How to Create, Name and Price Agency Products or Programmes (and get at least 2x Your Rate Card).

The trouble with a rate card is simple. However good your team is, however highly clients rate you, the money follows the hours. Sell more hours, earn more. Sell fewer, earn less. Put your rates up and you get a slightly higher ceiling, but it's still a ceiling, because the client is still buying your time.

"Stop selling time" then. We hear this from all the big voices in agency-land, with little to no instruction.

"Time based billing is dead". No it isn't. Especially for independent and smaller agencies. But there are better ways. Not just for you the agency but for clients. Agencies that make more money are able to make better work in the long run.

So let's embrace the "stop selling time" approach and look at Productisation and Programmes of work. Something I believe in, have implemented and thrived on.

What is selling a programme: it's a named piece of work, run on a repeatable system, built on a proven framework, with a fixed scope, a fixed length and a fixed price.

Do it properly and you can charge 2x or 3x what the same hours would earn at rate card. That isn't greedy. The client gets certainty, a finished thing and a date. And your hours drop every time you run it, or you can bring in specialist talent where it's needed without fear.

Follow the steps in order, with one real offer, and you'll have your first programme priced in about half a day.

I've used a rebrand or a repositioning as the running example, because nearly every agency has done one. But it could be anything. From a campaign. Social strategy. A digital transformation. Anything.

I'll show you what the same thinking looks like in social and digital - rough examples, and how to push it to 3x for specialist work.

The five ingredients of a programme

Every programme that sells at a premium has the same five ingredients. Miss one and you're back to selling hours with a nicer name on the front.

1. A repeatable system. How you do the work, written down so someone else could run it: the interview guides, workshop decks, templates and checklists. If it lives in one person's head, you've got a hero, not a system.
2. A framework. The phases the system moves through. Each one ends with something you hand over and something the client decides. Clients buy frameworks because they can see where they're going and when they'll get there.
3. Fixed boundaries. The length, the rounds of feedback, what's in, what's out, and what you need from the client.
4. Outputs and an outcome. What you hand over, and what's true on the last day.
5. A priced package. A price built from the system, offered in two or three tiers. I like threes. It's the magic number and all that. And from a price anchoring perspective, done well, you'll sell more of the middle and top packages, than the bottom.

Systems and frameworks are what earn you the 2x. The system cuts your hours. The framework makes the work easy to see and easy to buy. The rest of this guide builds all five, one step at a time.

You can freestyle on what's included all you like, what I'll say is this. This is my EXACT approach. Used it. Proven it. Scaled it. Sold agencies using it.

A quick word of warning

If you don't think this will work. You're right. Because you're not being open minded and you're stuck in old ways and ideas. If you think it can work, you're at the beginning of changing the way your agency works, and how you make money in ways that you've not experienced before. It needs an open-mind. Commitment. Speed. Intuition. And a sprinkling of courage.

Let me add this - doing things the way things have always been done is the most destructive approach to business and life. Embrace change. Life's good. And this very FREE guide is designed to help open-minded and smart agency owners that are looking for a better way of doing things. I wish you success with it.

Outputs, outcomes and results

Get these three words straight before you price anything. You price the first two. You never sell the third in a programme. Results based pricing is a different approach.

Why not sell results? Because you don't control them. So you either price low to play safe, or you carry a risk nobody is paying you for. Both are bad.

That said, results are why the client is buying, so talk about them in every conversation. Just keep them out of the scope and out of the price.

A good outcome passes three tests. You can say it in one sentence. The client can see for themselves that it's done. And it's in your control, as long as the client does their part.

Step 1: Find your top five systems

You're not inventing anything here. Your top five are already sitting in the last twelve months of invoices (or three years of work - you decide). You just haven't called them systems yet.

Pull every project you invoiced and group them into types of job. Name each type the way a client would ask for it: "we need a new website", "our brand looks tired", "we're getting nothing from social". Not the way your team labels it internally.

Score each type from 1 to 5 on three things: how often you sell it, how much margin it makes, and how good you are at it. Add them up. Your top five are your programmes.

Then run three checks:

• Have you delivered each one at least three times? If not, it isn't a system yet. You can't template what you haven't repeated.
• Could a stranger tell what it is from the name alone?
• Do any two overlap by 80% or more? If so, merge them into one, unless they have a VERY different buying moment (Rebrand and Merger could be two separate programmes, following the same framework).

Step 2: Turn each system into outputs and an outcome

Take each of your five and finish three sentences. This is the heart of the whole thing, so don't rush it.

• "We deliver [three to seven named outputs]."
• "So that, by the end, [one outcome the client can check]."
• "Which sets you up for [the result they want], though we don't promise it."

Take a rebrand. The outputs are brand strategy, positioning, a new identity, guidelines and templates. The outcome: the leadership team has signed off one new position and identity, and both are live on the website, LinkedIn and the sales deck. The result you name but don't promise: more of the right enquiries and a stronger case for premium pricing.

The easiest mistake is letting a result slip into the outcome. Look at the difference.

