Forum Moderators: open
"It’s obvious that you know so much more about SEO than I do, I think you should just crack on and do it yourself so i can get on and help the clients which want thier business promoting correctly without getting banned from the search engines... see ya" ;)
DaveN
Sometimes wonder why they asked for my help in the first place and I suppose if I could pick and choose I would adopt Daves approach.
Winds me right up.
My 2p's worth.
It's a quite common problem with all consulting jobs. There are some very good books about consulting that could help you overcome this obstacle.
From what I know, a customer asking your advice or services, is not really working against you for the sake of it. Mostly it is by ignorance, or because of 'another agenda' than yours, which could have to do with company politics.
Try to look at it from their point of view, and clearly expose the pro's and contra's of such a decision.
If they keep asking you to do work you know won't be successful, it's better to friendly walk away. Better than take the blame for the failure later, although you predicted it. Sometimes the customer comes back once he realises his mistake, but don't count too much on it and move on.
Good luck!
Could you recommend book on consulting then?
I would be interested.
Regards
Richard
its a bit of a nightmare - the particular situation that you find yourself in with the client.
trying to explain that the products that they actually offer is the key concern, not what they aspire, or believe they wish to target for on the search engines. My attitude with companies like this, is what have they got to do with the keyterm they wish to rank for, usually not alot, this is the point to hammer at them, working on you being the expert and them paying you money, becuase you are the expert.
I've had to be extremely abrupt with certain customers, becuase of this. Hence they deal with such a small apect of what a their proposed key term, that they don't realise the barrage of absolutly useless prospects they will get, becuase of that opto.
furthermore, i would have thought morgage advice / advisor, is quite a strong keyterm to go for, and if very high in the serps would return good results
here are some of the best references on consulting practices:
1. Flawless Consulting, Peter Block
2. Managing the professional service firm, David H. Maister
3. Practice what you preach, David H. Maister
4. The trusted advisor, David. H. Maister
5. The I.T. Consultant, Rick Freedman
I am not in any way related to any of those authors, but those books helped me enormously in my consulting business. They have been my best investment ever.
I hope they help you also. In 80% of the cases, this customer behavior is quite normal and easy to overcome if you follow the rules explained in those books.
Good luck Richard!
Also, try to educate them on targeted traffic. If they aren't a mortgage company, than people searching on "mortgage company", if they get to the site, will turn around and walk out the door. It is like having a sign on your brick and morter as "Pet Shop" to get people to walk into your beauty shop. How long do you think they will stay?
On the flip side, if your client is trying to deliever a product that competes with what morgage companies offer, you could still use that keyword to attract visitors. You could make comparison pages and statements like, "Compare our product with your local mortgage company" and so on. That is one workaround.
With production work, I've gotten to the point wher I'll only get involved with new "built from scratch" projects.
With consulting work, I always bill in advance much like an attorney. That helps tremendously with the problem of a client thinking that they should only pay for the advice that they agree with.
If they want to pay me to talk, and then not listen, that's fine, but if they want me to do the work and produce results, then it has to be 100% my way or nothing at all.
When it screws up they and they come crying you can refer to your previous comments and charge them again for fixing it.
I always try to persuade, but believe that blind and obstinate stupidity should be taxed (so does the UK governament - we call it the lottery).
The customer is not always right - but if he pays enough I'd rather he was wrong as one of my customers.
Unless your business model is payment on clicks or conversions (something like commission on results), I would be charming and clear in your concerns, in writing, basically give clear honest advice and be persuasive but do what your customer wants and take their money.
The customer is always right think about it another way they must be good right because they hired you!
If they expect you to get ranking on a very competitive key term then indicate to them what this will cost them more if you consider that it is within your skills to deliver.
Note: If you think their new target is outside your skills to deliver OR that they are being unethical or illegal then it may be another issue. I would not assist a client to defraud anyone even if only to waste their time rather than rob them. If this is the case I would definately make sure at the very least that they have instructed you to do this in writing and then decide if its worth you doing or walking away.
Back to changing goalposts - If they think they get it for your initial price well ... thats an issue for your agreement..
Hopefully you have created a requirements specification with them and have a step in your project where it is frozen - before finalising pricing?
"Client forced changes after frozen specification are billable if involving significant extra expense to developer." comes to mind.
Hope this helps.
