21 Questions That Make Bad Agencies Sweat

Who does the work (questions 1 to 4)

The person who sells you is rarely the person who serves you. These four questions find out who you are really hiring.

Question 1: "Who is the named operator on my account after the sale, and can I meet them before I sign?"

Good: "Sam runs your account. Here is Sam. Ask Sam anything." Sam joins the second call and can explain the plan without the founder finishing their sentences.

Bad: "Our team." Or "You'll be assigned a dedicated strategist after onboarding."

"Assigned after onboarding" means the strategist does not know your account exists yet. Ask Sam one test question: "What would you change about our current funnel?" Someone who has looked will answer with specifics. Someone who has not will answer with adjectives.

Question 2: "How many accounts does that person run?"

There is no perfect number, only a believable one. Someone running ads, funnel and follow-up for 30 clients gives each about an hour a week, before meetings.

Good: a specific number, plus how they split the work ("Sam runs eight accounts. Creative and CRM builds sit with two other named people.")

Bad: "As many as it takes." Or a number that changes when you ask twice.

Question 3: "Is any part of the work subcontracted or offshored, and to whom?"

Subcontracting is not evil. Hiding it is.

Good: "Our media buying is in-house. We use a contracted designer for static creative. Here is who has account access and why."

Bad: "Everything is in-house," followed by a creative revision that comes back in four time zones with the wrong product name.

Follow up: "Who has admin access to my accounts, by name?" The list should be short and should match what they just told you.

Question 4: "Who do I talk to each week, and what is on the agenda?"

Good: "A 30-minute call each week with Sam. Fixed agenda: held calls last week, qualified rate, cost per held call, what we tested, what we test next, and anything we need from you."

Bad: "We're always on Slack." Or "Monthly strategy review."

Hormozi's "tuition" test

Alex Hormozi makes a sharp point in $100M Leads: hire an agency the way you would pay tuition. Set a goal and a deadline, have your own people learn alongside them, and shrink the agency to a consulting role once your team can match the work. (Paraphrased. Read the "Employees and Agencies" chapter for his version.)

Turn that into a question for any provider: "What will I know, own and be able to run myself if we part ways in month six?" A provider that dodges this question is building dependency, not a machine.

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What counts as a result (questions 5 to 9)

This is the chapter where most money is lost. Not in the ads. In the definition.

Question 5: "What is your written definition of a qualified call?"

Covered in the kill questions. Here is the template to compare their answer against, or to write your own if you have never done it:

A qualified call is a held call (the prospect attended for at least 10 minutes) with [a decision maker or the person who signs, by title] at a company that [meets your revenue or size floor] in [your target industries or use cases], who confirmed [the problem you solve] and a timeline of [under X days]. Any one missing means not qualified.

If their definition is looser than yours, the gap is what you will pay for.

Question 6: "Who decides when a lead fails the definition, and what is the credit or replacement policy?"

A definition with no referee is a suggestion.

Good: "You flag it in the CRM within 7 days with the reason. We review within 48 hours. If it fails the written standard, it is credited or replaced. If we disagree, we look at the call recording together."

Bad: "We'll look at it case by case." Or "Bad leads happen, it all averages out."

Vendor contract guides float credit thresholds in the region of 15% to 20% bad leads per batch or per 30 days, with a 30-day window to claim (SaaS Hero and others, vendor sources, so use as a starting point, not a market fact). What matters more than the number: a written window, a written reason code, and a written answer to "who decides".

Question 7: "What happens when a booked call does not show?"

Covered in the kill questions. Add one follow-up: "Show me your reminder sequence, on screen, now."

A real operator pulls up the actual messages. A typical working sequence looks like this:

Timing varies by provider. What does not vary: someone who says "we send reminders" and cannot show you a single one usually sends one email.

Question 8: "Do you optimise the ads to form fills or to CRM-qualified calls?"

This matters more than creative. Ad platforms find more of whatever you call success. Tell Meta a form fill is success and it finds people who fill forms. Not people who buy.

Good: "Your CRM sends two events back to the ad platforms: held call and qualified call. On Meta that goes through the Conversions API, on Google through offline conversion import. We optimise to held calls while volume is low and move to qualified calls once there is enough data."

Bad: "We optimise for leads." Or "We use advanced AI targeting."

The proof check: ask them to share their screen, open Meta Events Manager on a current client's dataset, and show you a held-call or qualified-call event received in the last 7 days. If the only events on the list are page views and form fills, the platform is learning from form fillers.

