005 – Do I have to give up projects to run MRR Services?

00:02.21
Jeff
And I think we’re on hello and welcome to the W P Seo show I am your co-host Jeff I almost said your co-host pete because that’s what I hear every time when we record these but my co-host pete let me do the intro today. Hey Pete how you doing. Ah.

00:14.76
peteeveritt
Hey and if I was marking it now it was great. The end of the.

00:19.52
Jeff
I Mean yeah.

00:25.41
peteeveritt
Well welcome to the show. Everybody it’s ah it’s good to be. It’s nice to not have to think of an introduction and see the 3 2 1 counting down and think okay what the hell am I going to say.

00:33.67
Jeff
Oh I didn’t get a 3 2 1 count down on my end, you’re you’re not giving me all the technical um loopholes and shortcuts and cheat codes that you have over there on your side but now clearly I’m not the professional podcaster repeats a little bit more experienced than that. But anyway we can welcome to the show today. Bit of a question I’m I’m actually really excited about this one because um, it’s about Seo recurring services. We’re not going to talk anything really technical about Seo or anything today. Um, but you know Pete and I both have our own kind of agencies. Um I say kind of because mine’s a little bit different than everybody’s but. I’m looking forward to kind of getting into learning more about what you know what? Pete’s done in this situation or these cases and stuff. But anyway the topic today I’ll get to it is do you have to give up project-based work when you’re doing recurring services obviously recurring services are giant to both of our companies. Both of our businesses. Um, but you know you could definitely get bogged down with that. So I would love to hear kind of your thoughts on this pete if you’ve been in this situation before and then maybe I’ll contrast a bit.

01:39.50
peteeveritt
It’s it’s interesting that because so if I rewind my in my career about 12 years I was running I was really a freelancer but I was I was billing myself as an agency I was that one person agency kind of thing and my background’s in development. So. I didn’t I worked for a lot of designers building out this stuff. Um, and that was all project work and then I got headhunted for a job working an Ecommerce agency here in the U K um and my the job that I got headhunted for was to be their head of digital marketing and. Basically that meant that I had to grow the company’s recurring revenue so we had I mean that was an agency of it was 19 of us when I started and it was about 35 when I left and over two and a half years we’d grown the recurring from about. Fifteen Sixteen Thousand pounds a month to eighty one eighty two thousand pounds a month. We were just shy of the eighty three thousand pound Mark I know that because that would have been like a million a year and we were just underneath. It. So.

02:46.18
Jeff
I’m picturing you guys had like ah like a chart somewhere one of those thermometers that you color in every couple days you know did you have something like that in the office did you have an office did offices exist back then were those still a thing.

02:51.78
peteeveritt
Ah, ah, not not quite we oh there this we very much did have an office I had to commute about thirty miles a day or thirty miles each way at each day to to go at the office. And yeah, we were all under 1 roof and we even bought the office next door and knocked big holes through while I was there so to have 2 offices. Um, so yeah, it was all it was all very much bricks and mortar type type agency and we didn’t have the thermometer. We did have a a database that we.

03:13.66
Jeff
Um, who.

03:24.61
peteeveritt
Ran ah everything through that we’d built ourselves I say we they’d built it before I’d started there and that did have a a management screen which which did track it so we had a graph that you know very web agency E. It did Itself. We didn’t have to get the fell tips out. Um, but that also meant that you couldn’t hide from The. The harsh truth that sometimes the recurring went down instead of up. So um, yeah, that that was that but yeah, so I’ve seen it from both sides. So when I started the business that I run Now. So That’s the name of the agency and I’m not just saying so randomly in the middle of the sentence. But so dot dot dot.

03:57.66
Jeff
So dot dot dot which is part of your logo right? The dot dot.

04:03.15
peteeveritt
It is yeah so so my agency is called so digital communications. Ah different story about that won’t bo you with it but the whole premise of me setting up. This agency was that it was going to be based on a foundation of recurring revenue because of the benefits that that brings. Um. And you know you you’ve run maintain press now for what I’m going to say four or five years but I might be way out with that.

04:25.98
Jeff
I want to say it’s I want to say 5 think we might be on 6 now. Actually.

04:32.80
peteeveritt
Okay, and you know that’s that’s exactly the same that’s based on clients paying and recurring revenue and and there’s a whole load of security that brings with it if you can build it to a specific point. Um, and that point isn’t a monetary number. It’s It’s actually.

