Stop selling effort.
Start scaling value.
For CEOs, CFOs, and their leadership teams at agencies and professional service firms. Redesign your commercial model so you get paid for more of the value your firm already creates, and build a revenue model that doesn't depend on selling hours.
The industry has shifted.
Has your model kept up?
You're being penalized for efficiency
When you price by effort, every hour you save comes off the invoice. AI is cutting the hours it takes to deliver the work, so revenue drops even as the work gets better.
You've likely changed pricing but not what you sell
Many agencies have replaced hourly billing with fixed fees or retainers, but the underlying offering remains custom, capability-led, and labor-dependent. The economics don't change.
Growth still requires adding headcount
Revenue stays tied to utilization and staffing, so every new client means new hires. That caps your margin and wears out your leadership team.
How you define your value determines how profitably you can capture it.
Your value model is how your firm defines, designs, delivers, and captures its value. When all four are built around the value you create for clients, you can price your impact instead of your hours.
Shape how clients and procurement perceive and experience the agency's unique value.
Equip client-facing teams to speak to, sell, and defend the agency's unique value.
Name who the agency serves, the problems it solves, and the commercial change it creates.
1Best-fit client profile
The clients the agency serves best: those who cost the least to acquire, bring the most revenue, and gain the most from its work.
2Commercial value proposition
The commercial change a client will experience from working with the agency, and why the agency is uniquely qualified to deliver it.
3Differentiation proof points
Evidence that sets the agency apart in solving high-value problems, beyond the points of parity every competitor claims.
Turn the agency's highest-value work into repeatable solutions clients can buy.
4Productized solution portfolio
The agency's highest-value work, codified into repeatable solutions, programs, and products that make the value easy for clients to see and buy, based on their desired impact.
5Tiered scope options
Well-defined versions of each solution at different levels of impact, so a client can choose the level that fits its goals.
Equip teams and use technology to deliver the work and prove its commercial value to clients.
6Value-aligned case studies
Case studies and promotional material framed around the agency's proof points and the results it consistently produces for clients.
7Success workshop
A structured process that helps a client quantify the value it wants from the agency's work, and agree on what the agency controls or influences and how that value will be measured.
8Scope of value
A scope that reframes a client's brief around agreed outcomes and commercial value, and how the agency and client will work together toward them, so the agency can price the work on its intended value.
9Value metrics and reporting
Internal and client metrics that track leading and lagging indicators of the intended impact. Teams own outcomes instead of chasing utilization, and clients see progress toward their goals. Reporting on impact becomes the natural counterpart to pricing on value.
Price solutions on their value, and build revenue streams that don't depend on hours.
10Value-aligned pricing options
Prices set on the value each solution and tier creates, and new revenue streams built on subscriptions, licensing, and other models that don't depend on hours.
11Proposals, RFPs, and contract language
Proposals, RFP responses, and contracts that keep the conversation on value, so the agency can hold the line when procurement or a pitch consultant focuses on cost and pushes for discounts.
12Client transition approach
A plan for bringing existing and new clients onto modern remuneration models without disrupting the relationship.
Open any commercial touchpoint to read more.
What changes when the model changes
Doubled the share of revenue from ideal clients
A 105-person full-service agency went from 36% to 73% revenue from ideal clients and grew gross income 39% after repositioning around a defined set of high-value clients and productizing core expertise.
First productized sale in under a month, at a 50% larger deal size
A mid-size content and performance agency turned ambiguous retainers into clear, productized offerings priced around client outcomes instead of hours. It sold its first one in under a month and lifted retainer deal size 50%.
Same work, 66% higher price, zero pushback
A 1,100-person consulting firm sold the same work at 66% higher fees to the same clients by reframing a complex service as a simple, tiered product. The pricing changes alone added $600K–$1.5M in new annual revenue.
Not sure where to start?
The Agency Model Map diagnostic scores your firm on two dimensions: how clearly you define your value, and how well you get paid for it. You'll see how your commercial model is helping or limiting your pricing power, and get a roadmap for what to change first.
Five minutes to complete.
Take the Agency Model Map DiagnosticOpens on the site of the Value Model Institute, our research initiative.