Question 9: "Will you turn me down? What do you need from me for this to work?"

The contrarian question. Ask the provider to vet you.

A provider with a real standard for its clients (revenue floor, sales capacity, speed to lead, an offer that converts) is far more likely to have a real standard for your leads. One that will take anyone with a credit card will book anyone with a pulse.

Good: "We need three things. Someone who calls new leads within 10 minutes during working hours. At least 4 open call slots a day. An offer that has already closed paying clients. If one is missing, we'll tell you what to fix first, and we might say not yet."

Bad: "We can make it work for anyone." "Every business needs more leads."

Then listen for what they ask you. A serious provider asks your monthly revenue, your average deal size, your close rate, who takes the calls, and how fast new leads get a call today. If you get none of those, they are selling volume, not outcomes.

The Setup survey has a twist here. Three years running, clients ranked "the agency did not challenge us enough" as the least cited reason for leaving. Yet clients ranked "did not understand our business" second of eight reasons, and agencies ranked it last. Buyers think they want agreement. They leave over shallow understanding. A provider who pushes back on your offer on the sales call is the good sign.

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How it is measured, and how to read their proof (questions 10 to 13)

If the number lives only in their dashboard, it is their number. These four questions move it into yours, and test whether their proof survives contact with a phone call.

Question 10: "Do you report booked, held and qualified calls and pipeline, or impressions and cost per lead?"

A report that stops at cost per lead is a report on rung 2 of the ladder. Ask what is on page one.

Good: page one shows ad spend, booked calls, held calls, qualified calls, cost per held qualified call, and pipeline created, all matching your CRM.

Bad: page one shows reach, CTR, CPM and "leads". The calls you actually care about are on page six, if at all.

Question 11: "Can I see a real monthly report, with the client name hidden?"

Not a template. A real one. Templates are always beautiful.

What to check in 2 minutes:

• Does it show held calls separately from booked calls?
• Does it show at least one thing that did not work, and what they changed?
• Does it say what they need from the client next?
• Do the numbers add up? (Booked times show rate should roughly equal held. You would be amazed.)

Question 12: "Complete this sentence for your headline claim."

Every provider has a headline number. "9x ROAS." "$10M generated." "300% more leads." Hand them this sentence and ask them to fill the blanks, in writing:

"Our _ is the (median or mean) across clients, measured in (the ad platform, or the client's CRM), using a attribution window, over the period to , last checked on _."

Why each blank matters:

Even platform numbers cut both ways. Some vendors argue platforms over-claim. Meta's own review of hundreds of lift studies argued the opposite in the median case. The skill is not cynicism. It is asking which method produced the number.

We hold ourselves to this. insaneX's headline numbers are $54.3M+ revenue generated for clients, 9x average ROAS, 85+ SaaS and B2B brands scaled and $7M+ ad spend tested. On the call, ask us to fill in the sentence for each one. If we cannot, you should mark us down.

How to read a case study in 5 minutes

Case studies are marketing. Good ones are also evidence. Here is how to tell which you are holding.

1. Find the starting line. "Grew to $100K MRR" means nothing without where they started and when.
2. Find the time. Results over 3 months and results over 3 years are different stories.
3. Find the spend. "$500K revenue" on $400K of ad spend is not the same as on $40K.
4. Find the unit. Leads, booked calls, held calls or revenue? Map it to the ladder.
5. Find what else changed. New offer, new sales hire, price rise, a viral moment? Good case studies say so.
6. Find a human. A named client, ideally one you can contact. If it is anonymous, ask why, and ask for the reference anyway.
7. Screenshot every number on their site and ask what each one counts. One provider we looked at listed two client counts on the same site that differed by about 2x. Not fraud. Just a number nobody checks. That tells you how the rest of their numbers are treated.

On testimonials: the FTC's August 2024 final rule bans fake and AI-generated testimonials and undisclosed insider ones. If a testimonial looks too smooth, ask to speak to the person.

Question 13: "Can I speak to one current client and one who left in the last 12 months?"

The single best vetting question in this guide is not asked of the provider. It is asked of their former client. A reference who left is worth more than five case studies.

Good: "Yes. Here is a current client and here is someone who left in March. They left because their sales team could not keep up, and they'll tell you that."

Bad: "Our clients are confidential." (All of them? Even the happy ones?) Or three glowing references, all current, all onboarded last month.

