays at 1:00 PM or whatever. So you do a kickoff call, and on this call, the salesperson and the project manager, if they’re different people, and maybe there’s developers and designers and other people will come to that call, that is the kickoff.

That is the handoff from sales to implementation. And if it’s just you as a solopreneur, you can still do all this. And then you get on a weekly rhythm where you’re providing updates, you’re removing bottlenecks, or if you need things from the client, if you have questions for the client. You always have this weekly touch point to accelerate ’cause everybody gets really busy with emails and business and life and all the rest.

So this is a partnership, and you’re valuing that partnership. You’re holding space for each other and moving forward. So- That is the sales motion and how to do paid discovery. If you have any questions about that process or any questions about how much should I charge for this?” or, “What do you recommend if the client says that?”

Just reach out to us, let us know. It’s … Again, it’s about building a partnership. It’s not about closing sales or pressuring clients or trying to get the most money you can for the least amount of effort. That’s the wrong mindset. The correct mindset is, how can I add more value than anybody else to this type of client through my agency work?

Where I feel like I’m earning a respectful income, I’m getting paid the work that I’m doing as a freelancer in an agency, and I’m super happy with it. I enjoy working with this client, and the client feels like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe how much value I’m getting.” Ideally you want to end up in the 10X value range.

So what I mean by that is, let’s say you charge $30,000 to help an a in-person training company move online, and in their first year w- after you’ve launched, they’ve made $300,000 with their online training business that they paid you 30,000 for. That’s 10X value. And let’s say you’re really happy with the $30,000 and the amount of time that required you to work on, and th- there’s good profit there and stuff for you.

That’s where we’re going. That’s how this process works. Make each step flow into the next and get paid for your thinking. Never try to build a house without a plan. Hold the frame. Lay out your process. One of my favorite things to do, whether it’s the setting call, the closing call, discovery call one, two, three, I always open the call with something like

First I just break the ice and make the human connection, but then I’m like, as I’m rolling into the work, I’m holding the frame by saying, “Awesome. Let’s jump r- right into it. I’ll set the time expectation. We have an hour for this call. The way this call works is XYZ. The purpose of this call is to, XYZ.”

I- it could … If you’re on call one, it’s to, “For me to get all the information I need to build the proposal that you’re gonna get in call three. It’s also an opportunity for you to explore deeper into our capabilities and everything.” So that’s how you hold the frame and just deliver value. It’s not about being in control or dominating the client, it’s about the choreography so that the client can relax, so that you can relax, and that you guys can create the most value for each other.

Now, if you’re hiring an agency and you want high-quality work, there’s many different ways to do this kind of sales motion, but you should experience something similar to what I’m talking about here. And the best thing about a great agency-client relationship is it’s a relationship. It builds over time.

And in sales, I call it land and expand, where, all right we did a 2,000 or $3,000 discovery process, and then that expands into a $20,000 website build, then that expands into a maintenance package, hosting, future projects, a completely different other project. The client refers you to their friends. So it’s all about landing and expanding and really developing a high-quality business relationship and a brand and a reputation in your industry as a high-value agency in the e-learning niche.

And also, just last thing for you is, remember, clients aren’t hiring you to just build a website. They may think that’s what they want, and that’s kind of a commodity in a sense. It’s like a website, it does X, Y, and Z. But what you’ll find as a high-quality agency or freelancer is that you’re actually delivering business consulting.

Maybe you do other things besides the website, like marketing services, instructional design, AI implementation, and you’re really becoming an integrated part of this client’s business. And even friendships and things can emerge from these kinds of things when they’re done well. So that’s it for the, this episode.

That is the agency sales process between five and even six-figure website clients in the e-learning niche for courses, memberships, training-based membership sites for any reason. I’m Chris from LifterLMS. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and we will catch you in the next one. Take care.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.