Do you see a switch, a low-hanging fruit where I could just do a few changes in a couple of weeks and improve profitability even by 30%, more or less?
Yes — there’s one, and it’s essentially a single lever with a quick cleanup stacked next to it.
Reprice the David Drebin retainer.
Here’s why this is the only thing that can actually move profit ~30% in two weeks. A 30% jump on ~$3,500–4,750/month of profit means finding roughly $1,100–1,400/month. To find that fast, it has to be pure margin — and repricing work you already do is the only pure-margin lever that moves in two weeks.
A new-client dollar is maybe 40 cents of profit after the cost to serve. A repriced dollar on existing scope is 100 cents of profit, because nothing new gets added to deliver it.
And the headroom is already sitting there — stated by the client himself. On a call, David said he believes he spends about $75,000 a year with you and called it “amazing” value. You actually invoice him roughly $59,000. That ~$1,300/month gap isn’t an estimate — it’s his own number.
He also said the current invoice is “fair, worth it” and explicitly told you to stop nickel-and-diming him. A client who volunteers a higher figure than you charge, and tells you the price feels fair, is a client who is underpriced.
Midpoint profit is ~$4,100/month, so 30% is ~$1,230. Move the retainer from ~$4,900 to ~$6,000–6,250/month and that’s +$1,100–1,350 — essentially all of it profit. The low end is ~27%; the full move clears 30%, from one conversation.
This is literally Actions 1.5–1.6 of the 90-day plan, just pulled to the front:
Arseni and the creative director draft a reframed retainer. Don’t present it as “we’re raising prices.” The honest occasion to reopen it is already there: the Instagram Ads line (~$650) has been broken since Mohammed left, and David is skeptical of its ROI anyway — so that’s your natural reason to put the whole retainer on the table.
Rework or retire that line, and properly price the lines that have absorbed years of silent scope creep (website maintenance especially). Wrap it in David’s own stated rules — monthly billing, anything under $1,000 just billed, no surprises — so the change reads as a cleanup and an alignment, not a grab.
Arseni has the conversation. One call. That’s the whole thing: a draft and a conversation.
Even faster, zero risk: a one-day subscription sweep.
That won’t hit 30% alone — realistically $150–400/month — but it’s free, it takes days, and it cushions the target if the reprice only lands partway. The reprice is the engine; the sweep is the insurance.
David is a dramatic narrator, and his own sales volume is softening — down ~40% from his peak, though his revenue is holding near $1.2M/year. Asking a client for more while his business wobbles needs care.
But his revenue is stable, he’s told you the price is fair, and it’s a 15-year relationship where he calls you his secret weapon. Framed as simplification and honest scope-correction rather than a hike, the risk is low.
Bottom line: This is real money and you should do it now — but it’s a one-time floor reset, not a growth engine. It lifts the baseline ~30% and then it’s done. Take it, bank it, and use the breathing room it buys to fund the actual work. Don’t mistake the quick 30% for the path to $20K — it’s the down payment that buys you the time to build that path.