Tag: Service Business Positioning

Should You Fire a Client? How to Decide Using a Client Scorecard

A business owner once told me, with some pride, that they had never lost a customer. I asked whether they enjoyed working with all of them. They admitted a few were difficult: always asking for free work or discounts, disliked by the team, and never given a price increase because the owner could not face the argument.

Those clients were taking a large share of the team’s time, holding down margins and making the work less enjoyable. A retention rate of 100% was hiding the problem.

This guide explains how to decide whether a client is worth keeping, using two simple scorecards: one before a client signs and one while you work with them. It includes example scorecards you can adapt and the options you have when a client scores badly.

Why keeping every client can hurt your business

Many owners treat retention as a score where higher is always better. The costs of a poor-fit client rarely show up clearly in the accounts. They show up in time spent on rework, scope arguments, late payments and a tired team.

A marketing consultant I worked with had a client paying £1,800 a month. On paper it looked like a good account. When we added up the hours the team spent on it and the effect it had on morale, the client was costing the business money.

Owners usually keep clients like this for three reasons: worry about replacing the revenue, reluctance to have a difficult conversation, and concern about what the client might say to others. Meanwhile the time those clients take up is time the business cannot give to clients who value the work and pay properly for it.

Some client turnover is healthy. Needs change, key contacts move on and your business moves in a different direction. The aim is to decide deliberately which clients to keep, using criteria you have set in advance, so the decision rests on evidence you can point to.

Case study: how scoring cut churn at a logistics company

A global logistics company came to me losing 35% of its clients every year. The leadership team believed the problem was in customer service. When we looked at the whole client lifecycle, the cause turned out to be earlier.

The company mainly served American businesses expanding into Europe. The offer was attractive and plenty of companies signed up, but many left after about six months. They liked the idea of expanding into Europe but were not ready to do it.

We built a scoring system that rated prospects on five factors:

Product fit for European markets
Previous experience with third-party logistics
Language capabilities
Understanding of UK and EU regulations
Marketing plans for European customers

The scores predicted which clients were likely to leave within six months. Early terminations fell by 55%. Over the following three years revenue grew by 140% while the team’s workload fell by 20%.

The company did not simply turn low-scoring prospects away. The scores showed a gap in the market, and the company built a new service line that helps businesses prepare for European expansion. Prospects who were not ready became clients of that service first.

Scorecard 1: before a client signs

A pre-engagement scorecard helps you spot poor-fit clients before you commit. Choose five to eight factors that predict a successful engagement in your business, and score each from 1 to 5. The example below suits many service businesses; replace any factor that does not apply to yours.

Factor	Scores 1 if…	Scores 5 if…
Budget fit	They want your full service at well below your price	Your price is within their budget without negotiation
Readiness	They like the idea but cannot act on it yet	They have the people, time and data to start now
Decision-making	Several people must approve, and you have not met them	You are speaking to the person who decides
Provider history	They have been through several providers recently	They have long relationships with their suppliers
Openness to advice	They want you to do exactly what they say	They ask for your view and act on it
Fit with what you do best	The work sits at the edge of your services	The work is what you do best

Set a threshold before you start using it. With six factors, a total below 18 out of 30 might mean you walk away, or that you address the weak areas before signing (for example, a paid discovery phase for a client who is not yet ready).

Being clear about what a good client looks like also improves your marketing and sales conversations, because you know which prospects to spend time on.

Scorecard 2: while you work with a client

Client relationships change. A new finance director may care only about cost, or a client who used to accept your advice may start questioning every recommendation. Score every client each quarter against factors like these.

