017 – Your First SEO Discussion With Clients

00:00.00
Jeff
Hello and welcome to the W P Seo show I am your cohost Jeff joined here with my co-host pete happy new year pete I guess is our second show back, but it’s like our first full year better for. Hey welcome to the W P Seo show I’m your co-host Jeff joined by my lapping co-host beat because we restarted this intro and I don’t care. How are you doing beat. But.

00:27.60
peteeveritt
Yeah, more good I’m all good I’m sort of pleased we did because when we hit record there was a worrying still now it might not have come out on the video but I looked like a fish. So ah.

00:39.45
peteeveritt
So you really did me a favor by restarting that intro So I’m I’m not going to mention it. We’ll just gloss over it Nobody’ll notice.

00:44.35
Jeff
Yeah, never happened never happened. We never wait a second. We just mentioned it. Oh well Anyway, how’s it going man. Ah.

00:50.64
peteeveritt
Yeah, it’s all good. it’s all good ah it’s it’s been ah, it’s been a fun first week back at work and lots of lots of things. Lots of plate spinning lots of exciting things happening and yeah, it’s it’s it’s all going. Well how about you.

01:03.83
Jeff
Yeah, this is the first week our kids are back to school so that’s why it feels like it’s the new year but I mean it is the new year but we’re already well into the second week of it but I got I got a little mixed up there and I was like what the heck. But yeah, the kids are back at school. So it’s like.

01:06.73
peteeveritt
And.

01:19.20
Jeff
Not that they’re a problem by any means but just having like a slightly acquired little less commotion around the house. You can kind of really get back to work So it’s a little nice.

01:24.30
peteeveritt
Well, you’re saying that. But at the time of recording it is now 20 to 8 in the evening here in the Uk which will make it about 20 to 12 for you in California and that means that we’ve finished our fourth day of the week here and my son came home from school saying. Ah, can’t believe her first this week’s going dad and I’m like neither can I because I’ve only got one more day and then you’re back at home for the weekend.

01:51.76
Jeff
Ah, we super peach priorities are I thought he was going to say I’ve got a lot of work to finish. But no, it’s says he just doesn’t want to sun around. That’s nice, all right? Well we’re going to. We need some sponsors for family therapy I think on the show now just kidty.

02:01.79
peteeveritt
I.

02:08.83
Jeff
Ah, ah, no, but like to be serious out. We’re laughing about it but like this whole remote work thing for the last couple years I know everyone’s kind of dealt with it or a lot of people have dealt with it like it’s fantastic. But then there’s little things that are sometimes difficult and it’s it’s not the kids being they’re here. They’re not a problem by any means but like.

02:09.80
peteeveritt
Ah.

02:26.91
Jeff
I’ve got ad Hd so every little sound but you know I’m just I’m all over the place. So it’s like I need to like focus in and and that’s not their fault but that’s just it’s the things that you like learn and start to realize when you fully immerse yourself in not going to an office or something you know.

02:39.28
peteeveritt
Yeah I get you I get you our kids in fairness are they’re not too. They’re not too much hassle when they’re at home they’re they’re old enough now that my youngest will be ten next Thursday Two weeks today he’ll be ten two weeks today so you know I can’t believe I’m gonna have 2 2 children over the age of 10 but the um yeah, they’re fairly self-sufficient. They have their own networks of friends. They either go out with them or they play with them online or do whatever so it’s it’s not like um, it’s not like they sort of you know I have to entertain them or something like that. But it’s just. You can guarantee I have 2 boys and you can guarantee that the arguments will happen and the the you know the the disruptions will happen right? at a crucial moment when I’m trying to do something and could really do with like another 20 minutes just to go some now my head or finished or whatever it is and that’s that’s when it’s annoying and yeah anyway.

03:32.17
Jeff
Well at least you didn’t need to like build a whole private shed in your backyard to get away from them or anything I mean if you had to go to that extreme. We’d have to have a but different conversation.

03:34.31
peteeveritt
Hey Ho it’s family like.

03:42.92
peteeveritt
Ah, ah yeah, yeah, least I didn’t have to do that. Maybe.

03:47.69
Jeff
Ah I’m just jealous because I want one so bad I Just want one I Just want a man shed in the backyard I don’t even care if there’s anything in it I Just want it to be mine and that’s my you know what? I mean.

03:54.74
peteeveritt
You know what that this little cabin that we’ve got in our garden is brilliant and the the reason so I used to work in a bedroom in the house and I had a problem with that which was that I could always see work. Even if like you know and you don’t want to be you don’t want to be going to bed we we’ve got 2 floors in our house. The bedrooms are upstairs living spaces downstairs. So you know I didn’t want to be going to bed cleaning my teeth. Whatever and thinking I just need to do such and such or I mustn’t forget whatever I just couldn’t switch off because it was in the house and then. Ah, so I then got an office I paid rent for an office and there was 3 of us in the office 2 of them and myself and my wife Gabriela and then one of our devs who lives locally but my agency team was spread out throughout the Uk apart from one of our developers who lives in the same city as me. So as I had the office he used to work work from there. Then covid happened and I get ah Tom the the dev he had to work from home obviously because we whether that was that was the rules people had to work from home gabs had the kids here in the house. So I’d still go to to the office to work. And she was doing homeschooling and all that kind of thing and it was fine but I was still paying full rent just for me to have a space in you know that it was away from home in the u k we had these things called bounce back loans where um companies could get ah basically loans that were guaranteed by the government. It was a.

05:25.97
peteeveritt
It was to it was to help them with cash flow over the period of time so we got one of these bounce by Loans and ah actually we used some of it to build this in the garden which belongs to one of our companies now technically and we um, but that meant that I could stop paying the rent. So within.