04:36.64
Jeff
Um, yep, yep.

04:50.13
peteeveritt
Basically your overheads if you can get take your take your recurring revenue save your taxes that you need to offer and still have enough to pay your but all your bills each month then that’s that’s your flexibility point right? there anything over that regardless of whether it’s recurring or whether it’s project work is pure profit and it is just.

05:08.95
Jeff
Um, yeah I think that’s a good way to phrase it. It is a lovely place to be I Um I feel weird I’ll be honest I have a little bit of like imposter syndrome when it comes to.

05:09.45
peteeveritt
Ah, lovely lovely place to be.

05:21.78
Jeff
Kind of talking about projects and stuff because I’ve put them on the backburn in the last few years because like you mentioned maintain press. It’s my my other business that I don’t run with you that you are ah 1 of our fabulous customers though we worked closely together for years. Um, but. That started as a side project because or as a side business or hustle or whatever because I was doing freelance you know project work like you did back in the day I was doing that nonstop but I was also I house had a 9 to 5 job. And so I took the side projects just for fun and I always looked at them as like pure profit like if I did a little website for somebody. You know it was usually an agency would pay us or to do like ah you know they do design and we’d build it out in wordpress or something or I would build it out in wordpress back then and you know whatever it was you know five hundred dollars thousand dollars depended on the site but like. I put that money in my pocket I spent it every time that was just like my free spending cash and then I had a 9 to 5 that you know paid the bills and you know I I was semi-responsible with so I’ve kind of never banked project work. You know for better or worse I just never gotten to that habit. Um. But now I want to say I shy away from it. But we’re just so focused on monthly services that we don’t really kind of seek out projects. You know we take them. Um, put them on calendar you know, usually we can jump on things in a relatively fast a relatively short amount of time and.

06:41.33
Jeff
We’ve got the team in place to kind of grow and expand if you know project work start to take off more if we need to and we’ve got freelancers. You know so the the bases are covered but that said you mentioned you know it takes away a lot of your time. You know when you start doing projects and stuff and and and I know before the show we were chattting a little bit. 1 of the things. I kind of always complain about this and I don’t want to be a downer negative or whatever but it doesn’t matter what deadline we have said whether it’s an internal one or an external with the client. Whatever the factors are something always comes into play and it’s like you know a client holds up content or whatever it is so. Banking on project work for me. Is it causes major anxiety because I like you know great. We should have this done by April thirtieth well we’ve got bills to pay on may first so you know if that doesn’t close on April thirtieth or the company decides to take ninety days to pay their invoice. You’re in a bad spot. So that’s why we’ve you know. And want to say transitioned but we definitely prefer and I onlyt want say prefer. But that’s why we rely on the monthly revenue of recurring revenue.

07:42.74
peteeveritt
absolutely absolutely look there’s there’s so many advantages to having recurring revenue. Not not least the fact that right here’s the scenario I see all the time when I’m dealing with agencies either through seo hive or through some coaching that I do and. That is that some people um I’m going to caveat this by saying some people are very good at making themselves look busy but generally speaking people that rely on project work. They know they have to Knuckle down and get the project done in order to get that invoice out at the other end. I always encourage them to maybe think about where their invoice points are but they yeah that’s that’s what they’re doing so you sell a project and then you’re encompassed by it or maybe you sell 2 or 3 projects but you’re then encompassed by them your open quotes full close quotes until. Those projects are cleared and those invoices are out and then you have to start worrying about the next sale and that’s that’s basically what the feast famine cycle is of project work. You’re busy when you have a project You’re not busy when you don’t and your income fluctuates between the 2 the advantage of recurring revenue is you make that one sale. But then they pay you every month presuming. You’re going to do monthly recurring right? You there are you know I have some clients that pay me quarterly. Yeah, that’s fine. That’s that’s an agreement that we have but they’re going to pay you over and over and over and over again and you don’t have to sell it again. Um, and here’s the here’s the.