Factor	Scores 1 if…	Scores 5 if…
Profitability	The time spent is out of proportion to the fee	Margin on the account is at or above your target
Scope discipline	Regular requests for work outside the agreement	Changes are raised and paid for properly
Payment	Invoices are regularly late	Invoices are paid on time
Results	They are not getting value from the work	They can point to results from your work
Ease of working together	The team dreads their calls	The team enjoys the work
Growth potential	No prospect of the account growing	Clear scope to do more for them

Agree in advance what happens when a client falls below your threshold, for example two quarters in a row. Scoring is most useful as an early warning, because it lets you raise problems while the relationship can still be fixed. Clients who value the work usually respond well to an open conversation about the scores. A client who will not engage with the facts has given you useful information too.

What to do with a low-scoring client

Ending the relationship is one option of several.

Reset expectations. A frank conversation about scope, communication or payment can change the relationship.
Adjust the price. If the account takes more time than it pays for, raise the price to reflect the work. The client will either pay a fair rate or leave, and both outcomes improve your position.
Offer a different service model. A simpler, lower-touch package may suit them better and take less of your time.
Help them move on. Introduce them to a provider that suits them better, and hand over properly so the relationship ends well.

A client who is wrong for you is often not getting your best work either. Helping them find a better fit is usually good for both sides.

Next step

Score your current clients against the second scorecard this month. Many owners find a few accounts that take far more time than they pay for. Decide which of the four options above fits each one.

If you would like help building scorecards around your own client journey, customer journey mapping is where that work starts. For a wider view of your pricing, profitability and client base, the Value Transformation Assessment gives you a picture in around five minutes.

If you run an MSP, the MSP case study shows how one IT company improved profit without taking on new clients.

4 September, 2026

How to Position Your Services as an Investment

A consultant I know lost a £50,000 project because the client said the price was too high. A month later, the same client hired someone else for £65,000.

The first proposal listed what the consultant would do: monthly reports, weekly check-ins, analysis and recommendations. The second never listed activities. It described a £2 million revenue opportunity the client was missing and how the work would capture part of it within 18 months. The client paid more because the second proposal was about the result the client wanted.

This guide explains why clients come to see a service as a cost, and gives a four-step model for positioning your services as an investment, with worked examples and a table for rewriting your own service descriptions.

Why clients see your service as a cost

Businesses split their spending into two groups: costs they want to reduce and investments they expect a return from. When a proposal describes hours, reports and meetings, the client files it under costs. Costs get compared line by line with cheaper suppliers, and they are the first thing cut when budgets tighten.

This happens in many service businesses. An IT provider describes 24/7 monitoring and quarterly reviews. A marketing agency describes social media management and content. An accountant describes monthly bookkeeping. Each is accurate, and each invites the client to find the same list somewhere cheaper.

An IT services company I worked with was bidding against an MSP that charged less for what looked, to the client, like the same service. The same client was hiring, expanding and investing in growth, so budget was not the issue. The IT company rewrote its proposal around the client’s growth plans and showed how its support would make them happen. It kept its price and won the contract.

A management consultant I worked with had long-standing clients who kept asking for discounts, even though his results were good. His proposals read as a list of activities: planning sessions, stakeholder interviews, process mapping. When we rewrote them around the efficiency gains and annual savings his work produced, the discount requests stopped.

What clients are buying

Clients pay for the change your work makes to their business. The table shows how the same services read when they are described by their outcome.

Described as a deliverable	Described as an outcome
24/7 monitoring and quarterly reviews	Staff who can work without IT interruptions, and a board that knows the business is protected
Social media management, SEO and content	A steady flow of qualified enquiries and a lower cost per new customer
Monthly bookkeeping and quarterly reports	Accurate figures to make decisions on, and no surprises at year end
Strategy workshops and process mapping	A plan the team can follow, and measurable time saved on core processes

Outcome descriptions only work when they are specific to the client. The next step is to put numbers on them. This is also the basis of value-based pricing, where the price is set from the value of the outcome.

The four-step Investment Positioning Model

The examples below use an IT support contract for a 60-person business at £5,000 a month. The figures are illustrative; in a real proposal, use the client’s own numbers.

Step 1: Put a number on the problem

Start with what the problem costs the client today. If outages stop 60 people working and an hour of lost work costs the business around £40 per person, each hour of downtime costs about £2,400. At six hours a month, that is roughly £14,400 a month.

Include the risks the client is exposed to. The cost of a data breach, for example, can run to tens of thousands of pounds for a smaller business and to hundreds of thousands or more for a larger one. Use the client’s own history where you can, and name your source when you quote an outside figure.

Step 2: Specify the outcome

Say what will change, in terms the client can measure. “We will optimise your systems” gives them nothing to hold you to. “We will reduce unplanned downtime from around six hours a month to under one” does.

Step 3: Show the return

Set the fee against the outcome. Five fewer hours of downtime a month saves about £12,000. Against a fee of £5,000, the client is around £7,000 a month better off. Presented this way, the client is weighing a return against an outlay.

Step 4: Show the risk you remove

Explain what happens without the service. Unmaintained equipment may need replacing early, and an unpatched system is more exposed to attack. Put a figure on the likely cost where you can. The service then protects the client’s existing investment as well as adding to it.

Example: a digital marketing agency

A digital marketing agency I worked with charged £2,500 a month for what it called comprehensive digital marketing services. Existing clients regularly asked for discounts when budgets tightened.

For the next new client, we described the service by its results: the cost of acquiring a customer, revenue attributed to the campaigns, and customer lifetime value. Over the engagement, the client’s acquisition cost fell from £350 to £80 per customer, and the campaigns were bringing in £25,000 or more a month in additional revenue. At that point the £2,500 fee was a small share of what the client gained, and price stopped coming up in renewal conversations.

What to do this week

List your three main services. For each, write down the problem it solves and estimate what that problem costs a typical client.
Rewrite each service description to lead with the outcome, using the table above as a guide.
In your next proposal, set your fee against the client’s likely return, using the four steps.
Compare your price with the value of the outcome. If the gap is large, read why many service businesses undercharge and how to raise prices without losing clients.

When a client asks why your service costs what it does, this guide to explaining value-based pricing gives you a structure and scripts for the conversation.

Next step

If you want to know how your positioning and pricing compare with the value you deliver, the Value Transformation Assessment gives you a picture in around five minutes.

If you run an MSP, the MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes and gives you a score and a full report by email.

31 July, 2026

What Happens When You Raise Your Prices
Owners who are thinking about raising their prices usually picture the same thing: clients reading the notice, deciding it is too expensive, and leaving for someone cheaper. That expectation keeps many service businesses on the same prices for years.
In the price increases I have worked on, the outcome is usually different. This article describes what tends to happen to your client base, to the way clients behave, and to your profit, and how to test a new price before you apply it across the business.

Fewer clients leave than you expect
When an increase is reasonable, explained well and linked to what the client receives, clients usually stay. Many of them have been expecting it, particularly if prices have not moved for a few years and their other suppliers have already put theirs up.
An IT service provider I worked with had not changed its prices in four years. It put through an 8% increase and kept every client. Combined with some cost savings, profit rose by 43%. The full MSP case study shows how it was done.
How you announce the change has a large effect on who stays. The process, with letter templates, is in how to communicate a price increase to clients.
The clients who leave are usually the least profitable
The clients most likely to leave are the ones who chose you because you were cheapest. They are often the same clients who negotiate every piece of scope, ask for work outside the agreement and pay late. When they go, the revenue you lose is usually smaller than it looks, because the time they took up is freed for better-paying work.
If you want to see in advance which clients are at risk, score them. This client scorecard shows how, and what to do with the accounts that score badly.
Clients often treat you differently
Price is one of the signals buyers use to judge quality, especially for services they cannot easily assess before they buy. A consultant at £8,000 is assumed to have more experience than one at £2,000 for similar work, whether or not that is true.
In practice, businesses that move their prices up, and describe their work in terms of the client’s results, often find clients question their recommendations less, ask for fewer time reports and act on advice more quickly. The clients have made a bigger commitment, so they want the work to succeed.
This only holds when the price is backed by the service. A higher price with the same vague proposal and the same delivery invites closer scrutiny. The article on positioning your services as an investment covers how to describe your work so the price makes sense to the client.
Example: an SEO agency that moved from £2,000 to £10,000 a month
An SEO agency I worked with recently charged its clients an average of around £2,000 a month. The work was good, but the agency never connected it to what each client gained, so clients judged it on the monthly fee.
We changed how the agency described its value. Its proposals now set out the outcomes for the client and what those outcomes are worth in pounds, so the client can see the return before they sign. The agency also moved to a revenue share model, where part of its fee is linked to the revenue its work generates for the client.
Shortly afterwards, the agency signed its first client paying more than £10,000 a month. The SEO work itself was much the same. The difference was that the client could see what it was worth.
Profit rises faster than the price
In a service business the main costs are people and overheads, and they do not change when you raise prices, so nearly all of the increase goes to profit. For a business with a 15% margin, a 10% price increase with no client losses raises profit by around two thirds. The business could also lose around 9% of its revenue from departing clients and still take in the same revenue as before, from fewer clients. The worked example is in how to raise prices without losing clients.
How to test a new price before you commit
1. List the results you delivered last year. For each client, note what changed for them: revenue gained, costs cut, time saved or risks avoided. Use numbers where you have them.
2. Describe the outcome you deliver. “Better marketing” is vague. “Forty qualified enquiries a month” is specific enough for a client to value.
3. Put a value on the outcome. Estimate what the client’s problem costs them today and what solving it is worth. This gives you a reference point for the price. The guide to value-based pricing explains the method.
4. Try the new price on new prospects first. Quote it in your next few proposals and watch how prospects respond. Adjust the price or the way you describe the work before you change anything for existing clients.
5. Move existing clients across. Give notice in two stages and connect the change to the results you have delivered together and what comes next.
Next step
Choose one service and write down the outcome it delivers and what that outcome is worth to a typical client. Compare that figure with what you charge. If you want to see how far your pricing sits from where it should be, the Pricing Health Check gives you a picture in a few minutes.
If you run an MSP, the MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes and gives you a score and a full report by email.
24 July, 2026
How One IT Company Boosted Profits by 43% Without a Single New Client
An IT service provider I worked with increased profit by 43% without bringing in a single new client.
They had not touched their prices in four years. Like a lot of businesses, they were afraid to charge more and under constant pressure to compete on price. Their revenue had flatlined while costs kept rising. The owner told me in our first meeting: “We feel stuck. Every year we are working harder, but it never seems to get any easier.”
In eight weeks, we raised their prices by 8%, cut their costs by 3%, and not one customer left. Here is exactly how we did it.

The Cost of Keeping Prices Flat
For four years, this IT company left their rates untouched while their costs kept rising. Over that time they gave away nearly half their potential profit without realising it.
This is not unusual. Many service businesses compete on price instead of pricing based on value. You keep prices the same hoping to keep clients happy. A competitor appears offering the same thing for less. You discount to win new business and avoid increasing prices for existing customers. Before long there is almost nothing left in your margins.
The owner was cutting staff just to keep the business profitable. They were working longer hours for the same return. And the losses were invisible. Few clients ever questioned invoices or asked for discounts. The problem was the pricing.
Why Clients Stay for the Value of the Service
When we looked closely at the client base, something became clear. Customers were staying because the service was good.
Clients valued reliable systems, fast resolutions, and the peace of mind the company provided. Many had been with the business for years. Their service was tailored to each client’s industry and solved real problems. The value they received far outweighed the cost.
By not adjusting prices to reflect that value, the company was missing the chance to reinvest in staff, better tools, training, and service improvements. Standing still cost them profit, and it also cost them the chance to build a stronger business for the team and for the clients.
When clients see you as a solution to their problems, conversations move from price to outcomes. That change in thinking made everything else possible.
The Psychology of Raising Prices
Any price increase involves work on the numbers, but the harder part is psychology. How you talk about the change shapes how your clients see it.
Simply announcing that prices are going up makes the change about your costs, and clients tend to resist it.
A better approach is to make it a conversation about value. We explained to clients: “To keep delivering these results and to add the new security features your business needs, we are making a small adjustment to your rate.” The conversation stayed focused on what each client would gain.
Think of it like upgrading to premium economy. You pay more because you can see the value in extra leg room and better service. How an increase is framed has a big effect on how clients respond to it.
How We Approached Each Client
We reviewed each client individually: how long they had been with the company, how engaged they were, and how sensitive they might be to change.
For each long-term client, we focused on what mattered to that client. The hours saved every month. The downtime they had avoided. The peace of mind from not worrying about system failures. We pulled out real numbers showing how those outcomes translated into lower risk and higher productivity for their business.
That gave the owner and their team confidence. They could see exactly how much value they were delivering compared to what clients were paying.
We kept the adjustment in the high single digits and made sure every client understood exactly what they would gain. For some it was access to new technology. For others it meant stronger security or more responsive support.
The response was positive. One client said: “I appreciate you improving your service every year and being upfront about what we are getting for the change. That is rare.”
Handling a price change as a conversation about value keeps trust intact. Clients focus on what they will get next.
Where We Found Cost Savings
Costs are the second area that affects profit, and they are often overlooked. They played a big part in reaching the 43% profit increase.
When people think about improving profit, they often focus on revenue. Some of the simplest wins are in everyday expenses.
With this IT company, we started by digging into operational costs. The first thing we noticed was a pile-up of overlapping software subscriptions. They were paying for nearly 20 different tools: multiple project management platforms, several cloud storage providers, and a handful of security apps that all did more or less the same thing. By consolidating those subscriptions, we cut thousands of pounds each month from their outgoings without losing a single critical feature. The team had never realised how many of those small recurring costs had built up over time.
Vendor contracts were another source of savings. Some agreements had not been reviewed in years and usage had changed significantly since they were first signed. A quick round of renegotiations, in some cases just picking up the phone to ask for a pricing review, led to immediate savings. In a few cases, switching to a new supplier brought better service at a lower price.
Staying with the same supplier for years without a review can mean you are overpaying.
One of the most effective operational changes was moving to automated invoicing. The team had been spending hours each week manually sending invoices and chasing payments. By switching to an automated system, they cut billing time by 80% and saw clients pay faster, which improved their cash flow.
None of these changes reduced the quality of service. If anything, they created more space for the team to focus on strategic work and better client support.
Why Pricing and Cost Savings Multiply Each Other
Lower costs and simpler operations meant every pound saved went straight to profit. The two changes also multiply each other’s effect.
Once you have cleaned up costs, raising prices becomes easier and more impactful. You have more confidence in your margins. You can point to genuine investment in service quality. You can have the value conversation from a stronger position.
The biggest jump in profit often comes from looking at what you already have, reviewing your prices, and trimming unnecessary costs. Many businesses overlook these basics, and they are often where the easiest profit gains are.
Three Lessons from This Case Study
First, clients will accept reasonable price increases when you tie them directly to value and they can see what they are getting.
Second, many businesses can find cost savings in the expenses they already have. Overlapping subscriptions, unreviewed vendor contracts, and manual processes that could be automated all reduce your margin.
Third, when you combine smart pricing with operational efficiency, the results multiply. An 8% price increase and a 3% cost reduction delivered 43% more profit. Neither would have got there alone.
If your prices have not changed in a while, or you are not regularly reviewing your expenses, it is worth checking how much profit you are missing.
The MSP Pricing Scorecard shows where your MSP’s pricing needs work. It takes three minutes: 14 questions, with your score on screen straight away and a full report by email.
To get an indicative figure for what your MSP is worth, use the free MSP Valuation Calculator.
25 June, 2026
Why Many Service Businesses Undercharge Without Realising It
Many service businesses set their prices the same way. They look at what competitors charge and pitch a little below it to look competitive. It feels safe, and it wins work. Over time it also leaves the business charging less than its work is worth, often without the owner noticing.
This article explains why pricing from competitors pulls prices down, the signs that you are undercharging, and how to set prices from the value you deliver.

Why pricing from competitors pulls prices down
When one provider prices slightly below the others to win work, the others often respond by matching or undercutting. Each round moves the reference point lower, and over a few years prices across the sector drift down while costs keep rising.
Competitor pricing also tells you very little. You do not know a competitor’s costs, whether they are profitable, or whether they are buying market share at a loss. Setting your price from theirs means relying on decisions you cannot see.
Your price also tells prospects something about you. A price well below the market can suggest a business that is less experienced, or under pressure, even when the work is excellent.
Signs you are undercharging
If several of these apply to your business, your prices are probably too low.
- You win nearly every proposal, and prospects rarely question the price.
- You have not put through a meaningful price increase in two years or more.
- Your prices were set by looking at what competitors charge.
- The team is busy, but profit has stayed flat or fallen.
- You regularly discount to close a deal.
- Clients say things like “you’re very reasonable”.
- You would struggle to pay yourself properly if you stopped doing client work.
How low prices shape your client base
Clients who choose you because you are cheapest are likely to leave when someone cheaper appears. They also tend to be the most demanding: they negotiate on every deliverable, ask for work outside the agreed scope and see your expertise as a commodity. Your team spends more time managing them and less time on the work.
Meanwhile, clients who would value the work and pay properly for it may rule you out because your price suggests a different kind of provider. Over several years, low prices produce a client base that makes the business harder to run. A client scorecard helps you see which accounts are affected.
Pricing from the value you deliver
Clients pay for the result of your work. An IT support company provides business continuity. A marketing agency provides new customers. An engineering consultancy provides a project approved on time and within budget. When you price the hours or the deliverables, clients can only compare you on price. When you price the outcome, the conversation moves to what the result is worth to them.
Value-based pricing starts with that question. The practical steps are:
1. Find out the client’s real problem, which is often different from the first thing they ask for.
2. Map your service to the outcome it produces for them.
3. Put a number on that outcome, using the client’s own figures where you can.
4. Set your price as a fair share of that value, and explain it in those terms. This guide covers what to say.
What changes when prices reflect value
Profit improves because the extra revenue comes from work you are already doing. The MSP case study shows an IT provider that raised prices by 8%, kept every client and grew profit by 43%.
The client base usually improves as well. Clients who buy on results tend to be more collaborative and stay longer. Higher margins pay for better people and tools, which improves delivery and supports the price. That makes the business easier to run and, if you ever sell it, more valuable.
One thing to do this week
Pick one piece of work you are delivering now. Write down what the outcome is worth to the client, then compare it with your invoice. If the gap is large, read how to raise prices without losing clients next.
If you want to see how far your prices sit from where they should be, the Pricing Health Check gives you a picture in a few minutes.
If you run an MSP, the MSP Pricing Scorecard takes three minutes and gives you a score and a full report by email.
18 June, 2026
AI Isn’t Killing Web Design Agencies. It’s Exposing the Ones With Weak Offers.
I recently posted on LinkedIn about the pressure AI is putting on web design agencies. It generated a lot of discussion, and some of the responses were more interesting than the original post. So I wanted to go deeper on this, because the underlying issue matters well beyond web design.
Let’s start with what prompted it.
The £299 WordPress site is already under pressure
There are web design agencies across the UK right now selling WordPress brochure websites from around £299. Some charge more, some less, but the point is that there’s a huge market of agencies whose core offering is: give us some money, we’ll build you a website.
The problem is that AI website builders like Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and a growing number of newer tools can now generate a complete, responsive site from a text description. In many cases, the result is perfectly adequate for a small business that just needs a functional online presence. Plans typically run from free to around £30 a month.
This is already happening.
When I shared this observation on LinkedIn, the responses fell into some predictable patterns, and a few that were genuinely useful.
The defensive response: “AI websites are terrible”
Several web developers pushed back hard. The argument was essentially that AI-built websites are poor quality, have no real UX thinking behind them, and that the whole “agencies are doomed” narrative is overblown.
There’s some truth in that. AI-generated sites can be generic. They don’t understand your brand the way a human designer does. The code isn’t always clean.
The weakness in that argument is that the quality bar for a basic brochure site is lower than many web professionals think. A local plumber needs a site that loads fast, looks professional enough, shows their phone number clearly, and has some decent reviews on it. A custom design system adds little for them. AI can do that already, and it’s getting better quickly.
The defensive response is understandable. Nobody likes being told that what they sell is becoming commoditised. But ignoring the change won’t protect anyone’s margins.
What people in the industry are already seeing
More telling were the comments from people in the industry who shared real examples. One commenter described quoting against agencies selling basic websites for $500 to $800, only to find the same clients asking why they’d pay that when AI tools can generate something in 30 seconds.
Another pointed out that hiring a developer for a brochure website will soon be a thing of the past, and that the focus needs to shift to outcomes, problem solving, expertise, and personal relationships.
These are observations from people watching it happen in their own businesses right now.
AI is exposing weak agency offers
One comment summed it up well: AI is exposing weak offers, and that is a different problem from agencies being replaced.
I agree.
If your web design agency sells “a WordPress website” as the product, you’re selling a deliverable. A thing. And when AI can produce a comparable version of that thing for a fraction of the cost, your pricing collapses. It doesn’t matter how good your code is, how clean your CSS is, or how many years of experience you have. If the client can’t tell the difference between your output and what AI produces, you have a positioning problem.
The agencies that will thrive are the ones selling something AI genuinely can’t replicate: strategic thinking about what the website needs to achieve, deep understanding of the client’s customers and market, conversion expertise, ongoing optimisation based on real data, and a trusted advisory relationship where the agency acts as a partner to the client.
Clients will keep paying an agency for the business results a website produces. My Value Transformation Assessment looks at this in more detail for your own business.
Can AI handle the strategy work too?
One of the more challenging responses raised an interesting point. What happens when AI can plug into heatmaps and analytics, advise on why visitors aren’t converting, build strategy around commercial goals, and proactively adapt based on performance data?
It’s a fair question, and the honest answer is that AI is already doing some of this. Tools exist that can analyse conversion paths, suggest layout changes, and run multivariate tests automatically.
But analysis and judgement are different skills. AI can tell you that visitors are leaving your contact page without getting in touch. It can even suggest changes. What it can’t do is sit across the table from your client, understand that their real problem is that they’re targeting the wrong customer segment entirely, and help them rethink their go-to-market strategy.
The client doesn’t necessarily care whether you’re using AI tools in the background. They care about results. If you’re the person who helps them understand why their business isn’t growing and what to do about it, you’re a trusted partner. If you’re the person who builds them a website and sends an invoice, you’re a supplier who’s about to be replaced by software.
Functional and premium purchases: Premier Inn and The Dorchester
Another commenter drew a useful comparison between functional purchases and emotional ones. A Premier Inn room does the job. It’s clean, consistent, and reasonably priced. The Dorchester is a different product entirely. There you pay for the experience, the status, and the relationship as well as the bed.
AI website builders are the Premier Inn of web design. They’ll do the functional job well enough for many basic needs. The question for agencies is: are you selling Premier Inn rooms and trying to charge Dorchester prices? Or have you genuinely built a Dorchester-level service?
Many agencies sit somewhere in between, and that’s uncomfortable for them. They’re charging more than the AI tools but not offering enough differentiation to justify it. Margins get squeezed hardest in that middle ground.
What this means if you run a web design agency
If you’re reading this and recognising some of these patterns in your own business, here are a few things worth considering.
First, look honestly at what you’re actually selling. If your proposals are structured around deliverables (homepage design, 5 inner pages, contact form, SEO setup), you’re selling a list of outputs, and that’s the offer AI can undercut. Restructuring your proposals around business outcomes (increased lead generation, improved conversion rates, measurable revenue impact) moves the conversation on to the value you create. I cover how to do that in how to position your services as an investment.
Second, think about your client relationships. Are you a supplier who gets a brief, builds a thing, and moves on? Or are you a partner who understands the client’s business, tracks what’s working, and proactively advises on improvements? The first role is easy to replace. The second is much harder to replace.
Third, consider your pricing model. If you’re still charging fixed project fees for website builds, every improvement in AI tools puts downward pressure on what you can charge. Retainer-based pricing tied to ongoing value, where your fees are linked to the outcomes you deliver, creates a much more defensible business.
Finally, use AI yourself. The agencies that will do best are the ones using AI to speed up the commodity parts of their work (initial layouts, first-draft copy, code scaffolding) while investing more time in the strategic, relationship-driven work that AI can’t do.
The same pressure applies to other service businesses
Web design agencies are just the most visible example right now because the AI tools are so tangible. You can watch an AI build a website in real time. It’s dramatic and it gets attention.
The same dynamic is playing out across many service businesses where the core offering can be described as a deliverable. IT support, bookkeeping, marketing, recruitment, consulting. If you can reduce what you do to a checklist of tasks, AI will likely do those tasks cheaper and faster in time.
The businesses that survive and grow will be the ones that have moved from deliverables to outcomes, from supplier relationships to trusted partnerships, and from cost-based pricing to value-based pricing.
It’s an uncomfortable message, but an honest one.
Check how exposed your business is to AI
I’ve built a free assessment specifically for service businesses that want to understand how defensible they are against AI disruption. It takes about five minutes, and you’ll get an immediate score across four areas: replaceability, pricing resilience, supplier vs trusted partner positioning, and adaptability.
It gives you an honest view of where you’re strong and where the gaps are.
Take the AI-Proof Assessment here.
6 March, 2026