05:37.24
Jeff
He.

05:45.59
peteeveritt
Eleven months of I’ve now been in here since August Twenty Twenty Years September Twenty Twenty within eleven months of moving into the garden we were into profit. Um, and because the team is disparate. Anyway, you know we were working through slack we were working through Zoom we didn’t the only difference was Tom would come and sit in a chair in the corner.

05:55.36
Jeff
Um, nice.

06:03.89
peteeveritt
Now Tom just continues working from home. He he left he left on the sixteenth of March or whatever it was and never came back I’ve only seen him about 4 times since in person. Um and he lives a mile away and it’s ridiculous. We’re we’re actually going up for a yeah well he should know that because we’ve just arranged our post Christmas due.

06:16.50
Jeff
Tom Pete misses you

06:22.71
peteeveritt
And we’re going to go out for lunch in a couple of weeks ‘ time to ah to a nice thaire restaurant fully enough after the off the back of the last recording where we were talking about ty new what you know what can I say? what can I say.

06:27.16
Jeff
I was going to say were you inspired from the last episode I actually I was up to store later that after we recorded that one that day and there was a frozen pad tie in that in the thing my my wife really loves Pat Ti and I was going to get it for it. I was like It’s not going to be as good as that crappy hole in the well place pete talked about so I’ll be disappointed. So I’m not I’m not going to spend it on this frozen pet tae sorry it’s okay, it’s it’s better from the local restaurant anyway.

06:49.70
peteeveritt
Ah, sorry Steph your lack of pad tie is all my fault.

07:00.32
Jeff
Anyway, hey speaking of local restaurants such just reminded me that they’re somebody I would love to work with the local thai restaurant because they really need a better web presence. Ah the whole topic today that we are avoiding getting to is ah your first seo discussion with clients. This could be. New clients could be existing clients but 1 that we were talking one of the things that we get ah you know asked and and brought up in our you know, kind of our our pre-sales calls and you know when people book a call with us to to discuss how we work and how they work is how do we even approach this you know I’ve got this client I don’t know what they want I don’t know. You know there’s so many questions marks so we just thought let’s start from beginning. You’ve got a new either a new client or an existing client that you want to start talking about Seo from how do you start having those conversations. What do they look like what are you doing? Are you going for a hard sale, etc, etc.

07:53.24
peteeveritt
Well and I think I think you’ve you’ve just mentioned the words hard sale and that’s really the point because if you if you start ah seo is quite a hard sell. That’s that’s the reality and it’s really difficult for for business owners for clients to to see the fact. Or to see past the fact that actually you know what? you’re not really guaranteeing me anything but all I can see is a retained fee each month so and ah, you know what you mentioned retained fee to a client and all they do is times it by 12 and think you know you’ve gone from a $600 a month sale to a $7200 sale.

08:16.52
Jeff
M.

08:29.59
peteeveritt
And in their mind That’s that’s how it works So it’s It’s really important to be able to demonstrate the opportunity the whole point of the the whole sort of um mantra of breaking down the sale of Seo is to present an opportunity to the client.

08:47.55
Jeff
Um.

08:47.91
peteeveritt
And ultimately demonstrate how difficult that opportunity may or may not be to achieve you don’t want to make it seem too hard that it’s inachievable because and they won’t go for it but on the same note they they need to understand that there’s a level of skill and dedication and and um, technical ability involved in this which they may or may not have um. Which is why it’s good to pay your your bill which is 6 or $ 600 a month or a thousand dollars a month or whatever you whatever you decide to pitch that. Um, but that that’s really the crooks is about presenting an opportunity.

09:16.35
Jeff
Yeah I think hard sell might not have been the best term to use because I have to say personally when it comes to selling and you know talking to clients I’m just I’m not a sales guy I’ve never been comfortable with it. 1 of the first jobs I got was doing sales and they literally took me out of the department in the first week they were like. We love you. But this is not the spot for you. You’re going to start an internet department and and you know and I kind of went. Yeah, okay, you know I’m not the one that can just call and try to sell people things that they don’t need so when it comes to selling Seo or website maintenance or whatever it is i’m. I’m more than comfortable something something I know they need and I will only do that I will never try to sell them something they want or they I will never try to sell them something. They don’t want or don’t need and I think that’s something that a lot of people um a lot of your clients if you know those you listening are probably. They probably have those kind of caution cautionary things up, you know what? I mean it’s like ooh they’re time to sell I don’t want to do that you know I don’t come in them like that I never do I never recommend that.

10:14.45
peteeveritt
Absolutely and and this is where having an seo discovery process really pays dividends because there’s there’s so many moving parts when it comes to this thing. You know you’ve got not only have you got the the difficulty of actually trying to rank in the search engines. But if. If this isn’t a new site that you’re building if this isn’t clean and you’re not in control of the codebase you don’t really know what you’re inheriting either and then you’ve also got kind of this weird third dimension which is this moral duty that you have whereby if yeah, you know if a client comes to you and says well I want a 7 figure business and I’m now a 5 figure business. And it’s like well don’t we all if if we’re in that position isn’t that where we all want to be but actually can you deliver a 7 figure business because I or an eight figure business or whatever they so it is they say they want because if they can’t and you’re aimless, not aimlessly. But um. You’re sort of neglectfully just trying to push them. There. Actually you can be pushing them into more harm than good because you get it. You’ve worked this real hard to get them these new customers that they’re just then letting down so whilst as the seo. It’s not your job to run their business. It kind of is your job to as I say you have this sort of moral weird moral kind of obligation to understand that whatever improvements you make they can keep up with them otherwise otherwise they need to be addressing something before you really like turn on your Seo taps.

