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The retainer justification trap
Constantly defending your monthly fee while being on the hook for service delivery. Every invoice is a fresh audition.
The 60-minute tutorial that shows freelancers and agency owners how to escape retainers, deadlines, and service delivery — and build partnership deals that pay 30–50% of everything they bring in.
Constantly defending your monthly fee while being on the hook for service delivery. Every invoice is a fresh audition.
Working 50–60+ hours a week and still feeling one cancellation away from disaster. The treadmill calls it freedom.
Two big clients hold all the power. They know it. Every conversation drifts toward "find someone cheaper."
Most freelancers spend the year resetting. Deal-makers spend it stacking.
Illustrative comparison. Actual results vary based on offer, audience, and execution. Receipts shown elsewhere on this page are from real Tony Teegarden campaigns.
For ten years I tried. High-ticket programs, podcast interviews, multiple five-figure months on the surface — and behind the curtain, a one-man band doing every job in the business. "Chasing freedom but feeling more like a ping pong ball in a wind tunnel."
In 2015 the math finally broke. I stopped chasing clients and started hunting partnerships. One good partner with an underutilized list can produce more revenue in 14 days than 20 retainer clients in a year.
Indigenous tribes built whole civilizations on the buffalo. Meat. Hide. Bone. Spirit. Nothing wasted. That's what a real deal looks like — one resource, used to the full.
Hunting buffalo.
Not chasing rabbits.
Most freelancers are seen as an expense to their clients. Deal-makers are seen as a paycheck. The partner only pays when they get paid — and they want to keep you around. But it's up to you whether to stick.
That's not freelancing. That's an investor stance. And it changes who you are at the negotiation table. The companies start lining up. You stop pitching.
Why investors don't pitch — companies pitch them. The exact reframe that flips the dynamic, why testimonials work against you in partnership outreach, and what to say instead.
The one sentence that makes serious partners say yes. The fail-safe built into every deal. Why no money up front gets you bigger checks, not smaller ones.
The simple stack behind multi-six-figure campaigns. No funnels. No tech. No sales calls. The exact assets every partner already owns — and how to turn them into the buffalo.
Pulled from real partner campaigns over the last ten years.
5 sixth-grade-simple emails. A Google Doc. A free Gmail account.
$1,200 offer. 120 sales on the final day of the campaign.
Spiritual niche. 10 emails. Same stack. Same structure.
Zero sales calls. Tiny audience. Right offer at the right cadence.
Online auction. Concentrated heat. The flood, not the trickle.
Julie R. earned this from a single partnership-deal intro. Walked away from her job.
Tony has spent the last 10 years building partnership deals across real estate, the spiritual niche, AI, and online business — using nothing but emails, a Google Doc, and a free Gmail account. No retainers. No deadlines. No service delivery. No sales calls.
He's the bestselling author of Deals Over Clients: The fastest way to move from client work to partnership deals — without getting screwed. In 2024 he "worked" 6 months out of the year.
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