The Smart Way to Sell a New Campaign to a Skeptical Client

One bold offer that turns rejection into revenue

There’s a moment every agency owner hits when you’re doing good work, getting results, and still, someone on the client side throws shade.

In this case, an agency owner doing $15K–$20K/month found himself stuck. He built a solid performance marketing setup for a high-ticket local service provider. He had a strong relationship with the owner, precise CRM data showing $400K closed from his efforts, and over $5M in leads sitting untouched in “estimate sent/viewed” purgatory.

By all measures, he’d done great work for his client, so he decided to pitch an expanded campaign.

But then the owner’s older relative handling the finances stepped in. Suddenly, everything was “what’s the ROI?” and “why should we do this?” despite hard evidence in the CRM that it had previously been successful.

This is usually when agency owners either spin their wheels or argue back and forth, trying to convince (beg, almost) the client to listen and trust them.

I told him what’s worked for me in the past: pitch the new campaign as a paid project or a monthly retainer.

But if that stalls, flip the script.

Say you believe in it so much, you’ll build it for free. No upfront cost at all. The catch? You’ll instead take a percentage of booked revenue. In other words, performance marketing. The client only pays if you produce.

This changes the conversation from cost to opportunity. It aligns incentives and shows you’re confident in what you’re selling. That confidence builds trust, even with the skeptics.

If they bite, great. If not, that’s on them.

As much as we want to fix every broken client’s thought process, we’re still in the service business. They have to want to be helped. The worst thing you can do is keep giving away strategy and energy for free while trying to win over someone who doesn’t believe in your actions.

The moral of the story … stop trying to convince nonbelievers.

I hope that helps.

~ Erik