09:12.91
peteeveritt
Big kicker with it I speak to a lot of agencies and they say like I’m working so hard I’m working every hour god sends and then I can’t make a sale and I just whatever happens I can’t seem to light break past the fifty sixty $ 70000 mark and. All honesty. This coaching that I’m doing with you. It’s like taking me into the red I’ve just not got the money by the time of taking the tax off it I just don’t know where to go and my answer to them is always the same. So if you’re doing like 60 or $70000 a year. That’s like 5 to. Six six and a half thousand dollars a month if you ah but it doesn’t come in like that it comes in peaks and troughs actually if you sell recurring services. It’s not as much work you can plan in when that works coming. And you only need eight and a half thousand dollars a month to hit 100000 throughout the year so actually it’s not value. Wise. It’s not that much more per month if you see if you take what you’re averaging at the moment and and roll it across but you can guarantee on it so rather than worrying about selling $100000 or pounds or whatever your currencyrencies of something just go and worry about selling that eight and a half thousand per month and figure it out from that and guess what you’re at 6 figures before you know it and then you can then you can grope from that. Um.

10:38.61
Jeff
Yeah, it. It definitely adds up quickly. I’m not going to say you’re going to be. You know, rich by focusing on and mmr or M I cannot say those 3 letters together. Ah but you know you can you can help build that stability there. Um. You Ah you said something that I was going to brush on and then I just distracted myself getting frustrated at my slight speech impediment there please please.

11:00.66
peteeveritt
Well, that just just just if I can jet which might help you remember it ah an mmr in this country is a vaccination that you get when you’re a kid. Ah.

11:09.71
Jeff
Yes, yeah here here as well here as well. We’re not gonna go into vaccine talk today. Ah this this could have been a really difficult episode because I almost said I’m so glad for the pandemic that we don’t have to go into offices anymore. But I am not glad for the pandemic I just want to be clear I’m not glad I just I am. I am thankful that remote work has kind of taken a front seat anyway, that’s all another episode there. Um, actually okay yes, it was. It was about the profit. So um, with projects.

11:41.33
Jeff
It’s such a. It’s such a big unknown right? I mean it could be a maybe maybe your’re niche down. Maybe you do 5 page brochure sites. You know exactly how much work’s going to go into there I had an rfp come across the desk the other day from from 1 of our clients and it was insane. Insane the technical things that they were looking at. And the best part was they said oh ah, some new things have come to light this week and they had this full giant technical breakdown and I just kind of went all that just came to light. This is scary as heck. But you’re looking at it and you’re going how much is all of this going to cost now I’m talking about them. How much is going to cost me and I realized when looking at it and going I don’t know.

12:16.49
peteeveritt
Um.

12:19.37
Jeff
I just don’t know you know so I I told them I said um, you know we’re not. They’re not really looking for an a huge proposal here. We’re not going to build out an rfp and spend all that time. Um, we can continue this conversation do a little discovery but I want to set the the ah set the kind of expectations now and I said this is at least you know? Ah. $10000 whatever was project that I quoted and I said if that’s in their ballpark. We can sit down have this talk. But if not let’s just all save everybody the time and you know that’s the thing you could do a $10000 project. But how much is it going to cost you if it cost you nine thousand dollars and six months of your time that was not a profitable project. And you just spent half the year losing money when you could have been hopefully doing it monthly and profiting with set costs and reasonable expectations and you would know you know probably you’re going to know what all your you know expenses are with your monthly recurring and all that’s going to be a lot less. Gonna be a lot more predictable less fluctuating.

13:15.61
peteeveritt
So If we get back to the topic at hand here which is I think I think we’ve probably done the selling of why Ummma is a good idea. But let’s get back to the topic. Do you have to stop doing project work to do monthly recurent revenue the simple answert to that is no. You don’t have to stop.. There’s a but though isn’t there which is but you have to make time for it in your calendar. So If you’re running your agency right now and all you have is project work. Maybe you have a few domain renewals or some hosting agreements or whatever. That’s that’s fine.

13:39.43
Jeff
Yeah.

13:51.33
peteeveritt
Buy ummr I’m not really talking about that stuff that’s kind of like service costs almost but the ah you know what what I’m talking yeah, yeah that’s that’s it exactly the things that so they’re not. They’re not like cheapest chips $20 domain renewals but they are that their work that you have to do each month.

13:58.90
Jeff
Um, we’re talking like care plans Seo plans things like that right? yeah.

