The operation after the sale · Will Ray
You can build. Now make the clients repeat.
You've sent the messages, or landed one through a friend, and the next one didn't come. The Whole Machine is everything I run around a site: outreach and follow-ups, the build chain, lead handling and keeping the client. Each part says what runs on its own and what needs you.
Instant download. Runnable PHP, checklists, and all five downloads included.
Haven't contacted a business yet? Start with Build First, $27. Learn the first move before buying the operation.
People who stopped reading and went and got one.
These are comments from viewers of the free videos. They aren't reviews of The Whole Machine.
…your story is very much inspiring and your strategies helped me land my first client, gg's man 💪🔥
See the commentI recently contacted a nearby school to inquire if they had a website, and they informed me that they did not. I offered to build one for them and explained the benefits of having a website. They accepted my offer and agreed to let me create a website for them. I got the confidence from your videos sir, thank u!
See the commentSome of us have such little experience with sales that these 'baby-step' videos are actually eye-opening. I've already gotten two leads since your last video.
See the commentGot my first client a week ago, sold the site for 210, working on another right now. It really is all about confidence! You just gotta pick up that phone📱and get to talkin
I'm a self-taught developer, and I honestly think 80% of becoming independent is figuring out how to get clients. That's the part that kills me.
YouTube comment
Sent a hundred messages and nobody bit?
They don't care you're a programmer. They care what you sent them.
Look at it. Is it the same message every time? Did you do any research on the business? Did you make it about them? Fix the message and how you're sending it, then do another 100. The follow-up ladder in the box is what I send when they go quiet.
AI does the work. I build the systems.
At this point, AI does almost everything. What I do is come up with systems. Systems so it doesn't make mistakes. Systems so it knows what it needs to do. Systems so it produces the same work every time.
Those systems are what's in the box.
Your AI gets a brain.
I built a brain for my AI. It helps me keep track of everything, so it isn't starting from zero every time I open it.
You get the start of yours. A business profile every prompt in the box starts from, so your AI knows your business before it writes a word. A gap audit that shows where you're still making it up as you go. And the Filled-In Vault, the notes system I run my business from, filled in, with the guided sessions that fill in yours.
No stack of subscriptions.
This is the system I use to run mine, built for me. You don't pay a bunch of software companies every month for it. Buy it once, then build on it with AI.
Six parts, from the first client to the first hire.
- Getting clients. Build the demo after he replies yes, show it, then discuss price and close.
- Building the site. The four-prompt build chain and data-driven skeleton.
- Getting them found. A keyword map per client and a running order for what to write.
- Keeping the client. Onboarding, tracking setup, and a monthly report that builds itself. A person reads it before it goes out.
- Running the shop. The weekly review, filing, dashboards, content batching.
- Hiring help. The build test and grading.
What the first hour does
A contractor site, running on your laptop.
$ php -S localhost:8000
200 /
200 /services
200 /areas-we-serve eleven routes, all serving
200 /sitemap.xml built off one copied city block
$ submit the contact form
wrote leads.jsonl before it tried to email
sent will@heywillray.com
In plain English: an hour in you stop reading, because there's a contractor site running on your own laptop.
That lead form writes to disk before it tries to send anything, so a submission survives a broken mail server. It's the difference between losing a client's lead and not, and it's the kind of thing you only build after you've lost one.
What runs on its own, and what needs you.
One test decides the label: if you did nothing, what would still happen?
| Runs on its own | The site skeleton: add one row of data, the pages exist. The lead form, including the disk write that saves a lead before it tries to email you. The dashboards, once your data files are current. |
|---|---|
| Runs, you approve | Prospect research, the four-prompt demo build, pre-launch QA, the keyword map, the monthly client report. The work gets done in seconds and then waits on you, because nothing touches a client's inbox without a person reading it first. |
| By hand, on purpose | Sending outreach. Discovery, pricing, closing. Deploying and verifying against the live URL. Writing blog posts. The forty-five-minute weekly review. |
| Built, not running | Five pieces, each with the reason written down. Code that exists and was tested but isn't switched on, every one stuck behind somebody else's approval queue. Each ships with the manual version that works today. |
What's built but not running, and why.