Test yours. Outputs are nouns you can count. The outcome is true on the last day, not a number that moves next quarter. And none of it should depend on someone else's sales team, ad algorithm or budget.

Step 3: Build the framework

The framework is the spine of the programme: the phases, the timing and the boundaries. It's what the client looks at when they decide whether to buy.

Three to five phases is plenty. Each one ends with something you hand over and something the client decides. That second bit matters. A decision at the end of every phase keeps the client moving and stops the work drifting.

Fix the length in weeks. Four, eight and twelve are the easy ones to sell. And give it an end date, not "about two months".

Here's a simple framework to start from.

Then write down the boundaries. As with real life boundaries are key to good relationships. Three lines do most of the work, any more is noise:

• Rounds: each output includes two rounds of feedback.
• Sign-off: each phase ends with written approval before the next one starts.
• Change: anything outside this scope is quoted as a named add-on.

Last, write down the client's part: what they need to provide, and by when. If they're late, the end date moves. The price doesn't.

Seriously, that one line will save you more margin than anything else on the page.

Test it. Could someone new on your team run this programme from the page alone? If so, you've got a system. If not, keep writing.

Step 4: Name it

A programme name has one job: tell the client what they get, in words they'd use themselves. Skip the clever invented words. Nobody forwards an email about something they can't explain.

Four patterns cover almost everything.

Three tests before you commit:

1. Can you say it on the phone without explaining it?
2. Could a stranger guess what it is?
3. Does it sit naturally in a sentence: "We'd suggest our ___ Programme"?

Don't promise a result in the name. "Double Your Leads" is a claim you can't back, and it drags you straight back into selling results. We are in the results business, but when you don't control EVERY single driver of results, you can't be responsible for the results - just your part of it.

Keep the tiers the same on every programme: Core, Full and Plus (as an example).

Clients learn the pattern once and every conversation after that gets easier.

Then ask three clients what it is, without looking at the page. If they get it wrong, change the name, not the client.

Step 5: Price it at 2x, then decide how to charge

The price can come from anywhere - but your repeatable system is your DNA and IP. So, start here - look at the hours you'd honestly quote as per your rate card, times two. Six moves.

1. Estimate the hours phase by phase, by role, as if you were selling it by the hour. Don't pad it and don't trim it.
2. Multiply by your rate card. That's the rate card value.
3. Double it. That's your target price.
4. Run the value test. Does the price still feel small next to what getting this right is worth to the client? Find out by asking in the first conversation, not by guessing.
5. Run the margin test. Multiply the hours by your cost per hour and take that off the price. If the margin is thin, cut hours with better systems or trim the scope. Don't cut the price.
6. Round to a clean number, and round up.

Is 2x fair? Yes, for three reasons. The client is buying certainty: a fixed price and a fixed date. You're carrying the overrun risk, which on an hourly job sits with them. And your hours fall every time you run the system, so your effective rate climbs while the price stays put.

Build three tiers. Core is a smaller scope, Full is the one you want to sell, and Plus adds support (or other) after the work. Price each at 2x its own hours. When a client pushes back, take scope out. Never take money off.

How to charge

The number is half of it. The other half is when the money lands. Pick one of these and put it on the programme sheet.

Four rules sit under all of them. Invoice in advance. Tie every invoice to a named sign-off. If a sign-off is late, the next invoice still goes out on the agreed date. And media spend is a pass-through, billed at cost, never inside the 2x.

Worked example: an 8-week Repositioning Programme

Here's the whole method on one example. It takes 250 hours, has a rate card value of £30,000 and sells for £60,000. The numbers are illustrations, so use your own hours and rate card.

The outcome: by week 8 the leadership team has signed off one position, the team can say it in a sentence, and the new messaging is ready to run across the website, social and sales material. The result you name, but don't promise, is more of the right enquiries and a stronger case for premium pricing.

Now the three tiers.

Say the Full programme is billed 40 / 30 / 30. That's £24,000 on signing, £18,000 when the position is signed off in week 5, and £18,000 at handover.

Now the margin. Say your cost is £60 an hour. 250 hours costs you £15,000. At £60,000 you keep £45,000, a 75% margin. Sell the same job by the hour at rate card and you keep £15,000, a 50% margin. On the second run, with the interview guides, workshop deck and templates already built, you might need 200 hours. The price stays at £60,000.

The same framework works for social and digital. Discover becomes a channel and site audit. Listen becomes audience and search research. Decide fixes the role of each channel. Define sets the content pillars and tone of voice. Equip builds the templates, profile copy and key page copy. Launch delivers a 30-day content calendar and a rollout plan.

How to reach 3x: specialist, high-IP work

2x is the default for a good programme run on a good system. You get to 3x when the work is specialist, the system is yours alone, and the expert delivers it. All three have to be true together.

1. It's specialist: a narrow field where only a handful of people can do it properly.
2. It carries IP: a named framework, a proprietary scoring system, benchmark data or a tool the client can't get anywhere else.
3. The expert does the work: the senior person leads it, not a team behind them.

Miss one and you're back at 2x. Honestly, that's a perfectly good place to be - whichever.