If they cannot produce a single reference, that silence is the answer.

Reference call script: current client (15 minutes)

Use the same script on every reference. Write notes. Compare.

1. "How long have you worked with them, and what were you promised on the sales call?"
2. "What did month three look like compared to that promise?"
3. "Roughly how many calls a week do you get, and how many show up and fit?"
4. "Who actually runs your account, and how often do you hear from them?"
5. "What is one thing they changed because the numbers told them to?"
6. "Have you ever disputed a lead or an invoice? What happened?"
7. "If you were starting over, what would you put in the contract?"

Reference call script: former client (15 minutes)

1. "Why did you leave? The real reason, not the polite one."
2. "When did you first know it wasn't working, and what month was that?"
3. "Did you get your ad account, CRM data and creative back? How long did it take?"
4. "Were there any costs you did not expect, at the start or at the exit?"
5. "What did they do well?"
6. "Would you hire them again for a different business? Why or why not?"
7. "What should I ask them that I probably won't think of?"

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What you own when you leave (questions 14 to 17)

Question 14: "Whose business owns the ad account and pixel?"

Covered in the kill questions. Now check it yourself.

The 30-second ownership audit

Menu names shift every year. The question does not. For each asset, you are looking for one thing: is the owner your business, or theirs?

If anything shows the provider as the owner, you are a guest in your own marketing.

Question 15: "Who owns the CRM, funnel and automations?"

Many done-for-you providers build inside a CRM account they control and give you a login. That can be fine during the engagement. The question is what happens after.

Good: "The CRM is yours, or we hand over a full copy of the build (funnel, forms, automations, email and SMS copy) plus a contact and pipeline export within 14 days of exit."

Bad: "The system is our proprietary IP." Some of it may be. Your contacts, your pipeline and the copy you paid to have written should not be.

Question 16: "Who owns the data and the creative?"

Good: "Every ad, video, image and line of copy we make for you is yours, along with the raw files. Your lead data is yours. We keep anonymised performance learnings, nothing with your name on it."

Bad: "Creative is licensed while you're a client." Translation: leave, and your best-performing ads vanish with them.

Pin it down with one sentence: "If I leave tomorrow, can I keep running every ad you made, in my own account, with no licence fee?" Only a plain yes counts. Then ask where the raw files live today (your shared drive or theirs) and get the folder link before you sign.

Question 17: "On exit, what exactly do I receive, in what format, within how many days?"

The vague answer is "everything". The good answer is a list.

Good: "Within 14 days: contacts and pipeline as CSV, a copy of every automation, all creative files, all copy, admin access confirmed on every ad account, and our access removed on the day you choose."

Bad: "We'll make it easy." Easy is not a format.

The exit kit (keep this even if you never use it)

When the time comes, send this. Copy, paste, fill the brackets.

Subject: Account transition for [Company]

Hi [Name],

We are ending our engagement effective [date], per [clause] of our agreement.

Please send the following by [date, 14 days out]:

1. Full export of contacts, opportunities and pipeline stages (CSV).
2. Copies of all funnels, forms, automations, email and SMS sequences.
3. All creative files and copy produced for us, in original formats.
4. Confirmation that our business holds admin ownership of every ad account, pixel, page and domain.

Please do not remove anything until we confirm receipt. We will remove your access on [date].

Thanks for the work.
[Name]

Then run your own 48-hour checklist:

• Download every report you have ever been sent.
• Confirm admin ownership on each asset in the audit table.
• Change passwords on any shared login.
• Remove partner and user access on the date you set, not before.
• Pause nothing until you know who runs it next. A dark ad account loses momentum fast.

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What it really costs (questions 18 to 21)

Question 18: "What costs come after signing?"

Ask them to list every cost you could pay in the first six months: setup, onboarding, software, data, tools, sending inboxes, creative production, landing page builds, call recording, ad spend, and "pass-through" anything.

Then do the math. Here is a worked example of a proposal that says "$3,500 a month":

"$3,500 a month" was really $5,733. Not a scandal. Just a number they hoped you would not calculate. TrustRadius found transparent pricing was technology buyers' top wish-list item four years running. Providers know. Some still make you dig.

Reference ranges, so you can sense-check a quote. These come from vendor blogs, they conflict, and you should treat them as rough:

Question 19: "What is the minimum term, and what are the exit terms?"

Covered in the kill questions. Clause 4 in the contract chapter gives you the exact wording.