14:10.31
peteeveritt
But they are at a on a recurring basis and if you’re if you’re doing that you’ve got to make the space in your diary for it now that that might mean you know when you sell the first one you know you might be able to say right? Okay well I need like two mornings a month for this so you can schedule that in the. In your diary and then you can move on you know and and that’s what you the the 2 mornings you want to work on it and then as you sell more you got to be a bit more flexible and and build this thing in now the the best if you’re a solo agency or a small team by far the best way of doing this is. Calendar blocking to to get going. You will outgrow that that method of doing it but you don’t need to go all into some weird like um, ah, gant chart type project management system in order to figure this out when you’re starting and you’ve only got a handful of clients. Ah, just just use a calendar or if you’re using ah a ah project management system like clickup like I mean we’re we’re very big clickup advocates. Um, but yeah, like clickup or like monday.com or like ah base camp or whatever it is just pop things in there in the diary facilities in there and that. That will serve you certainly to the point of let’s say 10 or 12 clients without without a problem once you start in bigger than that you do have to start making some considerations about factoring work in but that would be in order to get you out the gate. You don’t need anything complicated other than to make the time to actually.

15:40.17
peteeveritt
Do it because of course if you go and lose a client that is $400 a month. You’ve actually lost nearly 5 grand a year. So that’s you know you’ve really got to take care of your clients once you get them. They’re hard won but they’re valuable once you get them.

15:58.87
Jeff
Yeah, kind of going off of things earlier. We’re talking about the um, ah you know profit and stuff and I look at projects now as being basically pure profit because we’re not requiring it. You know what? I mean. Because they’re generally Speaking. We’re not attributing much of the much of the cost towards time unless we had to bring in a you know contractor or something like that. But for the most part I Still this probably isn’t the best habit to be and but I’m still kind of in that ooh. It’s bonus mode. Whenever projects come along. So yeah, you know, but it’s ah that’s how that’s how we deal with them’s how we enjoy them. It works well for us I Guess we’ve kind of carved out a you know setup that works or something but I’m glad that we don’t have to chase them. Ah, but I like when they come around.

16:44.73
peteeveritt
Absolutely absolutely and look it’s you’ve just got to take the responsibility with him. That’s the um, but you can forecast the work and because of that you can forecast your profit your profits completely and listen to our previous show which was about how to price recurring services. Um. You know you can build your profit into this so you know exactly what your costs are going to be. You know exactly how much money you’re going to make and once you’ve passed that breakeven point then you are empowered at that point you don’t need any more money now that’s not say you shouldn’t earn any more money but you don’t need it. So if a project comes along that isn’t a good fit or if a client comes along and you’re not happy about it or if there’s a project that doesn’t enthuse you then you don’t need to say yes and you know if you like the person but don’t like the project you might help them find somebody else to do it for them if. You don’t like the person or the project. You just say no, that’s not for me and you walk away and you can sleep easy at night that is the beauty of getting to that sweet spot. It Also means that you can start to make business decisions as your. Monthly recurring revenue Grows. So if you want to take on a new member of staff or um, you know can be anything from sort of a V a right through to actually somebody that’s going to come and work with you full time you know in your local area. Whatever it is. You can speech your accountant find out how much that’s going to cost what salary can you offer.

18:09.24
peteeveritt
Um, when you’re recurring can afford it then you stick the job ad out and that’s you know you can make all of those decisions based on your occurring revenue you want to take a holiday projects then stop or you work on holiday. Ah, but.

18:21.24
Jeff
He.

18:23.97
peteeveritt
I don’t know I misses Everett doesn’t really like it when I take a laptop on holiday. So um I have been known I yeah I when when we go on holiday I mean I do take my phone and I take an ipad with me normally but when we get there like normally my phone.

18:28.19
Jeff
Mrs. Everett’s looking out for you I like it. It’s good. It’s good.

18:42.30
peteeveritt
Days in the the place where we’re staying and if we’re going out anywhere. We take hers so that I’m not really contactable while while we’re out for the day and then I can check in at night if I want to and and you know and that kind of thing. But yeah, we don’t want the phone ringing while I’m on a hard earned holiday. It’s you know everybody likes vacation. That’s. You got to you got to work to live not live to work.

19:03.19
Jeff
Um, yeah, it’s been a while for me we have. We had 1 scheduled right? when covid started and that was that’s kind of kicked things. Ah.

19:11.96
peteeveritt
Yes.

19:14.30
Jeff
Change the change your traveling plans around I Guess we’ll say so we’re still trying to get back to there. But I mean we you know we get ah we get out and about in our area but we haven’t been ah been abroad in a long time. So.

