| name | retainer-finder |
| description | Analyze a company website and identify recurring service opportunities for agencies. Finds what depreciates without ongoing maintenance, what creates monthly dependency, and what justifies a retainer conversation. |
Retainer Finder
Most agencies sell projects. They make money on retainers.
This skill analyzes a company and answers one question: what does this company need every month, and why would they pay for it?
The output is not a proposal - it is a retainer strategy. A map of what to build toward after the first project lands.
What this does
Three phases:
- Depreciation Scan - Find what is actively losing value without maintenance (rankings, audiences, social presence, email list)
- Dependency Map - Identify what, if implemented, creates ongoing reliance on the agency
- Retainer Brief - Estimated MRR, service stack, renewal risk, and how to transition from project to retainer
How to use
Pass a URL:
/retainer-finder https://empresa.com
Or after running /agency-audit on the same company - the retainer-finder uses the same signals but asks different questions.
Phase 1 - Depreciation Scan
Goal: Find what is already losing value without someone managing it.
Unlike a project (build once, done), these are things that degrade over time without attention:
| Asset | What happens without maintenance |
|---|
| SEO rankings | Competitors publish, you drop. Algorithm updates hit without someone to respond. |
| Ad campaigns | Audiences fatigue, CPMs rise, creative goes stale. Left alone, ROAS drops. |
| Email list | Deliverability degrades without cleaning. Unsent = losing 25% list value per year. |
| Social presence | Algorithm deprioritizes inactive accounts. Followers lose connection. |
| Google Business Profile | Photos age, posts go silent. Reviews go unanswered. |
| Website performance | WordPress plugins update and break things. Security vulnerabilities accumulate. |
| Analytics / tracking | Platform changes break tags. iOS updates kill attribution. |
Check each asset and score it:
- Active and managed - someone is maintaining this
- Active but unmanaged - running but nobody is watching it
- Inactive - abandoned
- Not present - does not exist yet
Unmanaged and inactive assets are the retainer opportunity. They are already costing the company - the agency just needs to make that cost visible.
Output:
## Depreciation Scan
| Asset | Status | Monthly cost of neglect |
|-------|--------|------------------------|
| SEO | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Paid ads | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Email list | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Social | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Google Business | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Website/CMS | [status] | [what they are losing] |
| Analytics | [status] | [what they are losing] |
Top depreciation risks:
1. [asset] - [specific cost of neglect for this company]
2. [asset] - [specific cost]
Phase 2 - Dependency Map
Goal: Identify which services, once delivered, require the agency to stay involved.
Not all services create dependency. A logo redesign does not create a retainer. A live ad campaign does.
High dependency services (client cannot easily remove agency):
| Service | Why they cannot leave |
|---|
| Paid ads management | Campaign knowledge + audience data lives in the agency's account history. Starting over = losing months of optimization. |
| SEO content | Ongoing content + internal linking strategy. Stopping = rankings drop in 3-6 months. |
| Email marketing automation | Flows built in the tool, segment logic, suppression lists. Complex to hand off. |
| Analytics + reporting | Agency interprets the data. Client cannot read dashboards without context. |
| WordPress maintenance | Updates, backups, security. Client fears touching it themselves. |
| Social media management | Content calendar, brand voice, community - hard to internalize quickly. |
| Google Business management | Review responses, post schedule, local SEO adjustments. |
Low dependency services (one-time work, easy to hand off):
- Website redesign (delivered and done)
- Brand identity
- One-time SEO audit
- Analytics setup (once live, client can run it)
- One-time campaign setup without ongoing management
Map which high-dependency services this company needs based on Phase 1 findings.
Output:
## Dependency Map
High-dependency opportunities:
1. [service] - dependency reason: [why they cannot leave]
2. [service] - dependency reason: [...]
Low-dependency work to avoid leading with:
- [service] - [why it does not convert to retainer]
Recommended entry: [highest-dependency service that is also lowest friction to start]
Phase 3 - Retainer Brief
Goal: Define what the retainer looks like, what it costs, and how to get there.
Retainer Stack
The retainer stack is the combination of monthly services that makes sense for this company. It should:
- Address active depreciation risks (Phase 1)
- Include at least one high-dependency service (Phase 2)
- Be deliverable by the agency (match to their service list if provided)
- Have a clear ROI story the company can understand
## Retainer Brief
### Recommended retainer stack
Core (must-have for ROI to work):
- [service] - [price range/month]
- [service] - [price range/month]
Add-on (increases value and dependency):
- [service] - [price range/month]
Total MRR estimate: [low] - [high]
Contract length recommendation: [3-month / 6-month / 12-month]
Why this length: [one sentence - what takes that long to show results]
Transition Path
How to move from first project to retainer:
- Entry project - the quick win or audit that gets them in the door
- Results moment - the specific milestone that creates the retainer conversation ("we set up your tracking and now you can see X - want us to act on it monthly?")
- Retainer pitch - frame it as "keeping the results" not "more services"
Transition path:
Entry: [project] - [price] - [delivery time]
Results moment: [what they will see and when]
Retainer pitch: "[One sentence framing - specific to this company]"
Renewal Risk
Identify what could end the retainer early:
Renewal risks:
- [risk 1] - [mitigation]
- [risk 2] - [mitigation]
Strongest retention signal: [what makes this client sticky]
References
references/retainer-signals.md - full signal library by service type and company size
Output principles
- Every depreciation risk must be specific to this company - not generic
- Dependency map must name the actual mechanism ("campaign data lives in our account" not "complex to hand off")
- MRR estimate must be grounded in service-mapping benchmarks - never inflate
- Transition path is mandatory - a retainer without an entry path is theory
- The retainer pitch line is the most important output - it should be usable verbatim in the sales conversation
