Thread: When to Reject Potential Clients?

An interesting article that I came across...
Getting Pooped Upon...and Six Other Reasons to Reject a Client By David Geer

My favorite:
"
Your fees are too high, they try to lowball you, or they are surprised you actually want money. "

I fully agree with that one. What's amazing is how many people want a custom-designed web site fully loaded with all of the top features, including a shopping cart, and think that this can be done with a $100 budget

In the SEO business, we get a lot of calls from people who do not really want to pay you for services. They just want me a take a quick look and tell them what is wrong with their web site.

I also get calls from people who want a web site, but cannot describe what they want and cannot define a goal for the site, but they want you to give them a quote.

I would add a #8: Irrational Expectations. I do a reality check with people who think they will make thousands of dollars almost immediately with a new web site. If they don't get the point, I sometimes reject the business because I know that they will be a royal pain in the future. I do spend a lot of time stressing how difficult it is to build a successful web site. If they start out acting like a flake, they are likely to get a lot flakier in the future.

I only worked for 2 clients.

The first one I charged them 500UKP for a blog with 20 posts, but they were happy since it stuck at #1 in G for a year.

For the next one I tried my hand at out-sourcing the graphics, but my artist got very stressed sticking to the schedule. I had this precise project plan in place

In the end I decided that I don't want to work for a client ever again unless it's for big fee.

Now I tend to suggest that we JV and share the profits if I get involved with anyone. So I don't charge a fee and develop a partnership instead.

So $100 budgets are crazy IMO for full web design.

Originally Posted by Andy101

Now I tend to suggest that we JV and share the profits if I get involved with anyone. So I don't charge a fee and develop a partnership instead.

Have you done this yet? Has it worked?

Over the years I have received dozens of calls from people who had a budget of zero, but wanted me to build a web site for them and they would agree to share the profits with me. Of course, I would be responsible for doing all of the SEO work and driving traffic, as well.

They almost always seem dumbfounded when I reiterate the projects as one where I do 100% of the work, but they will gladly share the profits with me. It all goes back to "irrational expectations."

Originally Posted by TopDogger

In the SEO business, we get a lot of calls from people who do not really want to pay you for services. They just want me a take a quick look and tell them what is wrong with their web site.

The going rate for keyword research, page optimization, seo and content recommendations is around $500. This is something like a proposal and a road map or what many people call a "quick look".

Have you done this yet? Has it worked?

This is what I am currently doing. It started out by me offering to help a marketer out with his script and the work was substantial so I didn't charge him and now we moved on to the JV project.

I think it should be worth it since I observed his sales from the launch that I helped him with and it may not have happened without my coding input.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

In the SEO business, we get a lot of calls from people who do not really want to pay you for services. They just want me a take a quick look and tell them what is wrong with their web site.

Problem is they plenty so call SEO expert charging sky high fees but they don't even know what they do (or this is their secret)

I reject a client only if it's pestiferous or untrustworthy.

Originally Posted by SonnyCooL

Problem is they plenty so call SEO expert charging sky high fees but they don't even know what they do (or this is their secret)

I think it also hurts when companies promise top 10 rankings for $100 to $200 dollars.

Originally Posted by bogart

I think it also hurts when companies promise top 10 rankings for $100 to $200 dollars.

agree .... so they must at least provide some information abt what they going to do, not i can get u to top ten for this fees ? or 1000 High PR link for XXX amount or Guaranty result (i off when i see guaranty word during the communication) ...