11:41.29
Jeff
Yeah, that’s it’s always it Seo Tab interesting. Should we we trademark that one I don’t know I could see some branding opportunities there I like it new beer Company Seo Hive beer. Um.

11:44.50
peteeveritt
Can’t believe I’ve just said the word Seo taps I don’t know where that came from.

11:53.50
peteeveritt
Um.

11:55.99
peteeveritt
Anyway.

11:57.73
Jeff
See there’s there’s Jeff’s adh d kicking in ah little bit. Actually you know I don’t don’t drink much of that anymore these days it’s not and we getting old. Um anyway segue um, no, that’s that’s a good point because it’s a.

12:00.50
peteeveritt
And his obsession with beer but there we go.

12:15.33
Jeff
I want to say it’s a good problem to have it usually is but like too much business. It’s a great problem to have. But if you’re the Seo provider and you’re getting your customers too much business. You’re probably going to get yourself out of the picture real quick because they’re going to be so overwhelmed with one month of work and we’ve we’ve had I’m not saying oh we’re so great. We’ve brought so many companies too much business. But we’ve been in that situation. Multiple times and where we’ve had people cancel after like couple months and they’re like ah thank you for all this we are way too busy. We need to hire some people or whatever it is you know.

12:44.80
peteeveritt
Well but you know it’s all entirely contextual if you’re selling golf balls and their problem is that they just can’t get a fast enough supply of golf balls. But the the orders are 10 twelve fifteen dollars each and and you know they let down a few customers or the the deliveries is delay by a day or 2 nobody’s going to care if on the other hand of the spectrum you’re selling super yachts and you know all of a sudden you sell too many super yachts and their lead time goes from eighteen months to 5 years then you’ve got a problem so it it all becomes contextual to the to the client as well. It’s very difficult to give a hard and fast rule. But that’s that’s why you know when you’re having these discussions and we’re going to get onto how in a minute but ah when you’re having these discussions. These are things that you do need to be aware of they are parts of the discussion. You need to have because you need to understand. Firstly, what the benefit’s going to be look if I sell if I’m work genuinely I have worked with a company that builds super yachts. Um, they had to make 4 sales a year that was that that was the that was the target they wanted us to lift them from 2 sales to 4 sales a year because that was all they could handle um because you know when people are paying.

13:46.22
Jeff
She did.

13:57.81
peteeveritt
$30000000 for a yacht they they want it to be handcrafted but they don’t want to wait too long for it. So there’s there’s this like sweet spot of time versus money and they couldn’t exceed that so their maximum capacity was for sales a year um but then. You know I’ve also I haven’t actually worked with anyway sold golf balls I have worked with companies that sell sold socks and I think I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before and but yeah, they they just wanted to churn out socks. You know a pair of socks Eight Quid you know, however, many socks you can sell me will keep up with demand. We’ll make it happen. Um, so you know that.

14:22.10
Jeff
Um.

14:34.71
peteeveritt
That’s literally the spectrum of of stuff that we’ve worked on and yeah it it all becomes contextual.

14:39.74
Jeff
You just brought back some traumatic memories because I worked for a couple yacht companies. Not not directly near me but relatively close to my area. You know I live near the beach kind of I mean little bit near the beach within an hour there’s yachts down. There’s what I’m trying to get it. There’s rich people to have yachts down there. Not me not where I live but nearby. And so I’ve done some work for and I remember um, having like this was years and years ago. But I remember just being like berated by how much I was billing you know and I’m like I’m building $50 an hour and I am building a website for fixing your broken website. Whatever it was for something for think you sell these things for $30000000 and I’m charging you like a three hundred bucks for ah, it’s crazy.

15:21.36
peteeveritt
Yeah, is is’s just money absolutely ridiculous money. But that’s that’s you know so so like like we’re saying it’s all contextual and really the discussion that you have yeah these are the things these are some of the things that you need to understand and look. Let’s be honest, you’re never going to have the first discussion about Seo with a client and come away with all the answers you may come away with enough answers that you can then go and do a bit more research and put a plan together but the chances are you’re not going to come out of that discussion actually with a finite plan. Which is why it’s often good as I say to do it as part of the discovery process that you can then almost present back or deliver back to the client and it it kind of bookmarks. It quite nicely. Um, doing it that way I realize not everybody wants to do a discovery process and I mean my take on it is discovery processes should be paid which then maybe your first is. Discussion about Seo is hey do you want an seo discovery process. Um, which is maybe a slightly different discussion than the one we’re going to be talking about but hey.

16:22.90
Jeff
Well, it’s like you said it’s all contextual I think it applies to whether Discovery is possible or needed as Well. I mean you know you you can kind of start to gauge these things a little bit when it’s ah you know, ah my my my imaginary plumber friend with a website right? like. Probably doesn’t need an In-dep Discovery Project. He needs this that and that you know what I mean it’s probably pretty easy to tell. Um, doesn’t mean you can put the work. You know, just click a couple buttons and make it all happen like you’re going to be doing the work but as far as you know what are their needs. Well okay I know he’s not.

16:39.94
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah.

16:52.76
Jeff
Blogging so he needs some content I know his website was built by his nephew so it was probably going to need some technical health stuff and you know and it’s just good old hard work. Maybe he wants Google ads you know? maybe maybe there’s something we need to to do there but that’s not rocket science you know, but then when you’re talking to companies that are. Maybe they ship product physical products. That’s huge. You know those are all bottlenecks um, just production what about shipping you know, can they ship those socks fast enough are those golf balls fast enough I mean thankfully those are the type of jobs that hopefully you can hire people relatively quickly to do but um. But still a lot of companies are not equipped and not prepared to to handle stuff like that.