Question 20: "If you promise a call volume, what written standard sits behind it, and what exactly is the guarantee?"

Good: "We commit to [N] held calls a month that meet Schedule A, starting month two. Miss it two months running and you can leave with no further fees, or we keep working with the retainer paused until we hit it. Here is the clause."

Bad: "We guarantee 30 leads a month or your money back." Ask what a lead is. Ask what "money" means when your ad spend is already gone.

Then ask the follow-up that sorts the honest ones: "What would I have to do wrong for you to refuse a claim?" A good provider lists your obligations plainly. A bad one finds out on the day you claim.

How to read a guarantee

Alex Hormozi's $100M Offers sorts guarantees into a few families. Paraphrased, they look like this from the buyer's side:

The guarantee is not the test. The definition is.

A huge guarantee on an undefined unit ("30 leads a month or your money back") is weaker than a small one on a defined unit ("held calls that meet these five written criteria"). The first one is satisfied by 30 people who filled a form at 2am to get a free PDF.

Three words void most guarantees. Circle them in every proposal:

• "Subject to" (subject to what, exactly, in writing?)
• "At our discretion" (then it is not a guarantee, it is a mood)
• "Qualified" with no written definition attached

A conditional guarantee that names your obligations is actually a good sign. "You must call leads within 10 minutes and keep 4 call slots a day open" means the provider has seen what breaks this, and is telling you before it does.

Inspired by Sabri Suby's teaching that strong guarantees are specific and tied to the buyer's core fear, here is the vetting version: a provider that will not put anything specific in writing either does not trust its own delivery, or has paid out too often.

Question 21: "How do you get paid more?"

Covered in the kill questions. One addition: performance pricing is not automatically aligned. Pay per lead rewards loosening the filter. Pay per booked call rewards ignoring no-shows. The alignment you want is pay tied to rung 4 or higher, measured in your systems.

Red flags in proposals

Scan any proposal for these before you read the pricing page. Two or more and you can stop reading.

• A volume guarantee with no written definition of what is being counted
• A 12-month minimum on a first engagement, with no checkpoints
• Setup, tool or "platform" fees that appeared only in the contract, not on the call
• Reporting described in reach, impressions, CTR or cost per lead only
• A guaranteed revenue figure or closed-deal count
• "Proprietary system" language around your own data or ad accounts
• A termination clause that charges you the remaining contract value
• No named operator anywhere in the document
• Case studies with no dates, no starting point and no spend
• A plan that changes ad creative but never touches the offer, the page, or what happens after the click

That last one is a recurring buyer-forum story: months of new creative, no change to the offer or follow-up, and nobody able to say why. If they cannot explain the plan simply, they may not understand it.

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The contract terms to insist on

Not legal advice. Show these to your lawyer. But walk in with them, because a lawyer reads the clauses you have, not the ones you forgot to ask for.

The clause pack

Plain English. Ask for each one by name.

1. Written qualification standard.

"A Qualified Call is defined in Schedule A. Only calls meeting every criterion in Schedule A count toward any volume, fee or guarantee in this agreement."

2. Dispute process.

"The Client may flag a call as not qualified within 7 days, with a reason. The Provider responds within 2 business days. Calls that fail Schedule A are credited or replaced within the following billing period."

3. Booked versus held.

"Only calls the prospect attends count toward fees or guarantees. No-shows and same-day cancellations do not."

4. First term with an exit breakpoint.

"Initial term: 90 days. If the checkpoint metrics in Schedule B are not met by day 60, the Client may terminate on 30 days' notice with no further fees."

5. No remaining-value payout.

"On termination under clause 4, no fees are owed for the remainder of any term."

6. Asset ownership.

"All ad accounts, pixels, pages, domains, CRM data, creative and copy produced for or used on behalf of the Client are owned by the Client. The Provider holds access as a partner only."

7. Exit delivery.

"Within 14 days of termination, the Provider delivers the items in Schedule C (contact and pipeline exports, automation copies, creative files, copy) and confirms Client ownership of all accounts."

8. All-in pricing.

"Schedule D lists every fee the Client may be charged. Fees not listed in Schedule D are not payable."

9. Named operator.

"The Client's account is run by [name]. The Provider gives 14 days' notice of any change."

10. Reporting standard.

"Weekly reporting shows ad spend, booked, held and qualified calls, cost per held qualified call and pipeline created, reconciled to the Client's CRM."

