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Agency sales process guide

The agency sales process, stage by stage

An agency sales process is the documented path from first conversation to signed client, with a clear rule for when a prospect moves forward. This guide from Agency Sales Routines lays out the five stages Tim Kilroy uses with founder-led agencies, the typical meeting length at each step, and a 20-minute test to find the stage that leaks.

Published by Tim KilroyLast updated: November 2026

What is a good sales process for a digital marketing agency?

A good digital marketing agency sales process has five stages and an exit rule for each one: aware, interested, qualified, proposed, and closed. What makes it good is not the stage names. It is that a prospect only counts in a stage when they did something observable, so your pipeline reflects their intent instead of your activity.

The same structure works as a creative agency sales process, a design agency sales process, or an advertising agency sales process. What changes by agency type is discovery and proposal format, covered below.

The five stages and when a prospect counts

  1. Stage 1

    Aware

    They know you exist. They have seen your work or heard your name from someone they trust.

    Counts when: They could name you unprompted.

  2. Stage 2

    Interested

    They raised a hand: a reply, a form fill, or a conversation with an actual date attached.

    Counts when: They took an action, not you.

  3. Stage 3

    Qualified

    You both agreed out loud that there is a real problem, it is worth money, and they decide.

    Counts when: You can name the problem in their words.

  4. Stage 4

    Proposed

    Scope, price, and outcome are in writing, and the document is in their hands.

    Counts when: They opened it, not when you hit send.

  5. Stage 5

    Closed

    Signed. Not verbally agreed and not waiting on legal.

    Counts when: There is a signature.

Notice that four of the five rules depend on the prospect acting. In Tim Kilroy's view, half of all funnel inflation in agencies comes from counting your own activity as their intent.

Definition: an agency sales process

On Agency Sales Routines, an agency sales process is a written sequence of stages, exit rules, and routines that turns a conversation into a signed client without depending on one person's instinct. It names the stages, defines what has to be true for a deal to enter each one, and assigns the routine that moves it forward: discovery to qualify, follow-up to keep momentum, and a proposal review to close.

It is different from a funnel diagram on a slide. A funnel is a measurement device: its job is to tell you which stage loses the most people so you can fix that one thing. If your answer to where deals come from is referrals, mostly, you have a source but not yet a process.

Meeting lengths other agency processes publish

Casey Stillman's systematic agency sales process publishes these meeting lengths:

  • 20 to 30 minutes: introductory conversation to meet the contact and briefly learn about their business
  • 45 to 60 minutes:discovery call or meeting centered on the prospect's goals and challenges first
  • 45 to 60 minutes: recap meeting to check alignment on goals, challenges, and pain points
  • 45 to 60 minutes: formal proposal review and questions

How the agency sales process changes by agency type

The stages stay the same. Discovery focus and proposal format change. This table reflects Agency Sales Routines guidance, not a survey.

Agency Sales Routines: where each agency type should spend discovery time
Agency typeDiscovery focusCommon leakProposal emphasis
Digital marketing agencyNumbers the client already tracks, channels tried, current cost per resultProposals sent before the success measure is agreedOutcome, measurement, and reporting cadence
Creative agencyBusiness problem behind the brief, decision makers, approval pathLong silence after a strong first meetingScope boundaries, rounds, and date-based milestones
Design agencyWhat the current design costs them, who signs off, launch datesScope expanding during salesFixed deliverables and prepaid sprints
Advertising agencyBudget ownership, media history, internal stakeholdersChampion who cannot sell the deal internallyA forwardable summary for the decision maker

Searching for an insurance agency sales process? The stage logic is similar, but this site is written for marketing and creative services agencies, so the examples here will not fit insurance sales.

How do I find the stage that is losing deals?

Run the leak test. It takes about twenty minutes and a spreadsheet, and Tim Kilroy calls it the highest-return twenty minutes most agency owners never spend.

  1. Pull the last 90 days, so the numbers reflect the agency you have now.
  2. Count how many prospects entered each of the five stages. Do not round up.
  3. Calculate the conversion from each stage to the next.
  4. Circle the steepest drop. That is your leak.
  5. Fix that one stage this quarter before buying more leads at the top.

A printable version is on the templates page. If the leak is between qualified and proposed, start with the discovery call guide. If it is between proposed and closed, start with the follow-up guide and the closing guide.

Selling services versus selling the agency

Some pages ranking for agency sales process are about selling the agency itself to a buyer. That is a different process. Moore Kingston Smith, which reports advising on 63 media M&A deals worth over £800 million in the last five years, publishes tips on preparing an agency for sale. One link between the two: buyers look at the quality and predictability of income, and a documented sales process that does not depend on the founder makes future revenue easier to believe.

How we chose what goes in this guide

The five stages and the leak test come from Tim Kilroy's published agency sales funnel guide. Meeting lengths are quoted from Casey Stillman's published process and attributed to it. The agency-type table is Agency Sales Routines guidance for founder-led agencies at $1M to $5M, not a survey result.

Written and published by Tim Kilroy. Read the full methodology.

Questions agency founders ask

Short answers here. All 44 questions live in the full FAQ.

What is a standard sales process?

A standard sales process moves a buyer from awareness to a signed agreement through a fixed set of stages. Common versions run seven steps: product knowledge, buyer persona, prospecting, qualification and discovery, the pitch, negotiation, and closing. For agencies, Tim Kilroy uses five stages: aware, interested, qualified, proposed, and closed, each with a clear rule for when a prospect counts.

Open in the FAQ: What is a standard sales process?

What are the three major phases of the sales process?

There is no single official list, but most models group selling into three phases: before the conversation, during it, and after it. On this site those map to three routines: discovery, where you understand the problem; follow-up, where you recap and guide the prospect past friction; and closing, where a written proposal becomes a signed agreement.

Open in the FAQ: What are the three major phases of the sales process?

Does a digital marketing agency sales process work for creative or design agencies?

Yes. The stages are the same for a digital marketing agency sales process, a creative agency sales process, or a design agency sales process: aware, interested, qualified, proposed, closed. What changes is the discovery questions and the proposal format. Creative and design work often needs more time defining scope, while performance marketing discovery leans on numbers the client already tracks.

Open in the FAQ: Does a digital marketing agency sales process work for creative or design agencies?

How do I find where my sales funnel leaks?

Run the leak test. Pull the last 90 days, count how many prospects entered each stage (aware, interested, qualified, proposed, closed), then calculate the conversion from each stage to the next. The stage with the steepest drop is your leak. Fix that one stage before buying more leads, because more volume poured into a leaky stage just leaks faster.

Open in the FAQ: How do I find where my sales funnel leaks?

Does a small agency need a sales process?

A small agency needs a simple one sooner than it thinks. Below about $20K a month, Tim Kilroy's guidance is that reps and a clear offer matter most. From there, structure becomes the constraint, because every deal still runs through the founder. A one-page list of stages with exit rules is enough to start, and it grows with the agency.

Open in the FAQ: Does a small agency need a sales process?

Can my agency sell without me?

It can, once your selling knowledge is written down and tested. Tim Kilroy calls the founder's instinct for deals Founder Magic and argues the fix is building structures around it: documented stages, discovery questions, follow-up templates, and proposal rules. Prove it by letting a teammate run a deal end to end while you observe, before you step away.

Open in the FAQ: Can my agency sell without me?
Read all 44 agency sales process questions

Back to the sales process consulting guide for agency founders