Eleven questions, and the answers to listen for.
Most owners who have been burned were not lied to. They were sold activity when they were buying outcomes, and the proposal never said which it was. These questions make the difference visible before you sign.
About the work
Five that reveal whether the work is real.
What will exist at the end of month three that does not exist now? Listen for artefacts — a page, a register, a sequence — not activities.
Which named person does the work, and what else are they on? "A dedicated team" usually means an account manager and a rota.
What is explicitly excluded? A proposal with no exclusions has not been thought about.
What do you need from us, and what happens if we are slow with it? Every engagement fails on this and few proposals mention it.
Show me a piece of work you did for someone my size, in my kind of business. Not a client list — one artefact.
About the money
Three that stop the invoice surprising you.
Split the fee: your time, my media spend, and production. If they cannot, the scope is not defined.
What is the fee if the right answer turns out to be spending less? Percentage-of-spend models answer this badly.
What is not included that we will certainly need — photography, a website fix, a CRM licence?
About what happens after
Three that decide what you are left holding.
Who owns the ad accounts, the analytics, the content and the data — and can I have them the day I leave?
What does a report look like in a month where nothing improved?
What would make you tell us to stop doing this?
Questions
Is it fair to ask for a guarantee?
Ask for a measurement, not a guarantee. Anyone guaranteeing a ranking or a lead count is either controlling something they do not control or defining the metric so loosely that it cannot fail. A baseline, a date and a number you will both look at is worth more.
Should I ask for references?
Yes, and ask for one client who left. How an agency talks about work that ended tells you more than a testimonial does.
How long should the first contract be?
Long enough for the work to show and short enough to leave. For most SMB engagements that is three to six months with a defined first deliverable, not a twelve-month lock with a monthly report.
Talk to us
Tell us what you are trying to grow.
A short note is enough. We will come back with a straight answer about whether we can help, usually within one working day.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared