We never sign a performance deal cold. Before any revenue share or equity arrangement, we run a short, paid proof sprint — and it exists to answer two questions, only one of which is about us.
One: does the engine produce?
The first question is the obvious one. In your market, with your offer, can we actually source, research, and book real qualified meetings? Not meetings in theory — meetings on a calendar. This is the part we're on the hook for, and the sprint is where we prove it rather than promise it.
Two: does your team convert what it produces?
This is the question most agencies skip, because it points at the client. A flawless pipeline poured into a broken sales motion fails — and on a revenue deal, it fails us too. So we test the whole loop, not just our half: when we hand over a qualified meeting, does someone on your side win it?
A perfect pipeline into a broken sales motion helps no one. We'd rather find that out in week three than year one.
If the answer is no, that's not an indictment — it's usually fixable, and finding it early is the cheapest possible time to find it. But we won't bet our cost and risk on a loop that doesn't close, and you shouldn't want us to.
Why it protects you too
The sprint is short, low-risk, and deliberately eyes-open on both sides. It's also where attribution tracking gets honest — we wire up the closed loop in your CRM so that, if we do move to an upside deal, there's no argument later about whose revenue is whose. Pass the sprint and we both move forward with conviction instead of hope. Fail it and we've each lost a few weeks, not a year. That asymmetry is the entire point.