A good provider agrees to most of these, pushes back on one or two with a reason, and offers a counter. A bad one says "nobody asks for this". Because most people do not read until month eight.

The month-one test

The contract protects you on paper. The first 30 days protect you in practice. Here is what a good provider should have delivered, so you spot a bad fit before the lock-in bites:

Miss day 7 and you have a process problem. Miss day 14 and you have a skill problem. Miss day 30 and you have your answer.

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The scorecard

Here are all 21 questions in one place. Score each provider on each question.

0 = no answer, a dodge, or a red flag. 1 = a good answer, spoken only. 2 = a good answer, in writing (email, proposal or contract).

Why the written bonus? Because 69% of buyers in Gartner's reported 2025 survey saw inconsistencies between what vendors' websites and sellers said. Spoken answers drift. Written ones get signed.

The 21 questions

Reading the total

Plus the kill rule: a 0 on any of questions 5, 7, 14, 19 or 21 means no hire, whatever the total.

Worked example: three providers, one afternoon

A hypothetical $60K-a-month B2B consultancy compares three quotes. The providers are invented; the failure patterns are the common ones.

Provider A: pay per lead, $150 a lead, no minimum. Charming and fast. Scored 0 on the qualified-call definition ("our leads are all qualified") and 0 on no-shows ("that's sales"). Total: 19. Kill questions failed: 5 and 7. Out twice over.

Provider B: $5,000 retainer plus 15% of spend, 12-month minimum. Brilliant case studies. But the ad account would sit in their business "for efficiency", and exit owed the remaining term. Total: 27. Kill questions failed: 14 and 19. Out, despite a respectable total. This is exactly why the kill rule exists.

Provider C: fixed monthly fee, 90-day first term with a day-60 breakpoint. Sent a written qualification definition before the call. Accounts in the client's name. Scored 1 on the headline-claim sentence and the former-client reference (promised, not sent). Total: 36. No kill questions failed. Ask for the two missing items in writing, then call the references.

Notice what happened. The cheapest quote and the most impressive deck both lost. The one that won was the one that wrote things down.

The "send before the call" email

Here is the move most buyers never make: send the questions before the sales call. Then the call starts with their answers, not their pitch.

Subject: 21 questions before our call on [date]

Hi [Name],

Looking forward to [date]. To make the call useful, could you answer the questions below in writing beforehand? Short answers are fine. "We don't do that" is a perfectly good answer.

I'm comparing a few providers on the same list, so it helps me be fair to everyone.

[Paste the 21 questions]

If any question doesn't apply to how you work, tell me why. That's useful too.

Thanks,
[Name]

Strong providers answer quickly, because these questions are where they win. Weak ones send a deck and a calendar link.

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Do this today

Forty minutes. Before your next provider call.

1. Write your own qualified-call definition with the template in question 5. You cannot judge theirs until you have yours. (10 min)
2. Run the 30-second ownership audit on your current accounts. If anything is owned by someone else, you just found your first problem. (5 min)
3. Pull your current contract and circle "subject to", "at our discretion", any undefined "qualified", and the termination clause. (10 min)
4. Send the "before the call" email with all 21 questions to every provider you are considering, including any you already work with. (5 min)
5. Book one reference call with a former client of whoever you are leaning toward. Use the former-client script. (10 min to set up)

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Or have it built

You can run this whole test yourself, pick a provider, and manage them. Plenty of owners do, and this guide is built so you can.

Or insaneX builds the whole machine: Meta and Google ads, a quiz funnel that qualifies before the calendar, the calendar inside the funnel, CRM, and email and SMS follow-up, with held and qualified calls reported separately.

We'll Build You A B2B Booking Machine That Lands 5-7 Qualified Sales Calls On Your Calendar Every Single Day.

For B2B, SaaS, agency, consulting and high-ticket service companies doing $30K+ a month.

$54.3M+ revenue generated for clients. 9x average ROAS. 85+ SaaS and B2B brands scaled. $7M+ ad spend tested.

That headline is a volume promise, so question 20 applies to us first. Ask for the written definition of "qualified" behind the 5-7, and how we count every number above.

And yes, we take our own test. Bring all 21 questions to the strategy call. We answer them before we pitch anything. Score us honestly. If we come in under 33, or fail a kill question, do not hire us.