17:30.27
peteeveritt
Absolutely absolutely. Okay, so let’s get let’s get into the crooks of of what it is. You need to to talk about and the first thing is ideally is you you need to understand. You need to establish with the client. What success is going to look like so if they fast forward twelve months from now they’ve paid you the 12 times of the fee because that’s what they’re going to basically benchmark you against um where is it they want to be versus where are they now. So what’s the scale of that and you know.

17:50.54
Jeff
E.

18:07.75
peteeveritt
Some people may come up with unrealistic unrealistic expectations. You know like like I said I’m a 5 figure business I want to become a 7 figure business. Well here’s an idea why don’t we become a 6 figure business first. Um, so ah, you know so it may be unrealistic in which case. Ah, you need to judge whether the client is open to discussing that target and having a more meaningful discussion about it or if that’s where they’re at and that could be a red flag that you know what? that’s that that expectation just ain’t going to happen. Um, so you know having the discussion about right? So if if we do this, you know. But how how could we transform your business. What would more organic sales through Seo mean for your business and how you know what? what is the scale of that. Um, what is going to be the workload differential for you on that and how you know how? how is that going to work and let them tell you. What they would see as the benchmark of success because if you can get that then all of us and you can understand where they are now you can then start to reverse engineer the the path the footsteps that you’re going to have to go on to get from where you are you know to get from x to y to get from where you are now to where they want to be.

19:14.91
Jeff
Yep I’ve definitely had a few of those conversations where you hear that what they’re expecting or what they want to do and you go whoa. Okay, we need to we need to set this score girl out to say that’s.

19:26.50
peteeveritt
Well yeah, yeah, definitely definitely now you and I did a webinar. Ah, ah, um, well I was going to say a few months ago but it was probably a few years ago now I’m sorry it’s so a couple couple of years. Yeah, um and we talked through something to guide this discussion called the circle of truth.

19:36.22
Jeff
It’s probably was a couple a couple let’s not date ourselves too much couple years.

19:45.81
peteeveritt
Now I’m going to give full transparency here. This isn’t something I came up with I’d love to take credit for it. It’s probably not something that the guy that I’m going to attribute. It came up with either. But I am going to attribute it to a guy called Richard Crooks who is a.

19:55.39
Jeff
A.

20:02.78
peteeveritt
Ah, he’s a business. Well he’s now a business advisor here in the Uk. Um he he ran a number of businesses. In fact I think he still run day business himself as well and but I used to work in an agency where Richard was on the team as an external supplier and we used to do these? um. Marketing workshops for people and he he would come in and kind of lead them and I was there as the technical kind of brain behind it and he used to kick off every session with these circles of truth so the circle of truth is a circle There’ll be a graphic of this on the landing page for the episode in the show notes. So if you if you want to see it if you want to see it just. Click on the show notes it. It’ll be there. Basically it’s a circle with 8 points on it and those 8 points are all interrelated so it helps you understand where you are now you can talk through each of these points with the client about where they are now you can then. Talk about each of these points about where they are oh what they would look like if they want to get to x many sales or x much turnover or this that the other and then it shows you where the model is going to break. That’s the point. So the 8 points of the circle I’ve got it on the screen next to me which is if you’re watching this is why I’m looking off the one sides I don’t get it wrong.

21:15.49
Jeff
Is.

21:18.31
peteeveritt
Um, you start by talking to your client about their current year. What what does the last twelve months look like in these eight ways. How much money did they turn over how much profit did they make how many customers individual customers did they have how many sales did they make. From that you can then figure out the average order value. You can figure out the average customer value and then the last 2 points are what are the percentage of sales they made online and. Ah, what capacity was their business running. So that’s all of the stuff we were talking about not being able to achieve goals what capacity was it running so let’s for easy maths say you’ve got a business that turned over $100000 and made $50000 off 100 customers I’m keeping the numbers dead easy if. They then say well I want to make it a million dollar business then you’ve got a 10 times the the you know 10 times the turnover so you 10 times the turnover so that’ be a million turnover which means you 10 times the profits that’d be 500000 profit right? that mass works. That’s absolutely fine. Um.

22:30.28
peteeveritt
They had a hundred customers. So that now means they need a thousand customers. But if they’re already running at 75 % capacity they can’t 10 x that that would then be seven hundred and fifty percent capacity so what are they going to do you know What are the plans that the client has in place in order to in order to to reach that capacity. Or actually they might look at look at you and say we can’t serve 750 customers I want $1000000 but I ah can’t do 750 that that would that would be like a living hell right? Okay, well that means then that your average order value. We’ve kept your average order value the same. So what? if we can make your average order value a bit more. Ah, what if we can increase the number of sales without increasing the total number of customers. So once you have these numbers. You can then start to you can then start to work through these models with the client to to find out as I say where stuff’s going to break and westof’s going to be achievable. And actually you know if they say well you know what? Ah if we get to if we get to this we could take on another member of staff. So that means that our capacity could increase right? Well okay, then let’s say that increases your capacity by a third right? Okay, great, perfect. So so now we’ve got a workable model. You’re now in in an understanding that if you get them to x. They will then employ somebody else which will then increase them and and take them to y so that’s by far the best and it’s it’s a most interactive model I’ve seen of doing it I realize explaining it on a podcast makes it sound quite dull and quite dreary. Um, but it’s.

24:01.43
peteeveritt
Honestly, when you get into clients you go to doing it with clients you can it becomes quite a fun exercise takes about 20 minutes in total. Ah and and you know what you can you’ve got to be a bit quick on your feet think on your feet with some of the numbers. But once you’ve done it a few times you get into it and lots of clients I mean dozens and dozens of clients have. Said how valuable that that has been just as an exercise for them to do. Um again, maybe not something you want to do on a free sales call. But if you are running a discovery session. It. It is a really valuable thing that you can you can work through.