Tag: Service Business Positioning

Should You Fire a Client? How to Decide Using a Client Scorecard

Why keeping every client can hurt your business

Case study: how scoring cut churn at a logistics company

Scorecard 1: before a client signs

Scorecard 2: while you work with a client

What to do with a low-scoring client

Next step

How to Position Your Services as an Investment

Why clients see your service as a cost

What clients are buying

The four-step Investment Positioning Model

Step 1: Put a number on the problem

Step 2: Specify the outcome

Step 3: Show the return

Step 4: Show the risk you remove

Example: a digital marketing agency

What to do this week

Next step

What Happens When You Raise Your Prices

Fewer clients leave than you expect

The clients who leave are usually the least profitable

Clients often treat you differently

Example: an SEO agency that moved from £2,000 to £10,000 a month

Profit rises faster than the price

How to test a new price before you commit

Next step

How One IT Company Boosted Profits by 43% Without a Single New Client

The Cost of Keeping Prices Flat

Why Clients Stay for the Value of the Service

The Psychology of Raising Prices

How We Approached Each Client

Where We Found Cost Savings

Why Pricing and Cost Savings Multiply Each Other

Three Lessons from This Case Study

Why Many Service Businesses Undercharge Without Realising It

Why pricing from competitors pulls prices down

Signs you are undercharging

How low prices shape your client base

Pricing from the value you deliver

What changes when prices reflect value

One thing to do this week

AI Isn’t Killing Web Design Agencies. It’s Exposing the Ones With Weak Offers.

The £299 WordPress site is already under pressure

The defensive response: “AI websites are terrible”

What people in the industry are already seeing

AI is exposing weak agency offers

Can AI handle the strategy work too?

Functional and premium purchases: Premier Inn and The Dorchester

What this means if you run a web design agency

The same pressure applies to other service businesses

Check how exposed your business is to AI