For fractional sales leaders, trainers and RevOps consultants
Sell the engagement once. Bill the retainer every month without thinking about it.
Fractional sales leadership, playbook builds, on-site workshops, per-seat training cohorts and CRM setups all bill differently. Fee-Lion puts them on one proposal the client can approve and fund from their phone, then turns the retainer into a monthly invoice that drafts itself and the project into a checklist the client can watch.
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Sound familiar?
The paperwork side of the job.
- Your proposal is a slide deck, the contract is a PDF, the deposit is a separate invoice, and the client approves exactly none of them in the same week.
- The retainer invoice goes out on the 1st only if you remember on the 1st.
- A training cohort grows from 8 seats to 11 halfway through and the extra three never get billed.
- The CRM setup "just needs a few more fields" and the project quietly doubles while the fee stays the same.
- Workshop travel is on your card and the client's reimbursement depends on you finding the receipts.
A real example
What an estimate looks like.
Line by line, the way you’d actually quote it: quantity times rate, tax worked out for you, and the deposit collected the moment the client approves.
- Your client opens one link and approves it, paying the deposit by card.
- Approved estimates turn into invoices in one click.
- Your logo, your terms, and your line items saved for next time.
Prepared for Marcus Hale, CEO — Pinecrest Software
| Item | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot Sales Hub setup: pipeline stages, deal properties, required fields, rep dashboards 1 ea × $6,800.00 | 1 ea | $6,800.00 | $6,800.00 |
| Data cleanup and import from spreadsheets (up to 5,000 contact and deal records) 1 ea × $1,800.00 | 1 ea | $1,800.00 | $1,800.00 |
| Discovery and qualification playbook with call guides and email sequences 1 ea × $4,500.00 | 1 ea | $4,500.00 | $4,500.00 |
| On-site sales workshop, full day, up to 12 attendees 1 day × $4,800.00 | 1 day | $4,800.00 | $4,800.00 |
| Four-week training cohort with recorded call reviews 8 seat × $450.00 | 8 seat | $450.00 | $3,600.00 |
| Fractional sales leadership, month one: weekly pipeline review, forecast, hiring support 1 mo × $6,500.00 | 1 mo | $6,500.00 | $6,500.00 |
50% deposit on approval schedules the CRM build and workshop date. Fractional leadership continues month to month after month one, billed on the 1st, with 30 days' notice to end. Workshop travel billed at cost with receipts.
Sent with Fee-Lion · example document, fictional client
How Fee-Lion fits
The parts that do the heavy lifting.
Proposals that fund themselves
Put the CRM build, the playbook, the workshop day, the training seats and the first retainer month on one estimate. The client approves it and pays the deposit by card from the same link.
More on estimates & proposalsRetainers on rails
Your fractional VP of Sales retainer becomes a monthly recurring invoice that drafts a few days early for review, then sends on the 1st. The client saves a card once and auto-pay handles the rest.
More on online paymentsPer-seat lines
Training priced by the seat is just quantity times rate. When the cohort grows, change the quantity on the invoice and the total follows.
More on invoicingScope as a checklist
Convert the approved estimate's lines into project goals: pipeline stages, required fields, dashboards, data import, team training. Share the checklist so the client sees what is done and what is next.
More on project managementDecisions on the record
Every "can we also add a lead-scoring model?" lands in the project discussion, timestamped and visible to the client, so the change order has a paper trail.
More on project managementHours where you need them
Track time against an advisory project with the sidebar timer to see whether the retainer is priced right, even when you never bill by the hour.
More on time trackingTravel with receipts
Log flights, hotel and the rental car for an on-site workshop as expenses with receipts attached and tied to the client's project, ready to add to the invoice.
More on expense tracking & bookkeepingA day with Fee-Lion
How it actually plays out.
- Discovery call on Monday: you learn they have 8 reps, no defined stages, and a forecast that is a guess. That afternoon you build the proposal from your saved lines and send the link.
- Wednesday the CEO opens it (you see the view in your feed), asks about the cohort size in a comment, approves, and pays the 50% deposit by card.
- Convert the line items into a shared checklist. The client's ops lead watches stages, fields and dashboards move to Done while you build.
- Workshop week: flights and hotel go in as expenses with receipts, and the day itself is on the books as already approved.
- Three more reps join the cohort. Bump the seats from 8 to 11 on the invoice and the total follows.
- The project wraps: convert the estimate to an invoice with the deposit already credited. Next month the retainer drafts itself, and auto-pay clears it on the 1st.
Live demo
Click around Closewell Sales Advisory.
A fractional sales leadership practice: retainers on auto-pay, a CRM setup checklist the client can follow, workshops and per-seat training cohorts.
A real Fee-Lion workspace set up as Closewell Sales Advisory, with sample clients, jobs, estimates and invoices. No signup, no password. Changes are switched off, so click anything.
Questions
What people ask before they switch.
How should a fractional sales leader bill clients?
Most fractional sales leaders bill a fixed monthly retainer for a set scope (pipeline reviews, forecasting, coaching, hiring), invoiced in advance, with separate fixed-fee projects for things like playbooks or CRM builds. In Fee-Lion the retainer is a recurring invoice and each project is its own estimate.
Should I price sales training per seat or per day?
Both are common. Per-seat pricing scales with team size and suits cohorts and online programs; per-day pricing suits on-site workshops where attendance is fixed. Many trainers use a day rate for the workshop and per-seat pricing for follow-up coaching, which can sit on the same estimate as separate lines.
Can I collect a deposit before starting a consulting project?
Yes. Set a percentage or fixed deposit on the estimate. The client pays it by card the moment they approve, and it is credited automatically when you convert the estimate to the final invoice.
How do I bill a retainer automatically every month?
Create a recurring invoice with the monthly cadence. A draft appears a few days before the send date so you can review it, then it sends on schedule. Clients who save a card are charged automatically, and you can pause the schedule if the engagement goes on hold.
How do I bill a client for workshop travel?
Record the travel as expenses with the receipts attached and tied to that client's project, then add the travel total as a line on the invoice. The receipts stay on the expense records if the client asks for backup.
Your next estimate could go out tonight.
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