24:29.77
Jeff
Um, yeah I’ve I have to admit I’ve I’ve definitely not gone to that level of you know, kind of breakdowns and stuff with a lot of my you know client meetings and stuff and. You know? Admittedly I’m almost like one hundred percent white label at this point. But for the last you know, like last couple years I’ve taken a step back but we’ve had plenty of you know meetings around town and personal referrals and so and so and that’s the crux of most of those conversations. It’s realizing you know and discussing and figuring out where their bottlenecks are. And if they’re actually ready for this and I was actually going to bring this up so it’s probably a good segue because you’re talking about companies that are very established and where my experience has been a little bit more brand new companies or new ideas or new you know new startups new new side businesses new side hustles. You know what? I mean they kind of come. And then ask me for that help and stuff and I imagine a lot of our listeners do too. So I guess probably maybe another or another way to ask this question is what about a brand new business. You know to mean how do you start to figure out where those may be for a brand new business.

25:31.75
peteeveritt
Well the brand new businesses are normally petrified about getting into debt. So the thing the thing with a brand new business is you need to understand where the breakeven points are which this this model you could you could use a similar kind of thing as the circular truth to figure figure that out as well.

25:39.23
Jeff
Um, yeah.

25:51.66
peteeveritt
Um, and essentially that’s the level. You can never go below. Um, unless they’ve got some kind of investment coming in or something which you know they’ve so they’ve got money to spend. Um, if it’s a brand new business I’m thinking about the plumber guy that that we we keep up the plum of the electrician I’d love to meet this plumber or electrician one day um because he’s he’s probably the most shouted out guy on on our show. Ah, and.

26:11.64
Jeff
I Actually have a great plumber and a great Electrician and have been here in the last month and I’m ah killing me that not actually attributing it to them because I don’t think they have any websites.

26:17.12
peteeveritt
I.

26:25.34
peteeveritt
But but generally speaking with with it. It’s difficult because with companies like that they’re often. They’re often running on such a narrow profit margin that they often don’t want to spend money on their marketing. Um. Which is a bit like trying to put the car before the horse you know, really, you should speculate to accumulate. You know it’s great if you can find 1 person to sell to but what if I could find you a hundred um ah but that’s you know that’s that. But. Ah, the end I always think there’s a bit of a risk with working with brand new companies and it it is entirely up to you as the agency owner to decide whether that’s something that’s a risk you want to take or not but generally speaking. It’s it’s about keeping them to break evens.

27:05.47
Jeff
Yeah, and I guess you know it varies. There’s a lot of variance with all this too because I mean even just saying a business that means so many different things to different people because there’s people that have a business that have a full-time job and their business. You know is a side thing. It’s fun. It’s ah it’s a hobby and maybe it makes them an extra couple dollars a month there’s other ones that you know if the business went under. There’s dozens if not hundreds of people whose families will go starving I mean there’s you know so 1 business failing and isn’t the same as another 1 failing and 1 succeeding isn’t the same as another one succeeding too. So it’s it’s all big variance and we’ll see a lot of times with like customers and leads and things and oh I’ve got this business and you know here’s where I want to go and want to do this then you you know you really find out well they don’t you know don’t don’t have that budget. They don’t want to get into debt and I don’t want anyone to get into debt either. But if they’re starting at 0 with a new idea. They’re just going to have to grind it out till they build some money up so it makes some money and you know.

28:04.32
peteeveritt
Well, that’s that’s it and and as hard as it is for you because you might want the sale. Um, you know saying no to work is always easy when you’ve got enough money coming in and if you’re running an agency and you’re struggling. You know you’re doing this to try and make your life better as well to try and increase your recurring revenue because. Maybe you want to get it over your breakeven point. It can be really difficult to say no um but you know what it’s far better to have a client that will come back to you in 3 6 twelve months time and say right now I’m ready to go and then have ah a 10 year relationship with them. Than it is to get a sale over the line today and in three months they fire you because they can’t afford to pay a bill um that you’ve it’s that weird moral thing again, you come back to this weird moral kind of obligation. It is so much in.

28:41.83
Jeff
Um, yeah.

28:55.85
peteeveritt
The digital world is binary. It’s on or it’s off it works or it doesn’t seo isn’t like that Seo is so contextual and such a long process that it is like um.

29:11.90
peteeveritt
It it is it is a long term game and I’m not I’m not just saying that because it’s a cheesy thing but lots of Seo people say it is true and you’re going to be working together for a significant amount of time and you know what if something like your bill is going to become an issue now. It’s probably a red flag from the client for me.

29:27.96
Jeff
Yeah I got admit this kind of is kind of bummed me out a little bit. Maybe this is kind of ah another topic for another day but I’ve just thinking a few examples over just over the last couple years of new businesses. Um, that specifically I’m not trying to like um. Not trying to like displace responsibility by any means but like very specifically they came on as like hosting maintenance customers. So you know, but these these people paid an agency several thousand dollars for a new website and some copywriting and and all that stuff and they got a website done and launched and boom. They’re selling a digital product and they don’t get any sales. Or an e-commerce product I’m thinking of honestly I’m thinking of several examples right now off top my head and this is I’m not not crapping on anybody I promise it’s just a matter of kind of maybe putting the horse before the cart or the cart before the horse or you know what I mean ah you know what I mean but you know they end up investing thousands of dollars from the get go and that’s. You know, arguably in the grant scheme me things not a lot but it still is a decent amount of money if this isn’t you know a real established business and then trying to sell products for 20 to $100 or something and well it’s going to take you a while to make that money back and if there was never. Plan in place to actually market to products or to seo that you know you mean to actually build up the seo of the website mean anything like that where you’re going to be in six months you’re not going be anywhere and so I mean I don’t know I’m just kind of just kind of you know, thinking out loud and talking out loud about these situations but but these are the things that you might uncover in these early discussions.