19:25.00
peteeveritt
Although you live in a far bigger country than me I mean I can I can drive abroad where you.

19:29.87
Jeff
That’s true. Yeah, didn’t you went to France or they you’re like I’m just could go drive to France and what like.

19:35.74
peteeveritt
Ah, now I did I didn’t need a train that went through a tunnel for twenty two miles of it I’ll be honest, technically the train did the drive to France bit and what’s cool with that is when you pull up in the train in the euro tunnel. There’s these like ah there’s easy like um. You know the old like ticker tappe signs that you you sometimes get like stadiums and that kind of thing they’ve got those every like I don’t know five meters in the carriages that you you have to drive in and on the train and and when you when you get on the thing that’s going across says relax. We’ll drive.

19:52.30
Jeff
Um, yeah.

20:06.19
peteeveritt
Which always makes me smile.

20:07.70
Jeff
Ah, ah ooh that’s a good tagline for a monthly recurring revenue business right? there like a care plan or relax. We’ll drive your website there. You go first person that wants a coin net. Let us know so we can you know post it. It’s been taken. But that’s a free one for somebody.

20:14.58
peteeveritt
Yeah, absolutely.

20:23.47
peteeveritt
Ah, so yes, that’s you know the yeah, you’ve you’ve got to you got to be responsible with it but look when I set up so my my drive day one month one day one in voice 1 was to build the recurring revenue of the company to cover cost and I did that in seven months by the seventh month I’d was earning enough to pay myself to pay my salary every month and cover all the taxes and and whatever and then I could start to employ people. And by 11 months I’d employed my wife to start working with me because I needed some admin help and and then she’s she’s a writer so she could help out with some of the seo stuff and then I employed a developer and then I employed a designer and so so it built.

21:02.10
Jeff
Yeah.

21:15.63
peteeveritt
And ah, but all of those decisions that I then I got an office which I got rid of in covered. Um I got a nice car. Ah yeah, so all of those things were decisions made on recurring revenue.

21:28.11
Jeff
I don’t remember how long it took me to get to that kind of that break even or you know that point where you were like okay this is it. We can do this full-time but I know that when I hit that number it was the same month that my 9 to 5 job I had for 17 years was winding down like it was when we got told.

21:42.56
peteeveritt
Me.

21:45.81
Jeff
Hey, we’re going to go and be shutting things down. We have about I think six more months but you know you guys should probably get your affairs in order and I was like perfect I just did this morning. That’s so great. What what awesome timing I mean thank you? Okay, all right see you guys. I mean like I was the only one that left that like wasn’t like in tears because I was like I literally just got a new job today. That’s so weird I don’t know how that worked out but but that’s you know and I’m and I’m not trying to brag or laugh I just laughing at that. But that is what recuring revenue can help you build. It can give you that stability you know for. You if you’re a freelancecr or solopreneur building your business or your agency. You know if you’re already established and not doing it I still meet so many agencies and freelancers and contractors and stuff that build a site say goodbye and don’t you know, even want to put clients on on any sort of recurring services. We actually just. Onboarded one that had a full off-boarding document and taught them everything to do with their website including how to do all the maintenance and everything and they looked at that and went. We don’t want to do this. Let’s hire you. it’s not that bad but it’s not their wheelhouse. You know so it’s kind of funny that there’s still people not capitalizing on this so you know if you’re not and.

22:45.91
peteeveritt
Yeah.

22:53.11
Jeff
Assuming you don’t have a reason not to be it’ll consider focusing on it and you could still take project work.

22:56.12
peteeveritt
So absolutely absolutely So here’s his then the thing let’s let’s use this as the coming into land section of the show. What are.

23:04.40
Jeff
Sure you.

23:09.90
peteeveritt
What are the that’s for people that aren’t watching this on our Youtube channel and if you aren’t subscribed to a Youtube channel go to seohive.com.co/youtube and it’ll forward you straight on that make sure you hit the subscribe button and but what are the things you need to be careful of when selling recurring services. Have you got have you got anything that springs to mind.

23:32.70
Jeff
Ah, scope or you know what? I mean ah the the product that you are selling and we read something earlier I think probably we were chatting earlier but um, what was the quote it was selling the selling the the goal.

23:47.72
peteeveritt
Or selling the process.

