Dealing with Clients....

JudderMan

I have lots of clients, but one or two are so annoying. They 'think' they know everything and change things I do to their on-page SEO, read up things on Digital Point or something, go to seminars in London where idiot 'gurus' think they know what they're talking about and they get sucked in by it all - then they whinge when their site isn't ranking any more (after them changing things or their web designers messing up the site but I get the blame for it). Then I have to deal with it all, explain why these 'gurus' are wrong and are stuck in 2002, and waste my precious time speaking to them....everyday it seems.

Drives me mental --> 2014 is the year of getting rid of fussy clients and making more time for my own projects...I just got rid of two clients in September as I literally couldn't work with them any more.

[/rant]

gooner

@judderman - I hear ya on that one. Like you said - Drop them!
I also find it's the cheapest clients that demand the most and give me the most grief. Sod's law i suppose.

JudderMan

You're right, it's the company that pays the least that I'm on about....boils my piss.

gooner

There's a few niches out there that are quality to work with, "blue collar" or working class type niches, where the company structure is smaller and you can easily get hold of the man or woman making decisions, they don't know or care about what you do or how you do it - They just want results... You know what i mean @judderman.

Those are the ones i go after now.

JudderMan

Yup, I hear ya - already have a few of those and know what you mean.

My goal is to have 5 income streams (all based around websites/SEO): my own projects, my own projects offline/online, local SEO website building and selling/renting, client sites and authority e-commerce. I have 3 of those so far, once I get one more making regular income then I'll drop client sites (they pay the bills at the moment) and instead of investing money made from the other income streams I'll save/use for bills......but I'm so impatient.....

btw, just bought a dedi will let you know the stats once it's up and running....it's a "little" faster than the one I mentioned to you a while back ....

gooner

Haha your plan is pretty much identical to mine mate. And believe it or not i just got a new dedi too!!

Yea please let me know how it goes, i'll do the same with mine.

JudderMan

Well Mr Gooner, I got rid of four more clients. Happy as Larry over here. I'm keeping only the best of clients, ones that just want a ranking report at the end of each month and the odd phone call/meeting a few times a year. That suits me. Two clients were for 2.5 years. Never felt better letting them go.

Stress levels down. 

spunko2010

I didn't do SEO for clients but I did run a software company that was B2B and the clients were horrid, for the most part. Ever increasing demands for less money. In the end I got so fed up of it all I decided to test out an idea I'd had for a few years, and luckily it worked so I killed off the other business gently over 6 months and increased my efforts on the new business. Then I got into SEO and never looked back. I'd never work with clients again, I have literally zero contact with anyone apart from my affiliate account manager 2-3 times a week by email. No customers, no phonecalls, it's almost perfect. @JudderMan if you have any business ideas that you've been willing to try, I'd say go for it.

JudderMan

Awesome Spunko that sounds like bliss

I have my outsourcerors building sites and have just launched another 5 last week, so they are my new "clients". I've always dealt with people and always got frustrated with them and could never find a good enough web designer, but now I have two that are very good and affordable.

I am going to turn my SEO site into a 'package' purchase type thing with no contact. All automated emails etc, no phone calls. If they want link building they pay for it - if they stop, the service stops. If they want a hands-on approach they can go somewhere else. I've wasted so much time in meetings it's unreal. 

spammasta

I have watched @JudderMan evolve from just a content person to this guy who is on payday loans right now(BHT say what!).I am really happy to see this guy make a killing

JudderMan

Haha Cheers man. Yep, made some big changes. Unfortunately I'm not killing it in payday loans but have made a few sales/loans. It's purely for a laugh that site, to see how much it makes, so far so good at the moment. I do think with the PDL update and me launching the site a few weeks before I got some traffic but it's tailed off now. Pushing it harder now.