30:58.00
Jeff
And it’ you know again I’m not not bad mouth than anybody anybody means. But for that customer the couple that I’m thinking of they probably would have benefited of a more of a hey, let’s let let’s talk about marketing your service or your business or your product rather than let’s worry about the asthetics of your website aesthetics are good, not the most important thing.

31:16.81
peteeveritt
No absolutely aesthetics aren’t gonna put meals on the table and you know keep keep a roof roof over your head all the time now. Let’s let’s just flip this little I um I agree with you. It’s got a little heavy. That’s that’s not’s not where we go all the time’s and we’re not kind of melancholic kind of guys. So. Let’s ah, let’s just flip this on its head a little bit and say so what is a realistic sort of growth rate. What is a realistic target that you can sort of commit to if you like again, it’s fully contextual if you’ve got ah a business that’s turning over $10000 and you can get it $50000 woohoo $500 a 500% increase in in growth. Brilliant most most businesses aren’t going to work at that kind of level. You know you’re not going to 5 x five x things and generally speaking this has come from go cardless. It’s a quote that I have in front of me ah generally speaking. Ah. An annual growth rate of 15 to 25% is a sustainable growth rate for most Sss. So that’s that’s where at owner oversell things I don’t want a 4 things short you might think oh I need 25% like what’s that on average as a sustainable growth rate. 15 to 25% a year is a good annual growth rate.

32:34.27
Jeff
Like I said that’s contextual, but that’s an average too. So you know small tiny business. They might double. They might triple they might quadruple those first year or 2 but they’re also small and tiny. So it’s not making a big dent on that metric.

32:47.16
peteeveritt
No, absolutely absolutely and it’s you know we are talking we are talking averages here. But this is this is why it’s so important to understand so of some of those financial aspects before you start diving diving into things. So again, let’s let’s just keep this as a positive so that that’s what’s realistic. that’s what’s realistic that’s that’s the discussion that we can. We can have with clients. What are the other things that we need to know in order to have a meaningful discussion that we can then start to present this opportunity because there is an opportunity there and is it’s going to take a bit of time. It’s going to take a bit of effort and we need to get our ducs lined up in the row. But. What are the other things we need to know right? The first thing is we need to know about the current how the current website is performing. So what is it ranking for you need a current rankings report. Um, how healthy is it. You need. Ah you need a health check doing. Um, how many links does it have and how toxic are those links coming into it. Do some of those need removing or or not how’s it How’s the indexing going. You know if you’ve got a whole load of widowed or orphan pages that aren’t being indexed then frankly, that’s a whole load of content. You can just strip out streamline it out making sure you. Obviously take care of any links that are coming into them. But you know there’s there’s an audit process that can happen and ultimately from the keywords that it’s already ranking for what sort of competition level. Are they ranking for. We call that a keyword baseline so. That’s you know if if.

34:19.00
peteeveritt
The website the bulk of the listings that the website currently has are for let’s say keywords around 15 to 20% in terms of their keyword difficulty then we can be fairly confident that we will easily rank for other keywords between 15 and 20% if however, when we conduct our keyword research the the terms the client wants to go for are forty five fifty percent then that’s quite a big jump from where they are at the minute so we’re gonna need to put some stepping stones in the way to grow from one to the other if on the flip side you know the keyword research happens and you’re operating at fifteen twenty percent and the keywords the client. Client needs for for their outreacher at like 10% happy days. We should be able to get to them quite quite quickly. So um, again, this is where it all becomes contextual but that’s the kind of information that you you need to know and as I say you might not have that.

34:56.73
Jeff
Um I.

35:07.22
peteeveritt
All as part of this discussion. You might have a discussion with the client about their their aims their objectives their um you know their current state of business, etc, etc. What what? it is. That’s Goingnna make them tick. What are the key terms that they they need to rank for or their clients use for their products or services. What are the pain points that they solve all of that kind of stuff. And then you can go away and do some desk research and put put 2 and 2 together and that’s where the plan starts to form I realize we’ve set up quite a lot. There.

35:36.28
Jeff
Yeah I was I wasn’t ready for a segue. So yeah, great. Ah, oh do my really lived up to my co-hosting duties here. Huh.

35:49.31
peteeveritt
Well I mean I can keep on I can’t keep on going if you want Um, ah I thought you were ready a chime in with something This is like a no you hang up? No you hang up kind of discussion. Ah so.

35:55.68
Jeff
I Just thought you were That’s all. Ah.

36:03.72
Jeff
Ah.

36:06.33
peteeveritt
So you you know? so when when you’ve got a lot of information together the the next thing that you need is some keyword research so that you can under you can then cross-reference the keywords that they’re currently ranking for versus the places where you may find some traffic and when you’ve when you’ve got that information. You can then. Look at the website look at the content that needs to be created whether the health needs to be increased whether you got to do a disavowed process this that and the other and that’s where your plan starts to come together and if the client says that they want to get from x to y in twelve months years’s then not too difficult to say right? Well if we’re gonna get to y we’re going to need to pick off. Let’s say half a dozen of these key key keywords with the associated long- tail keywords surrounding them so you know we might be looking at I don’t know 30 new bits of content. Let’s say some of them are pillar content some of them be cluster content and. Ah, we need to do a health check first we need to do the Disavval Exercise so that’ll take month one 2 3 let’s say so actually this is now what your twelve month plan looks like um with that we would expect you to be in the ballpark of your target within a twelve month window

37:19.17
Jeff
Ah, sorry Pete I’m getting ah 1 of our producers in my ear right now letting me know we got to go to commercial. Um, yeah there it says insert seo hive commercial and that we do a lot of these things and we would love to help your agency and and commercial there. We go thanks Editor and producers.