How to build it

1. Name the framework and own it. A method with a name gets bought as a method. Hours stop being the conversation.
2. Turn it into a diagnostic with a score. A proprietary scorecard, benchmarked against peers, gives the client something they can't get from a competitor.
3. Put the expert at the front. Fewer hours, senior hands, and the client knows exactly who they're getting.
4. Limit the places. Four a quarter is a scarcity the client can see, and it protects your delivery.
5. Sell to the person who owns the decision, not to procurement. Then anchor the price to what getting the decision right is worth, and run the value test from Step 5 at that level.
6. Back it with proof: two or three case studies that show the outcome, never a promised result.

Is your IP real?

Ask three things. Could a client copy it from your deck? Could they buy the same thing from someone else? Is there a name, a method or data behind it? If the answers are yes, yes and no, it's a template, not IP. Price it at 2x and keep building.

The maths

Take a specialist-led positioning programme. The expert's rate card is £200 an hour and the programme takes 120 hours. That's £24,000 at rate card. At 3x it sells for £72,000. If their cost is £90 an hour, delivery costs £10,800, so you keep £61,200, an 85% margin. The numbers are illustrations, so use your own.

Do it for every senior specialist

Go through your senior people one at a time and fill in a row for each. If a row stays empty, that person isn't ready to sell a 3x programme yet, and that tells you what to build.

Don't call something specialist or proprietary until a client has paid for it that way. Earn the 3x on the first two sales, then raise your price on the third.

What this looks like in social and digital

Most social and digital agencies can build their top five from this list. Each is a system with a framework, outputs and an outcome the client can check, never a result. Price each at 2x the rate card value of its hours, using Step 5.

Five programmes sell the main work. Three more wrap around them: one to get you in the door, one to get a decision made fast, and one to keep the work going afterwards. Together they turn a one-off job into a ladder: Health Check, then Decision Day, then one of your five, then Quarterly Partner.

A few notes. Price the Health Check low enough to say yes to quickly, but still at 2x its own hours, and offer to credit the fee if they sign a programme within 30 days. Sell Decision Day to the client who's stuck, not the one who's shopping. Sell Quarterly Partner at the end of every programme, as a named monthly package with a fixed list of what's in it. Never sell unlimited support. A retainer without a scope is just hourly work with a nicer name.

If you only have two programmes or systems, or want to add three new ones

You don't need five to start. Two good programmes, properly packaged, are a business. Three new ones can be added safely too, as long as you prove them before you build them.

Start with two. Package both properly with Core, Full and Plus tiers, and you've got six price points from two systems. Add the Health Check and Decision Day, which are cheap to build because they wrap skills you already sell. Add Quarterly Partner after each programme. Now you've got five offers from two systems.

Now take three things you have the skills for but haven't sold repeatedly. Same rule as before: you can't template what you haven't repeated. So prove it first, then build it.

1. Write the evidence in one line each: past work, a one-off job, or the experience of the person who'll lead it.
2. Write the one-page programme sheet before you build anything: the problem, the outputs, the outcome, the framework, the price.
3. Pre-sell it. Take the sheet to three existing clients or warm prospects, in conversation, and build only what someone buys.
4. Price the first run properly. Use Step 5, with 20% extra hours in the estimate, because the first run is always slower. Don't discount. If you want to reward the first client, give them something that costs you little, like a case study or an extra review session.
5. Capture the system as you deliver. Interview guides, decks, checklists. The second run will cost far fewer hours.
6. Sell the Core version first, with firm boundaries, so the risk stays small.

Be straight with the client. "This is a new programme, led by [name], and you're one of the first three clients." Most will respect that. Seriously, nobody respects being told you've done it fifty times when you haven't.

Sell it, protect the margin, review it

A programme only pays 2x if you sell it as a package and hold the line on scope.

When you sell, lead with the problem and leave the programme until later. Ask three questions: what's changed, what happens if nothing does, and what would it be worth to get this right. Agree the outcome out loud before you mention price, because if the client can't tell you what done looks like, you can't price it. Then show the one-page programme sheet with all three tiers and the price on it. Talk through Full first, then Core as the step down, then Plus.

When you deliver, log actual hours against the plan every time. Put every change in writing and quote it as an add-on. And take scope out before you ever take price out.

After three runs, sit down and review it. This is where the real money is made.

Your third run should take far fewer hours than your first. That gap is the margin you keep, and it's why the system is worth building.

Your next move

Don't try to build all eight this month. Pick the one system you've delivered most often and take it all the way through this week.

• List your last twelve months of work and pick the top five systems
• Write the outputs and the one-sentence outcome for the first one
• Build the framework: phases, weeks, hand-overs, client decisions
• Name it, and name the tiers Core, Full and Plus
• Estimate the hours, multiply by your rate card, then by two
• Choose how you'll bill it and write the programme sheet
• Take it to three clients before you build anything else

The agencies that make this work aren't the ones with the cleverest offers. They're the ones with clear systems and frameworks, written down, priced once and run again and again. So go and do it.