Thanks to a small team and a lot of publicity, SEOmoz turns away a significant amount of work - sending folks to specific references or our recommended list or, occassionally, recommending they hire in-house SEO help. We're lucky in that we get to picky about the folks we choose to work with - some of the reasons for turning away business can include:
Obvious factors like:
- Size of the company/project/budget
- Industry focus
- Competitiveness of Niche Compared to Potential Profitability
- Conflicts with existing or past contracts/non-competes
And some less mainstream ones:
- Quality of Linkbait Opportunities (since this has become a primary technique for us, we tend to choose clients that can use it effectively)
- Ideological Affiliations (politics, beliefs, associations, etc.)
- Background of the Company or Principal Executives (this most often applies to folks seeking reputation management campaigns)
- Personality match or conflict with the primary contacts
I wondered if other companies do this too, so I've put together a quick poll. If you provide search marketing services (or business services of any kind), I'd love to get your (anonymous) feedback. Note that I removed a few from the above as I felt everyone turns away business based on size/price and competitiveness vs. potential (note that multiple choices are allowed):
I'd love to discuss this more as its a fascinating topic to me - client selection seems to be both an art and a science, and I'm not sure if it's something we've always done a good job with... How about you?
The biggest factor in turning down a client (for me) is lack of time. Being a one-woman-SEO, who spends most of my time working for my own sites, it's rare that I take on a client. When I do, it's usually because of some emotional reason...maybe I felt sorry for the client for some reason. And it's usually for a short-term contract or consultation. I can usually squeeze in consultations, so that tends to be what I do most often. If they need more than that, I usually refer them on.
One unmentioned reason: "Internal company politics"
If there is a sense that our recommendations will not be implemented - I don't want this client. I want every client to implement & succeed, so we can make another source of referrals. I don't want our reports/recommendations printed & stacked somewhere on the shelf with old software boxes on a dusty shelf.
Has anyone turned any clients away for this reason, or is this just me? :)
Good addition to the list, mvarnas. I'd agree that we've struggled with this as well.
I'm a one man band and can usually smell a bad egg on the first approach.
I don't make nearly as much as I should be either :(
There are options to consider before turning clients away---------Even if one does NOT want to take on a complete SEO campaign---------------there are other services that can be offered:
■ SEO-PR = Creating Press Releases and SEOing them - and submitting them to the most appropriate outlets
■ Creating a How To Site - with SEO 101 and 201 and referring them there - (what is in it for me?....well sell AdWords on it)
■ Putting together a Low cost Search Engine Submission Script/Program (like one well known firm) - and offering it to them (What is in it for me? Adding Link to this site text, if you like this program - and BOY did it work for several companies) ■ And most important to
Just last night I got an email from a potential client that had a racist line in it and in ALL CAPS for emphasis. It definately was an indicator of how to procede (slow and careful). Talk about first impressions!
They were relating a very bad experience they had similar to what Gillian mentioned above. I don't want to exclude them because they are still in the pain of the moment but I also don't want irrational clients that freak out - especially when it comes to SEO and the occasional bouncing SERP.
I have passed on deals because the personality and drive wasn't there. If the client isn't committed why should I be? Or put another way, if the client isn't interested in doing the work needed to be sucessful, I should be committed for taking the project.
really what it comes down to is if I think I can be of service and if I think I am being set up to win or set up to fail. If its the last option, no thanks.
We pass on most of the following opportunities:
1. Individual real estate agent sites (too competitive)
2. Already have client in same industry
3. Mortgage sites
4. Generic gift sites
5. Then the obvious, porn, gambling, multi-level marketing or anything illegal.
There is a final category and that is people who your intuition tells you not to take them on. These are usually people who waste an enormous amount of your time. I've become pretty good at detecting these types of individuals having had enough bad experiences in the past where I told myself, "I should have never taken on this client. What a pain in the..."
David - You and I are on the exact same page. I've been in that same position on the phone or over email and gotten that tingling on the back of your neck that says "this guy is gonna make things very hard for me."
I also remember the years when we had no choice but to take on any project that came our way - very tough times, and I can solidly say that our performance for those types of clients never yielded the level of results I could be proud of.
Heck - So long as we are baring our souls here... let's share the whole truth, Rand:
Several years back, we lost nearly $100k (and mounds of extremely precious time that could have been used to make us money on other projects) on a client we took "because we needed to and COULDN'T say no".
It was much worse than the level of results not being what we hoped for because we didn't have a cooperative, eager client. It was an excruciating disaster at the worst possible time for us.
That episode also taught us a lesson we will never forget - no matter how desperate things are today, the right client will make things better. The wrong client will bleed you like a can of hungry leeches when we you can least afford to lose blood.
Re: "right" / "wrong" clients and the consquences, those are true words of wisdom.
Spot on Gillian. No matter how desperate you are you're better off not taking on the wrong client. The effort is always better spent working on bringing in the right clients.
You are absolutely right Gillian - the biggest problem though is lasting long in business till you have the experience to spot the client-from-hell.
And it's a problem that afflicts every service provider whether you're a copy writer, a graphic designer or even a coder.
Unfortunately even when you have been in business for quite some time you can still sometimes get caught (does it sound like I'm speaking from recent experience here? :( )
I don't think we did any better than break even with a recent job for a client who has yet to grasp the concept that now the job is finished we're not going to do any more work for him ... EVER!
Stuart
As a market strategy, I have passed on mid-to-large size businesses' projects -- not because they didn't seem profitable, but because I think the small business niche is going to grow, and I'm trying to position our company to have mindshare there.
The hardest part I find in this business is being the owner and defining a policy of what types of business you will and won't do from an ideological standpoint (I have talked with dozens of people and still ask people quite often).
So here is my breakdown
YES-Size of the company/project/budget NO-Industry focus YES(When they want to remake eBay, otherwise the small business market is more a matter of getting inital results, which usually last long, rather than ongoing work keeping results.)-Competitiveness of Niche Compared to Potential Profitability NOT YET-Conflicts with existing or past contracts/non-competes NO-Quality of Linkbait Opportunities (since this has become a primary technique for us, we tend to choose clients that can use it effectively) YES(About 5% of jobs are turned away over this)-Ideological Affiliations (politics, beliefs, associations, etc.) NO-Background of the Company or Principal Executives (this most often applies to folks seeking reputation management campaigns) NO-Personality match or conflict with the primary contacts
On a side note, for tips related to the small business SEO / SEM niche which I'm hoping to develop by winning a scholarship, you can check out a very insightful article here:
https://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2006/10/the-u...
Thanks,
Ben
The most common thing for which we "turn away" prospects is not being able to invest in the service. For instance, if a company can't spend at least $2,500/month on paid search advertising, they should (IMHO) be managing the effort internally.
I'm not a big fan of the individual consultants who manage fifty (or more) small clients at once, so we generally do our best to point such companies to resources where they can learn to manage paid search properly themselves.
We've had a couple of cases like this where the company came back to us later down the road because they had grown to the point where outsourcing made sense.
Brian Combs Apogee Search
If you are a one man band then time is crucial and it is very important to filter potential clients very quickly.
All it takes is a few minutes on the phone or an exchange of emails to ascertain if:
1. You can't actually help them for whatever reason. 2. They are competing with existing or past clients. 3. They do not have sufficient funds. 4. You would not enjoy working with them.
If they pass through the filter then you can afford to invest some more time.
Learning to say 'no' and to say it early is one of the most important things in running a business.