Five pieces are built but not running. The blockers include carrier registration for automated textback, platform review for a comment-to-DM autoresponder, and API access for business-profile numbers. Each ships with the reason, a manual version you can use today, and what I'd do differently.
Itemized, so you don't have to email me
What's in the box.
- All 175 files, in seven folders.
- The site skeleton + working lead form. A contractor site you can run and adapt.
- The service-area matrix. Everybody tells you to build the city pages. Nobody tells you which ones not to. One file marks the ones that earn a page and noindexes the rest, so you don't build a hundred pages that get the site buried.
- The blog publish endpoint. Send a post as JSON and it's live, no WordPress. That's how a client site runs eight posts a month without you writing eight posts a month.
- The four-prompt build chain. Prospect to live demo in four prompts.
- The SEO operation. A keyword map per client, what to write first, and the Search Console routine that shows what's working. The part agencies charge a monthly retainer for.
- The lead hub build. Per-site email breaks once you've got a few clients. You get the build session for one hub every client site posts into. You build yours, in the same plain PHP. You don't get mine.
- The 21 SOPs. Every job in the shop, each marked “runs itself” or “you do it.” This was about to launch as its own $97 product.
- The hiring kit, with answer key. For the day the work outgrows you. A twenty-minute build test with grading, so you know what someone's work looks like before you hand them your name.
- YOUR-FIRST-CLIENT.md. The zero-to-one roadmap. If you've never been paid for a site, this is the file you open first. It sequences everything else in the box toward one goal: the first yes.
- All five downloads. Every product I sell, included.
And the rest of what's in the six folders.
- A QA gate you run before a site goes live. It tells you what's broken instead of the client telling you.
- Schema helpers wired into the templates, not bolted on after.
- An
llms.txt, which most contractor sites still don't have. - Nearby-areas linking, so city pages point at each other instead of sitting there alone.
- The mobile call bar. On a contractor site it's the highest-converting thing on the page.
- Reviews, projects and awards run off data files. Add a row, the section exists.
- A finished site as the answer key, so you can grade a hire against a real one.
- The deploy checklist. A fix isn't done until the live URL says it is.
- Two more build sessions: the weekly autopilot and the monthly report assembler.
- The monthly client report. It's the thing that makes a client keep paying you next month.
- Business profile, review requests, churn recovery. Written out, step by step.
- Cold outreach through to getting paid. Six documents, in the order you'll need them.
- Local ranking factors by trade, because what moves a plumber isn't what moves a roofer.
- A business profile and a gap audit for your AI, so it stops guessing at your shop.
- What runs and what doesn't. How I decide. The stack. The glossary.
- The first month, laid out.
I charge $1,000 to do this build for a client. The Whole Machine costs $197, less than a fifth of that.
You can piece this together yourself. I tried that first, one shiny object after another.
- Scattered. Forty videos, six Discords and a bookmarks folder. Nothing in there tells you what to do first, or which two things cancel each other out.
- Untested. Conflicting outreach advice. You still have to pick an approach, send the message, and see what the owner says.
- Outdated. A build tutorial from three years ago on a stack that has moved twice since. Nobody goes back and updates the video.
- Unsent. You can finish a whole target list and still never send the first message. I've watched people stop there. Ask if one owner wants to see a better direction. Build after he answers yes.
The information's all out there. The order to run it in isn't, and that's what's in the box.
What a $750-a-month client gets.
My SEO tier is $750 a month with a $2,000 setup. For that, the client gets two blog posts a week, schema, and Search Console data pulled and worked back into the site. The content keeps getting better. Gaps get closed. I do buyer research. The goal is as much organic traffic as I can get them.
I don't promise anything. I tell them we'll increase their traffic, which in turn increases their sales. It's up to them to close.
The SEO folder and the publish endpoint in the box are how I run it.
Why my clients stay.
Clear communication, and I get them results. A lot of my newer clients tell me their last company charged them far more than I do. One told me the last guy charged him $4,000. I give more value than I charge. That's why they stay.
Who it's for, and two reasons not to buy it.
Who it's for
- You're already building or selling sites and need a repeatable operation after the sale.
- You want a small agency that leaves room for your life, with fewer loose ends to chase.
- You want to see the whole shop, including the parts that don't run yet.