23:48.34
Jeff
Rather than the product selling the service rather yeah, selling the process. Thank you That’s what it was um and you know and that’s really what it is so for us, it’s you know website hosting maintenance I mean I’m sorry not for Seo I but for my agency at maintain press. It’s ah. You know hosting its website maintenance keeping the clients out of there. So I mean unless they want to obviously and their care plans. You know doing their content updates and all that fun stuff. It’s really simple, but that’s what we sell. That’s what we promise and then that way when something changes. It’s okay, you know what? I mean if we change our hosting platforms. No big deal. We didn’t sell you on hosting on x server. We sold you on. We’re taking care of you. Okay, um, you know we can do that so it’s the process that we sell for the most part. Um, and. If you don’t do that. This was the whole question was what what do you want to be afraid of right or we should be be weary of and that is not doing this so that it’s you know, wide open and I just made it sound really wide open. You know to rephrase this one for me pete. Ah.

24:46.70
peteeveritt
Well, ah, well no so I think no, we’re not no this. This is all going in the main show. So I think I think there’s 2 things. There’s 2 things for this from a from a provider’s point of view which maintain presses which seo hive is yeah I mean we we.

24:52.92
Jeff
We’re not going to edit this by the way. Ah.

25:06.30
peteeveritt
Predominantly work on recurring services. That’s that’s say exactly what seo hive is there to do is to help agencies build recurring revenues through delivering high quality seo services. That’s literally what it says on our website that is our kind of mantra. However. So as a service provider. Yeah, you know we do have some one off products but actually we are trying to get agencies onto a recurring deal as fast as we can because that’s going to help them build recurring deals as fast as they can and that said when you’re in the agency seat now we. As the provider we’re kind of shielded from the client a little bit. You know our client is the agency but we are delivering work for their client. So we call we call our clients our clients agency partners which means we can then term the client the end client as the client site. So. Yeah, we have that level of sort of protection. But as the agency you don’t necessarily have that you’re dealing face-to-face with the client week in week out month in month out and of course if something goes wrong, they’re going to shout at you. They’re not going to shout at us because you’re dealing with the communications. So ah, you know you’ve got to make sure that the clients are people that you’re prepared to work. Work with so my agency in so in the U K between 65 and 70% of our revenue is recurring services and that other 30% which is way into our profit window. Well I was looking at this earlier um earlier with my business partner actually so so far this year we’re running at 52% Profit Margin

26:35.64
peteeveritt
So you know anything that you know the the final 30% of our turnover is is basically a good chunk of the profit. That’s all it is is profit um because everything else is costed and paid for with the recurring services. So I’m not saying that to brag I’m just. Being honest that that’s where we are so because of that I make sure that we use some of those ad hoc projects as ways of vetting clients in the past I’ve I’ve frequently said that. Selling a retainer to a client. You’ve just met is a bit like getting married on the first date you you know you have no idea whether you can actually help these people you have no idea whether you like them you have no idea whether they like you whether they’re going to fit in with your processes whether they’re going to be a right pain in the ass. You have no, you know they could be anywhere on that spectrum and you just don’t know so by having a couple of gated projects gated services that are ad hoc that you can use as sales like stepping stones into the retainer. Gets everybody the chance to like try out everybody and make sure that it’s a good fit and if it isn’t then you can walk away with your head held high There’s no swearing. There’s no nasty emails. There’s none of that you can just you can just get on with life and move on to the next one but if you do sell that retainer straight away as the agency.

28:01.00
peteeveritt
You are running the risk of potentially working with people that you don’t like.

28:05.00
Jeff
You are so much more eloquent with this than I am sometimes but I will add to that because you helped me get back on track. So um, you know? Yeah, you are ah getting a chance to kind of screen the client as you’re saying. But also you’re getting the opportunity to set. Standard set the bar you’re getting a chance to you know, put your processes in place. Let them know what the rules are what how is it going to work. So theoretically you know I mean you could start with somebody that maybe wasn’t playing by the rules very well at first and you can steer them by the end of the project to being a good client I mean I have seen that done. I’ve also said okay, thanks after a few projects so I’ve seen it go both ways but you know what I mean I’ve definitely seen clients have started out rough around the edges and then you can you can get to that stage with them.