37:19.39
peteeveritt
And that’s your discussion.

37:36.17
peteeveritt
Well at least it wasn’t the parenting the parent counseling trailer that that appeared in this one. Oh is that appearing earlier in the show.

37:44.20
Jeff
Um, no, that’s all we need to do is sign up for like Ai advertisements and they start analyzing our transcripts and next thing we know we get family therapy ads in our Seo high bads I’d be great.

37:55.70
peteeveritt
Well in in all in all, honesty, we we do we do provide those reports and ah you know? and yeah, that’s one of the products and services that we offer. We’ve mentioned that in this in the show in the past. Um, but we do have a sales template which is essentially geared up to guide you through this. So if you’re a bit worried about this. You want to you want to know how how it works. Um seohive.co/seo sales template. It’s a free Google slides document and you can take it you can brand it. You can do whatever you want, but the whole thing is is already set out. To systematically walk a client through this is where you are this is what you want to achieve this is how we’re gonna get there and this is how much it’s gonna cost and that could help you guide through guide you through that conversation.

38:42.15
Jeff
I Really do? Yeah yeah I Really don’t want to tute our own horn. But it’s a good.. It’s a good template. It’s a really good template. Go download it because like you said it breaks it walks you through it I mean it’s not ah it doesn’t hold your hand through every single thing you’re still going to have to get this data or like I said we can help you with that. But. It tells you what you got to have which you got to go over with them. So It’s great.

39:05.18
peteeveritt
It it was it was a chunk of work to put it together. Although full transparency again it has it came to life from a um ah as a form of the sales template that I’ve used in my agency for the last decade or so and. Modified it over the time. Of course it’s not the same document that it was back then but it’s ah yeah, that’s where it came from it works and we have clients that use it all the time and we you know we offer a thing called our pro and prime scout reports where we go a bit more into depth about what the data means if you if you get a set of scout reports from us and. Part of that we would actually strip the information in into the sales template for you. So all you have to do is kind of put the covering letter on because obviously we’re not going to know exactly who the client is put the covering letter on and put details in about your terms and your onboarding process and your pricing and and then you can send it directly off to a client. So um.

39:55.15
Jeff
Or yeah or it could be Joe the plumber down the street. Probably that’s why we’ll just fill it out for you.

40:02.32
peteeveritt
Well we could I mean it would make more sense to fill it out for the client that we’ve actually run the reports for. But oh I see what I mean see what you mean I thought you’d paint made all of them out so like Joe the plumber is like it’s the point in that not everybody’s jokeed the plumber.

40:06.90
Jeff
No, you said we don’t we don’t know who they are so I’m just Goingnna guess. Yeah, yeah, and just I and until otherwise they are to me I’m sorry.

40:23.20
peteeveritt
Ah I’m going to send a scout report to your Thai restaurant your local Thai restaurant made out to go the plumber and see how successful it is right.

40:31.68
Jeff
Ah, oh my goodness. No my goodness.

40:33.95
peteeveritt
You know what I feel like I’ve spoken a lot in this in this episode I Honestly don’t know how useful anybody’s gonna find it even the dog’s trying to get out the door I can see over my shoulder. So I just hope I hope that this has stirred up some inspiration for people to to think about their sales come.

40:45.40
Jeff
Ah, well, it’s yeah you know it’s.

40:52.40
Jeff
It personally if anything it stirs up more in me and so that’s why I’m kind of sitting here going? Oh my goodness like okay tweak this change this do that You know I mean I start running through all these different things in my head but at the end of the day when you have these conversations you you.

40:53.39
peteeveritt
Stations a bit more.

41:09.76
Jeff
Start to figure out these questions. You know what? I mean you may not even need to go through the full Discovery you’ll you’ll learn a lot of this just by having that first casual conversation with them. But then you know we’re going over these because they can be really really important and they could if anything save you From. You know hours and hours weeks months of work. You know all kinds of problems and stuff so you know you don’t need to take everything so seriously and make you know make it such a you know life. You know, big ordeal or whatever but it’s also it’s all. You could put the work in too when you know when you have to and it it helps it’s it’s Important. So.

41:44.22
peteeveritt
Well, the the the thing that I’m trying to avoid with this episode. The the reason we thought these things through we put sales templates out there. We we have these products we’ve thought this process through. Is because we’ve worked with too many agencies that aren’t charging enough for their seo services because they haven’t done this work. They haven’t figured out properly. How much work is involved from their side of things and kind of thought of a number that they think the client will accept. Ah, rather than actually figuring out so this is what the opportunity looks like this is how much money the client’s going to be making this is how much work I’ve got to put in so the fee has to be around here and the agencies are now the ones being run ragged with clients that aren’t paying them enough. We all know that there’s clients that are paying Bottom dollar are the. Clients that become the biggest pain in the ass that that you’ve ever seen clients that pay fairly seem to just act more fairly I don’t know I don’t know why that is but we all know it’s true and yeah, so so that’s that’s why that’s why we did these things to try and help agencies to um.

42:58.75
Jeff
No.

42:59.22
peteeveritt
Not to rip people off, but just to get paid a fair amount for a fair amount of work for a strategy that’s going to work because as I say we don’t want you to have clients that last three months and then fire you because they’re fed up and paying your bill or they’re not sure what you’re doing. We want you to have relationships with clients that last a decade that never go anywhere else and send all their business to you because that’s what makes you grow that what makes us grow and then sooner or later you know, somebody might say hey we heard these guys pete and Jeff on this podcast and you know what they really did make me think about something and add no nu look back that is like Nirvana for me if if I ever get a testimonial like that I will be up.