- You've read Build First and you're ready for the rest of it: what happens after the sale.
Two reasons not to.
- You haven't sent a message to a business yet. Build First, $27, teaches the first move. Start there.
- You want sales, discovery, and pricing conversations done for you. You still handle those conversations and close the work.
The sending is yours.
What happens next depends on how many messages you send and how you handle the first call that goes sideways. I'm handing over the routes, the prompts, the files, the SOPs and a site that runs on your machine tonight.
It's all built on US local contractors, the ones with a truck and a phone. Somewhere else the numbers are different. The move still works.
Get it now
$197, and what you need to run it.
The site skeleton, lead handling, delivery checks, operating procedures, and all five downloads. Your setup starts with a site running locally.
All sales final. Read the two reasons not to buy it first. If one of them is you, don't buy it. I'd rather you came back in six months.
Instant download, all six of them. Questions? Email will@heywillray.com. Buying also puts you on one useful email a week about building sites, finding clients, and running the business. Unsubscribe anytime.
Before you buy
- If you already bought the book or the bundle, you already own part of this.
THE-BOOK.htmlin the box is Build First, lightly edited. Nothing new. Buy this for the rest of the shop, not to read the book twice. - Every download I sell comes with it: Build First, the Demo Site Loop, the Outreach Swipe File, the Filled-In Vault and the 30 Day Workbook. Three of those don't sell anywhere else.
Three ways in. Own the book and you already have part of what's included. Buy this for the operation around it.
- $0 First Client Playbook. One trade, one town, ten names, and the two messages I send. Free
- $27 Build First. No paying client yet? Ask first, build after a yes, then show the demo. 1 download
- $197 The Whole Machine. Everything above, plus what happens after the sale. ← You're here
What you need
- An AI that can read and write files on your computer. Claude Code, Cursor, or Claude Desktop all work.
- Enough HTML and CSS to copy a block and edit it. The book inside teaches the rest.
- PHP on your machine to run the site skeleton locally.
- An evening for setup and the reading around it.
What you don't need. Nothing else.
- No framework, no React, no build tools.
- No subscription and no account. One payment, files on your disk.
- No hosting for setup. You run it on your own machine.
The questions I get.
So how do you find clients?
Find a contractor whose site is weak or missing. Ask if he wants to see a better direction. Build the demo after he replies yes, then send the link. He can judge the work before you discuss the price, close, and deliver. If you haven't sent any outreach yet, start with Build First.
Why $197?
I charge $1,000 to do this build for a client. The Whole Machine is $197, less than a fifth of that. The SOP library was scoped as a $97 product and the downloads carried $98 in price tags.
Same stuff is free on Google though.
The information is, yeah. The assembly isn't. 175 files, 21 SOPs, a skeleton that runs, 56 webhook rules and a hiring test with a graded answer key, in the order you need them, with the dead ends taken out.
I already bought the book or the bundle. Am I buying it twice?
No. THE-BOOK.html inside the box is Build First, lightly edited. Nothing more. If you bought the book, you already have that piece. Buy this for the rest of the shop, not to read the book again.
What happens after I buy? What's the upsell?
There isn't one. $197, the button goes to Stripe, the download links are on the next screen and in your inbox. No call, no application, no coaching tier waiting behind it. I don't do sales calls.
How long until I sign someone?
There's no set time. You go until you get one. Maybe it's 100 messages, maybe it's 500. You get the first month laid out day by day and twenty new messages a day to send, so you know what to work on.
Any ongoing costs I don't know about?
There's a file that names every tool in the stack, including the two paid ones and what they run. Flat PHP hosting is a few dollars a month. No CRM subscription to start, and nothing in here needs one.
Does this work outside the US?
The move does. The numbers don't transfer. All of this is built on US local contractors, so treat the prices in it as a shape rather than a rate card and check what a site actually goes for where you are.
I've got no degree and no background in this.
Neither did I. Prison before any of it. If you can run a command and open a folder you can run what's in here, and the site is data-driven, so most of the work is editing rows, not writing code.
Not buying today? Start with the free playbook.
The First Client Playbook is free and stays free. Build First, $27, is the smaller first step toward this if you're not ready for the whole shop yet. Go send your first messages. This will be here.