Fortune_Hunter - 3:29 am on Dec 23, 2008 (gmt 0)

I think the point about building relationships is crucial.

I think this is important and in business you had better be taking good care of clients and building relationships because surely your competitor will if you won't. However I think a valuable point is being missed here and that is a question of value.

Value works both ways one way you get paid very well for creating that value and the other is the client gets a lot of value relative to their investment. If a client doesn't feel you are creating value it becomes very easy to view you as an expense regardless of your relationship. However if you are constantly adding value, creating new ideas for clients, etc. your value and hence fees should never be questioned. Once you add relationship management on top of this arrangement you should be bullet proof. If that is not the case I would look at your business model and figure what you are not bringing to the party after a few months that allows clients to view you and your service so indifferently or get rid of you so easily. My guess is that it is not simply a back up service as that is fairly standard in the industry.

especially if it's only 5 bucks a month

My point above that value also works for you, i.e. you create a lot of value and hence get paid very well may be missed here. Does it make economic sense [for you] to provide top ten rankings and apparently great story boards and then sell that for $5 bucks per month to keep it going? If you truly create this type of value over and over again you should be making a fortune.