Book a strategy call

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Sources and inspiration

Buyer behaviour and churn

• Forrester, The State of Business Buying 2024 (81% dissatisfied with the provider chosen; 86% of purchases stall), release December 2024. https://www.forrester.com/press-newsroom/forrester-the-state-of-business-buying-2024/
• vcita, 2025 SMB Marketing Report (500 US SMB owners, fielded April 2025; 40% churn, 56% of it 6 to 12 months in, 60% cite no ROI). Research firm and margin of error not named. https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/vcitas-new-survey-of-smb-owners-highlights-marketing-agency-churn-crisis-client-expectations-and-ai-opportunity-302505739.html
• Setup, 6th Marketing Relationship Survey (400+ brand and agency respondents, January 2025). Vendor survey. https://setup.squarespace.com/blog/the-truth-about-agency-breakups-what-clients-and-agencies-really-think
• Gartner sales survey, June 2025 release, as reported by BizTech Reports (69% see inconsistencies between vendor website and sellers). Verify against Gartner's own release before reuse. https://www.biztechreports.com/news-archive/2025/7/17/gartner-sales-survey-finds-61-of-b2b-buyers-prefer-a-rep-free-buying-experience-g-july-17th-2025
• TrustRadius 2026 B2B Buying Disconnect report (1,862 tech buyers; transparent pricing top wish-list item four years running). https://hginsights.com/news/trustradius-2026-b2b-buying-disconnect-report-reveals-ai-has-changed-how-buyers-research-but-not-what-they-trust/

Compensation, pricing and contracts

• ANA, Trends in Agency Compensation, 18th edition (2022), via MediaPost. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/380603/ana-finds-performance-incentive-compensation-model.html and https://ana.net/miccontent/show/id/rr-2022-11-ana-trends-in-agency-compensation
• SaaS Hero, B2B lead gen agency pricing and contract tips (vendor, 2026). https://www.saashero.net/strategy/reddit-b2b-leadgen-agency-pricing/ and https://saashero.net/strategy/lead-generation-agency-contract-tips/
• Prospeo, pay-per-appointment lead generation (vendor). https://prospeo.io/s/pay-per-appointment-lead-generation
• Cleverly, lead generation agency contract guide (vendor). https://www.cleverly.co/blog/lead-generation-agency-contract
• Yael Consulting, Google Ads management fees (percentage of spend). https://www.yaelconsulting.com/google-ads-management-fees-unpacking-agency-pricing-models/
• groas, percentage-of-spend pricing and the conflict of interest. https://groas.ai/post/percentage-of-spend-google-ads-agency-pricing-conflict-of-interest

No-shows, attribution and ownership

• Focus Digital, no-show rate by booking channel (September 2026, modelled estimates, sample not disclosed). https://focus-digital.co/average-no-show-rate-for-booked-sales-meetings-by-booking-channel/
• PPC Land, on platform ROAS versus incremental ROAS and Meta's lift-study review. https://ppc.land/meta-advertising-experts-warn-inflated-roas-misleads-marketers/
• Leadsie, requesting and owning Facebook ad account access. https://leadsie.com/blog/request-facebook-ad-account-access

Regulation

• FTC, final rule banning fake reviews and testimonials (August 2024). https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/08/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-rule-banning-fake-reviews-testimonials
• Skadden, on the FTC's Operation AI Comply (October 2024). https://www.skadden.com/insights/publications/2024/10/new-ftc-initiative-targets-deceptive-ai-claims-and-a-generative-ai-service

insaneX figures and examples

• insaneX headline numbers ($54.3M+ revenue generated for clients, 9x average ROAS, 85+ SaaS and B2B brands scaled, $7M+ ad spend tested): insaneX's own records. The counting method for each is published on the insaneX How We Count page before this guide goes live.
• "Two client counts that differed by about 2x": insaneX review of one provider's public website, November 2026. Provider deliberately not named.
• All worked examples (the $400 booked call, the "$3,500 a month" proposal, providers A, B and C) are illustrations built from the price ranges above, not real clients.

Inspiration (paraphrased, not quoted)

• Alex Hormozi, $100M Leads, "Employees and Agencies" chapter (agency as tuition).
• Alex Hormozi, $100M Offers, guarantees chapter (guarantee types).
• Sabri Suby, QG course material on guarantees and on what a sales message must answer. Credited as inspiration only; no course text reproduced.
• Reference call protocol inspired by general agency vetting guides, including the "introduce me to a client who left" practice described by Planet Argon.
• Buyer stories referenced in this guide are paraphrased and anonymised from public forum threads. They are patterns, not statistics.