28:49.35
peteeveritt
Oh absolutely and look that’s not by far. It’s not a foolproof system. You know I’ve I’ve ended up with clients on retainers that a few months in I’ve said look this this isn’t happening but I’m now talking about maybe 1 or 2 a year rather than 1 or two a month.

29:03.78
Jeff
Um, yeah.

29:08.22
peteeveritt
Which is a far different place to be in. Um, so you you know, very quickly. My process is if if now this is just for brand new people that we’ve not built their website. We’ve never worked with them before etc, etc. They come to me and they say hey Pete we’d like you to help us with Seo. Okay, yeah, we can do that. Well, the first thing we’re going to do is an seo health check and the cost for that is this and this is what it includes and we’re going to run through that and then we’ll we’ll report back to you and we’ll you know we’ll move on to the next step and then the next step is a keyword researching mapping exercise which means that we know we can then scope at the end of that. Exactly how much work we need to do in order to actually get you to rank for terms that are going to help you and the cost for that is x and it’s more than the seo health check. But it’s yeah you know it’s actually more than the monthly retainer is going to be but it’s it’s building in price and when we get to the end of that so that’s the 2 projects. If I then want to work with the client I can then offer them a retainer and if I don’t want to work with them then I can say here’s your keyword research and mapping this is your content plan. It’s been great working with you. Um, unfortunately, we’re we’re not going to fulfill this one but you can take this and send it to any agency that you like yeah.

30:21.70
Jeff
Here’s your keys now I I think I go crash your card That’s God ah.

30:23.50
peteeveritt
Here’s your keys go crash the car you sell.

30:30.53
peteeveritt
Ah, well I’m only saying that if I think I can’t help him so.

30:35.43
Jeff
Um, you don’t you don’t stop me in my tracks with with ah thoughts like that very often but that one that one really? Ah, my color’s changing on my video camera because the the white balance is changing because I’m so red right now from that That’s hilarious. Oh My goodness. Um I’m pretty sure I know the answer but I assume that you know the start of the project you are so you are focused on that recurring plant the end of it. You’re planning on it but you at least you just give yourself the flexibility of being able to you know, kind of reassess that decision.

31:04.45
peteeveritt
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely and you know there’s some clients we might offer both products to at the same time and maybe give them a bit of a discount if there maybe a referral referral from a friend or something that that we’ve already had a bit of a tip off that we might be a good fit. And there’s other people that we actually might want to slow it down and say you know what? I’m not ready to say no yet. But maybe we could just do something else and you know whether that’s build out some landing pages or something on there. You know or or restructure part of their theme or whatever it might be in order to put an extra project stage in there. Um, but yeah, we. And look as I say this is only for people that we haven’t worked for in the past if we built somebody a website last year and they’ve now talking to me about Seo great. Yeah let’s talk about Seo. Let’s let’s jump into it. But it also means we get to get our hands dirty on their website in their business understanding how they work. Um, we can ask some awkward questions as well. We we had a guy that sold climbing frame equipment and he’d bought in these molds. Everything worked like a honeycomb and you could buy like different packages and they all sort of slotted together because they were honeycombs shaped and but he only had one set of molds and you know there there was a 14 day lead time. If you placed an order. So I said right? So if I place an order today. It’s fourteen days before delivery. Yeah, um, so what happens to the person that places the order tomorrow when’s their delivery. Oh fourteen days after that and his business partner noticed him and said no no, it’s ah twenty eight days

32:35.42
peteeveritt
Because they have to build much. Well, it’d be twenty seven days because they’ll be one day into my order. So I’d have thirteen days left and they’d have to wait for the molds to be free before they could start manufacturing the next one. So you’re looking at like twenty seven days right so then if somebody places an order the day after them, you’re now looking at whatever that is. Ah, forty one days yeah so actually you, we’re not ready to do seo yet for you because if we get you too many leads. You’re just going to be getting bad reviews. Go sort your production out. Yeah that’s it. So you know.

33:03.48
Jeff
You get them 1 or 2 leads a month they’re done for I mean that’s a I get that’s a good situation to be in. But I think they quickly are realizing the limits of their business plan right? yeah.

33:14.00
peteeveritt
Absolutely, but we wouldn’t know that about them. We could have dove straight into selling them Seo on day one and got them 5 leads a month just to find that their pipeline was then getting thirty days longer each month to the point where they’re now saying right? I’m taking an order now that I can’t deliver for six months well nobody’s going to wait six months for a slide for their garden so you know what’s what’s the point.

