In this conversational interview, Abdoulaye Ba and a co‑speaker dissect the economics of a done‑for‑you (DFY) sales service. They outline a pricing model that starts with a €12K (or $12K) upfront fee covering a 90‑day build phase, then shifts to a recurring $5K per month plus a 5 % revenue‑share. The dialogue highlights why such a premium price is necessary: it funds a skilled sales manager ($4K/month), enables hiring a team of experts, and frees the founder to focus on high‑leverage, money‑driven actions (content creation, ad spend, strategic calls). They discuss the two‑stage workflow—initial system build (scripts, frameworks, assets) followed by optimization/maintenance—and how a higher price filters for high‑revenue clients who can afford the ongoing fee and reap disproportionate ROI from modest KPI improvements. Pricing too low dilutes service quality, overburdens the founder, and leads to poor client results and lower retention. The conversation also touches on the importance of targeting top‑tier clients, the impact of revenue‑share incentives, and the strategic use of pricing to attract better talent and deliver faster results.
Chapters
Who's going to do all of that work for 2 months? Look, $12K, that's like across 90 days, that's $4K a month.
Yeah.
Like a sales manager only, a good sales manager only, for example, in my business, I'm paying them $4K a month.
Yeah. Right.
So what's left for you? So you want to be charging at the price where you as the founder can focus at money-driven actions. How much would you think it's worth? Yeah.
So the done-for-you would be an installment fee of $12K. In euros for the first three months, and then it would turn into a recurring revenue of five k a month plus five percent. Ref share is what I'm thinking now.
Plus five percent.
Yeah, because it's not the marketing side that we're doing only sales.
Okay, I see. I see. So five k per month plus five percent.
Yeah.
Right now let's look at the cash he's getting because you want to be in a situation right where if he pays that twelve k after thirty days he needs to pay the five k.
No, after ninety.
After 90 only. Okay, that's cool. That's actually very good. So that's better. Is that then also interesting for you though?
I would say so, yeah. Because coming into the business and building the systems, 90 days is actually a lot for me. A lot of time to be able to analyze, to be able to see, okay, what systems actually work? How should we twist the pre-call SOP? How should we twist the value-driven follow-ups? What sales assets do we have to work with or can we actually work with? Which ones do we have to create? Sometimes you have to wait for the founder to actually create some assets as well. What testimonials could we get already now? How can we film them? You know, so it's different kind of things and 90 days is actually a lot of bandwidth to make sure that I have everything, you know.
I see. And as well the optimization.
The optimization.
You always need to optimize.
Exactly.
Who's going to do all of that work for 3 months?
Me, myself.
And that's the thing. You're saying that you're going to do all the work.
Yeah.
Right on a day-to-day. Don't you think that will take time away from you actually being in the more leveraged actions? So just creating content, for example, on the daily, looking at numbers, for example, instead of you building everything out yourself. And that's only one client. How many activities did you just mention?
Yeah, a lot.
And that's on a day per day. Most of, most of it. Yeah. Because those need to be optimized.
You know what the funny thing is? I actually got my first B2B client by accident. Basically, it was 2 days ago. You was with me when I closed them at the previous hotel. So I closed them accidentally and now I was building out everything. I was also thinking to myself like, this is not something I should be doing.
No, you don't want to do it, right? So you want to be charging at the price where you as a founder can focus at money-driven actions, which is creating your content, anything to pitch more people, right?
Yeah.
For some people it's creating more content. For some people it's like creating more ads for them, right? For some people it's hopping on sales calls for themselves, right? If the volume is not too high. But you want to be focusing on money-driven actions. What you want to do is to charge at a more premium price, let's say, right? Or earn more so that you could pay your team better and get better talent in who's going to do the work for you, which means your clients are going to see results faster because shit is going to get done faster.
Yeah.
Right? You're a one-man team.
Yeah.
With a team of experts that's getting well paid, right? They could run things simultaneously. So you don't want to be charging a price point, especially look, $12K, that's like across 90 days, that's $4K a month.
Yeah.
Like a sales manager only, a good sales manager only, for example, in my business, I'm paying them $4K a month.
Yeah.
So what's left for you?
Not much.
Not much, right? Your client is not going to see the results or the potential of the result that they should see.
Yeah.
Right? Because you're working slower. So your price point here needs to be higher. That's why not everyone can be sold on your done-for-you. For example, let's say your done-for-you, right? You would charge $12K upfront and then $5K per month after that. Imagine.
Yeah.
Who would that $12K? You could be paying a sales manager an upfront fee to build out. Hmm.
That's what I'm doing now, right?
What do you mean?
The $12K upfront for 3 months and then $5K a month.
No, let's say you're doing $12K first month. Okay. The month after that is $5K per month.
Oh, the month after that?
Yeah. Oh, okay. Exactly.
Yeah.
Right. Because here it's a build out, but in the first month you should get all the shit done.
Yes.
Because you now have a team. Yeah. Actually in the first month everything is done and build it out. I'm talking all the sales scripts, right? Sales frameworks, the whole shebang basically. Yeah. What needs to be done for that B2B client. And now in the second month, you're already optimizing, right, and scaling what you already built out and looking at the numbers, right? So it's more like maintenance. That's why, of course, the setup phase can be the same price as the optimizing phase, basically, because there's less work involved, right?
Yeah.
It's maintenance and optimizing. So what this allows you to do is to get a really good operator, for example, or sales managers who can make sales scripts, right, on your frameworks. Right? Now after that, he needs to manage, for example, the clients. But after that, he then needs to manage, for example, the sales team and train them up on your frameworks, right?
Yeah.
Allows basically for you that you can focus on money-driven actions while not being on sales trainings the whole day and before the day meetings and end of the day meetings.
Makes sense.
Because that's already 3, 4 hours gone of your day.
Exactly.
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
So that is the problem with like pricing too low for done-for-you. Okay, right. If you also price too low for done-for-you, it's going to be more affordable for more people. And we want in our done-for-you the top of the top, because why? They're able to spend more on their business. They're making higher revenue numbers.
Yeah.
To the point where a little change in one of their KPIs in a positive way is already going to have great impact for them, right? Look, if you are literally increasing an offer, right, that's making $500K per month, if you're increasing the their close rate even with 5%, that's a lot more revenue for them, right? Compared to someone or another company that's making $150K and they're increasing their close rate, right? The difference of that 5% in actually net, you know, revenue or net profit for them is way bigger.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Sure.
Where if you would charge, right, that done-for-you offer, let's say $12K upfront, right? And then $5K per month after 30 days to $150K per month business owner, he would be less happy to pay pay that $5K per month after 30 days compared to that $500K per month business owners.
Exactly.
Because the returns that he saw already in the first month, right, is already large enough that it basically covers that $5K per month multiple times.
Yeah.
And even that $12K per month.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So that's why you also want to watch out who you're actually offering your done-for-you for, because it's your premium offer that you're charging a good amount for, right? That's justified because you want to actually get the client quality work, right?
Yeah.
And as well, very good results to the point that they're happy and that the retention rate is going to be higher. So you don't want to basically offer that done for you to everyone.
