A client once said these words to us on a call:
“Did I really just spend $25k on this?”
And my heart sank.
For one thing, I didn’t even know we had been paid that much. I was not on the original sales call. I was just the ‘tech guy’ doing the execution after the fact.
And it wasn’t like this was some big business that could handle $25k like nothing, it was a family vet in a suburb somewhere in the northeastern US.
I was already a little upset with the way this client was being handled. I mean, I think they must have been promised the world on the call. And he sold everything under the sun:
- overall marketing strategy
- new website
- Delighted
- SEO
- facebook ads
- graphics
- Emails
- Automation…
I’m sure there were more. It was the complete package.
Which would have been nice, but me was the one who had to deliver, and me It wasn’t all of those things. He was ‘techy’ and could cobble together a WordPress site, but he wasn’t a web designer at all.
I wasn’t a writer and I didn’t have time to create good content.
And the SEO? This was right after Penguin and Panda (if you remember all that) and the techniques we used before weren’t working as well anymore.
Email? I don’t know if that even happened. I can not remember
What I do remember…
me hated hear him say that.
Because he was right.
And I never should have sold him that whole “package.”
My philosophy for helping businesses with their marketing is this: It’s not my job to sell them as much as possible so my business can make money…
It’s my job to get them an ROI on the money they spend with me.
I know. What a novel concept.
And I think that moment has really shaped the way I run my own business today. Maybe to my detriment sometimes, but hey, I need to sleep at night.
Since then, I have only tried to focus on the things that really matter and give clients ROI.
I’m not trying to sell shiny new items or fads.
Just tried and tested truths that I see work over and over again.
There is a lot of garbage in the world of marketing. There is a lot of ‘FOMO’ (Fear of Missing Out) and shiny objects. And a lot of that can be really tempting.
But not everything really works.
In fact, most don’t.
And, to be honest, it’s not all really new either. It just presents itself differently with a new name.
When you have a problem with a campaign, your first instinct shouldn’t be to find a new tactic to fix it.
Your first instinct should be to go back to basics and make sure you’ve covered everything.