43:30.47
Jeff
Um, yeah.

43:35.36
peteeveritt
Like the cocka-hooper.

43:38.10
Jeff
Well, we get you know Ah not to keep directing so but a lot of the conversations that I have with again early or people early on in the in the process with us coming to me and if you if you think I’m talking about you right now I’m not talking about you specifically I’m talking about like dozens of people. We’ve talked with and it’s that they come and they say something like. I’ve got this client that I’m already doing seo for and I build them $500 a month and I’ll go okay, what are you doing for them. Well this month we do that next month we do this, you know it’s all over It’s not defined and that’s an important thing that this process that these processes can help you do is define that scope. And so if you are going to charge me $500 a month. You know exactly what you’re doing or you know exactly what you’re committed to or what you’re obligated to do and what you’re what you’re promising them and if you’re delivering and you’re hitting those marks this sales template. We keep talking about if you if you haven’t seen it and you go check it out. You’ll see. It’s not. Hey is there’s there’s not scar. You know we’re not scaring anybody into things. We’re not going. You need to sign up for seo. Otherwise your businesss are going to go down and this you know it’s the data and it tells you why it’s important and just says this is just what it is. This is just what it is where i. Yes, we want to sell you this yes, we want you to sign up for this. We want to make money off of it but we also want to help you and we want to do it again the next month and the next month and the next month and for the next year and down the line. We never want to leave your side.

44:57.46
Jeff
So It’s not about that big sale and cashing it in and make you know what I mean it’s not about that big $10000 sale. It’s nothing like that. It’s about longevity recurring revenue and supporting your clients I mean I just I just come from that I want to say altruistic I’m not sure That’s the best word in this. Case but do you know what? I mean I never want to sell somebody. They don’t want or need or won’t help them. So Um I think the majority of our customers feel the same way. Hopefully I know you do.

45:24.21
peteeveritt
Yep, well and that’s exactly why I started or we started by talking about talking a sales call about Seo sales discussion about Seo is about presenting an opportunity because then it’s entirely up to the client. Whether they want to take the opportunity or leave it or whether they want to take it in three months time or six months time or whether they need to change something over here first before they can start on it. It’s about presenting the opportunity once the opportunity has been presented then you have positioned yourself as the trusted advisor in this role. You know about it. You now. You now know the only 2 people that know about this opportunity at this moment in time are you and them. So if they’re not ready to go then that’s on them if they are ready to go. They’re gonna go with you and you can’t really say fair than that cool.

46:10.89
Jeff
Um, yeah, yeah, well with all of that We hope you start having some meaningful productive client sales calls.

46:19.83
peteeveritt
Absolutely absolutely and we’d love to hear some of your success stories. We’d also like to hear some of the horror stories just because they’re always good things to talk about but not necessarily that we want you to have horror stories anymore. That’s not what I’m saying with that that that’s that’s all come out a bit wrong, but hopefully you get the.

46:31.53
Jeff
Hey. I feel Yeah well you know I Love a good horror Story. So Let’s be honest I don’t want them to happen I’m not glad that they happen. But if they exist can we talk about Them. Can we vent. Can we just laugh. You know what? I mean so you just inspired me I think we either need maybe like once a month or maybe maybe once a quarter like show where we just like.

46:38.47
peteeveritt
Just.

46:41.75
peteeveritt
Here.

46:55.56
Jeff
Vent about crazy situations or maybe like ah like a happy hour on Zoom with some of our customers where we just talk about the wild situations. We found ourselves in.

47:06.34
peteeveritt
We we could try. We could see how it goes we could see how it goes I did wonder now his his. We haven’t spoken about this yet. But I did wonder about whether any of our listeners would um, appreciate like an ask me anything type either show or Facebook live or something.

47:18.52
Jeff
Um, yeah.

47:23.96
peteeveritt
Where you know so if you have any questions that you would like us to address drop them to hello at seohive.com we’ll create a folder of them when we’ve got enough. We’ll we’ll maybe put a show together or ah as I say a something we’ll do a thing with them. Um, and I’ve said it online I’ve said it live now on the show. So Jeff has to agree.

47:37.71
Jeff
Um.

47:42.86
peteeveritt
Um, is it. It’s the law.

47:42.97
Jeff
We’ve got to do it now we have to do I think it’s a good idea and and we’ve gotten to really appreciate some of the questions and you know positive comments. We’ve gotten stuff but I’m not going to lie I’m a little greedy and I’d love more. So if you could hit like on the video if you’re watching this on Youtube subscribe to our podcast in Itunes or whatever. Whatever tool whatever program you’re using to listen to this stuff and we would greatly appreciate it reviews anything like that makes a world of a difference. It’s just like the same thing you want your clients customers to do for them.

48:09.70
peteeveritt
Well absolutely and and and just that thing with reviews like it was right back at the start I think I mentioned it in like episode 3 or 4 maybe if you are getting any value out of this show or any of the shows that you may have you may have heard us heard us produce over the last few weeks if you’ve got a 5 star review please go and put that on your podcast player of choice. Absolutely if it’s any less than that feel free to drop into an email to us and we’ll we’ll just keep it between us. You know I’m I’m happy with that arrangement happy to talk about any improvements we can have but that doesn’t need to happen in the reviews that’d be great.

48:42.14
Jeff
Ah, yeah, but he said.

48:47.29
peteeveritt
Cool, Well look this. This has been fun. Um I Hope people have found it. Ah found it. Useful Um, and I I don’t know what we’re talking about next time that was where I was going to go with this sentence I don’t know what we’re talking about next time. I Hope that’ll be fun and useful for you too. But if we don’t see you before we’ll see you in the next show. Latest.