An honest letter, not an ad

Burned by a marketing agency before? Read this first.

You already know the script. A confident pitch. A monthly retainer. A login to a dashboard nobody at your shop checks. A few months later you are looking at a charge on your card and you cannot point to a single job it booked.

You did not get robbed at gunpoint. You got a strategy a slide deck, full transparency a vanity report, and a junior account manager who has never run a business in their life answering your emails three days late.

I am not an agency. I am an operator who builds the system your business actually runs on, the front desk that answers, the follow-up that fires, the dashboard with real numbers, the ads that get tracked to booked work. You own all of it. You see every number. There is no long lock-in, because I plan to keep you by being worth keeping.

Straight up, Geoff · geoff@snrg.me

Marketing Retainer, paid in full// the invoice you remember
VOID
Custom growth strategy  a 14-slide PDF$ included
Dedicated team  one overloaded junior$ included
Full reporting  impressions and clicks, no jobs$ included
Monthly retainer × 12 months locked in$ a lot
Total handed over for nothing you can point to$0
That figure is the default from the calculator below. Slide your real retainer and ad spend in and watch it move. This is money you already spent, not a projection.
The pattern, in three columns

What they promised. What you got. What an operator does instead.

If you have lived this, you do not need convincing. You need someone to name it out loud and then do the opposite. So here it is, line by line.

The pitch promised
  • A custom growth strategy built for you.
  • A dedicated team that knows your business.
  • Full transparency on every dollar.
  • A flood of qualified leads.
// the slide deck
The reality delivered
  • A recycled template with your logo dropped on it.
  • A junior who reassigns every quarter and never visits.
  • A dashboard of impressions and clicks, zero booked jobs.
  • Leads that sat in a form while you were on a job site.
// the charge on your card
The operator what we do
  • A working system, not a deck: front desk, follow-up, dashboard, ads.
  • One operator who built it and answers you directly.
  • Every dollar tied to a booked job on a dashboard you own.
  • Every lead answered in seconds and chased until it books or says no.
// no long lock-in. you own the accounts.
Put a number on it

Add up what the last agency actually cost you.

Not lost opportunity, not a projection. The plain arithmetic of the retainer plus the ad spend you handed over, multiplied by the months you were locked in with nothing to show for it. You are not alone in this: Focus Digital's 2026 marketing agency churn report puts annual client churn at roughly 32 percent for small agencies, the 1 to 10 person shops most owners hire, and about 42 percent a year for project-based agencies. A lot of those relationships end early.

Total handed to the agency, default setup
$0
A $2,500 retainer plus $4,000 a month in ad spend, over a 12-month contract. That tracks with the 2025 going rate: industry guides put SMB agency retainers near $1,500 to $5,000 a month and typical small-business ad budgets around $1,000 to $10,000 a month. Most owners we talk to are at least here.

Your real numbers

// pick your size, then drag to match your last contract
What size operation?
$500$10k
$0$20k
124
Handed over, nothing you can point to
$0
Retainer plus managed ad spend, times the months you were locked in. If you cannot tie that to booked jobs, that is the number on the table.
Get a free teardown of this
// honest math: (monthly retainer + monthly ad spend) x months locked in. Presets use 2025 SMB norms: agency retainers near $1,500 to $5,000 a month per industry pricing guides (BusinessDojo, ClicksGeek, HawkSEM), and small-business ad budgets around $1,000 to $10,000 a month per Google Ads spend reports (WordStream, Quimby Digital). Churn context: Focus Digital's 2026 agency churn report. Ad spend can produce real work; this counts what you spent, not what you can prove it earned. Honest planning math, not a promise.
What I actually build

A system that runs, not a report that sits in your inbox.

No retainer for "strategy." I build the operating system your business runs on and hand you the keys. Here is what goes in.

01

An AI front desk that never misses

Every call and text answered in seconds, day, night, weekend. It qualifies the lead, books the appointment, and hands you a ready customer. The phone stops leaking.

02

Instant lead follow-up

A lead from your ads, your site, or a form gets called and texted in under five minutes, automatically, then chased on a real cadence until it books or tells you no.

03

A dashboard with real numbers

Every ad dollar tied to a booked job, not impressions or clicks. You see what works, kill what does not, and you can read it in ten seconds. You own the login.

04

Ads run by the guy who built the system

Campaigns built and managed by the same operator who wired your follow-up, so the leads actually get handled. Not handed to a junior who has never seen your shop.

Plain proof

Owners who got burned, then got it right.

Illustrative, not dressed up as verified testimonials. They read like the conversations I actually have.

"We paid an agency for a year and the only thing we could show for it was a login we never opened. The difference here was simple: I could see which calls turned into jobs, on a screen, by Friday. Once you can see it, you stop guessing."

Illustrative · home services owner

"The old agency reported clicks. Clicks do not pay payroll. Tying spend to actual booked work, and answering the phone the second it rings, did more in a month than a year of slide decks."

Illustrative · multi-location service business
Youown every account, login, and number we set up, from day one
Nolong lock-in contract. Stay because it works, not because you are trapped
1operator who builds it and answers you, not a rotating junior
No charge, no pitch

Get a free no-BS teardown of your current setup.

Tell me what you pay now and what you actually get back. In fifteen minutes I will show you, in plain English, where the money goes and what is fixable. If your setup is already solid, I will tell you that and let you get back to work.

Where do I send the teardown?Three quick things, then I reach out. No call center, no sequence.
Send my free teardown →
I set everything up under your accounts. You own it. No long contract, ever.
Straight answers

What burned owners ask me first.

How are you different from the last agency? +
Three concrete things, not a vibe. Everything is built under your accounts and you own it, so you keep it even if we part ways. You see every number tied to booked jobs, not clicks. And there is no long lock-in, so I have to be worth keeping every month. An agency that traps you in a contract is telling you it expects to stop being worth it.
Do I have to sign a long contract? +
No. That is the whole point. The lock-in contract is the trick that burned you last time. You stay because the system books work, period. If it ever stops earning its keep, you walk and you take your accounts with you.
Who actually does the work? +
I do. You are not getting handed to a junior who rotates off your account in a quarter. The operator who builds your system is the one who answers your texts. That is why I keep the client list tight.
I am skeptical, and after last time I should be. +
Good. Stay skeptical. That is why the teardown is free and there is no pressure on it. I will show you exactly where your money is going now and what I would change, and you can do nothing with it. If it is obvious, we talk. If not, you have lost fifteen minutes and gained a checklist.

You got burned once. Make it the last time.

Send me what you are paying now and I will tear it down for free, operator to operator. No deck, no junior, no lock-in.

Get my free teardown