33:40.33
Jeff
This just reminded me it was a couple years ago and I might get some of the details mixed up. But so feel free to fill me in if you remember it better than me. But I think it was our our previous content manager came to us and he was so bombed that we lost a client that had just signed up with seo hive like two or three months earlier he was like hey you know guys really sorry we just lost his client you know and said well why he’s well I don’t know let me go back and ask and so he went back and asked and he came back and he said we got them too much business. They were overwhelmed and they’re putting everything on pause and it was like awesome. Okay, yeah, ah.

34:09.70
peteeveritt
Yeah, yeah, yeah, can can we have your cancellation as a case study or a testimonial or something because that’s that’s what we need. Yeah that that’s true blue. Yeah, that happened.

34:16.73
Jeff
Yeah, Ah, yeah, we’re we’re so mad at you for doing too. Well but no, but you’re right if so that was a situation where that agency obviously that we were our agency partner in that situation lost out on that recurring revenue because you know they. I Guess they weren’t aware of really that same exact thing. What their limitations are going to be how much business can they handle and that’s so funny. That’s that’s honestly, not really my thinking. My thinking is.

34:36.72
peteeveritt
Me.

34:47.80
Jeff
Let’s do it. You know what? I mean just throw everything until you burn out and crash which is obviously horrible and I realized that but like that’s just that’s my motivation when I get going on things like that. So.

34:55.16
peteeveritt
But you you. But then again, you’re in the you’re in the supplier side of things you you know you’ve been running maintain press now for five to six years as you say so you’re very much ingrained in you’re the supplier you have that safety barrier of the agency.

35:09.57
Jeff
Um, yeah.

35:11.30
peteeveritt
But look at seo hive we do exactly the same thing you can buy audits from us. We present out a set of audits today to somebody that place an order last week. Um, just because they’ve never worked with us before and you know for $47 they could try us out see what the process was like and move on from there. Um.

35:26.48
Jeff
Same concept. Yep paid audits Paid Discovery Paid Whatever it’s all the same concept.

35:32.94
peteeveritt
Yeah, they can try us out and you know hopefully that’ll turn into a recurring client in the next few weeks who knows um, but you know our team can run audits. You know till they’re blue in the face in that respect you know we we could turn out hundreds of these things if we needed to. Um, least we don’t have a 14 day lead time on them. So.

35:52.42
Jeff
Ah, don’t Jinx Usw No I Just can.

35:54.11
peteeveritt
I So look I think I think we’ve basically about covered this one? No, you don’t have to give up projects to do recurring revenue. In fact, it’s healthy, not to but you do have to make sure that you can make the space in your diary and in your schedule and with your team in order to deliver them.

36:09.62
Jeff
Yeah, definitely gonna be more difficult to focus on sometimes if you don’t have those you know those limit those barriers in place or those plans in place but they can still help and and then at the same time if you don’t want to do projects is there. Not your thing no problem. No sweat.

36:25.47
peteeveritt
Absolutely well I think that brings this episode to a wrap Olin to say that if you haven’t the plane landed. Yeah, bring this into lamp.

36:29.74
Jeff
The plane landed right? is that what you said earlier? Yeah, if you were watching on Youtube you’ see our cool little hand airplanes that we’re landing right now.

36:38.80
peteeveritt
I know but it was your it was your sound effect that went with it that was the ah the bit that might sound a bit weird on a podcast if people can’t see it. Oh yeah, you did some kind of like oh sound now I’ve done it Biden didn’t do the hands so now now it doesn’t matter whether you’re watching it or or listening to it anyway.

36:45.30
Jeff
I didn’t know I made a sound effect now I’m embarrassed. Ah.

36:57.13
Jeff
Tricked. Yeah.

36:59.11
peteeveritt
Ah, anyway, ah so other than to say if you haven’t liked or subscribed this show in your podcast player of choice or you haven’t left us a review please feel free to to go and do that and what would really mean a lot to me and Jeff would be if you are finding these shows useful if you could go and share share it with just one other person that. Maybe uses wordpress for their website. Maybe he’s running an agency. Um you know, ah that they’re the they’re the kinds of people that we want to listen to this. So if you could go and share it with us that well for us that would really be amazing and yeah, that be awesome. Latest.

37:29.80
Jeff
Please thank you and we love you.