As the landscape has changed from recent algorithmic updates, so did the model of how agencies and clients interacted. Some engagements have shifted from full-blown promotion to damage control, cleaning up fallout from past engagements, establishing new baselines, and auditing internal client activities.

It’s difficult to establish trust

With each new engagement we have to earn a client’s trust, and it’s not getting any easier. This is often the result of a campaign gone awry or past tactics done without full disclosure that resulted in a negative performance. Regardless of a client’s past relationship with a search marketing partner, trust is a necessity. We are tasked with marketing digital properties in constant flux due to algorithmic updates, and are expected to not only stay afloat, but increase performance, which can make for a variety of difficult situations and decisions. And, clients are putting their neck on the line for us to increase growth in an uncontrolled environment.

That’s a heck of a lot of trust on both sides!

Half of the battle with building trust boils down to setting expectations. Clients need results, and as an agency we are tasked with providing recommendations, strategies and efforts within a pre-defined scope of hours or cost. Getting these expectations nailed down at the start of discussions is essential. How do you effectively set client expectations?

Start with the pitch

While Outspoken Media grows a majority of our business through referrals from existing clients; pitching new business through phone calls, meet and greets, presentations and RFP’s is all part of the process. That shiny proposal or presentation with ranking, traffic, and conversion projections is a necessity–clients ask for it, procurement demands it.

Search marketers, consultants and agencies are used to promoting, validating and defending our expertise. How else can a client pick the agency that best fits their needs? When the expectations you set get inflated, this is when relationships hit trouble. Trust goes both ways; let’s not kick off our relationship with one of us cheating on the other.

This is the first step in building trust–setting the stage for what is achievable even if it goes against what clients think can happen (or think they deserve) within a given timeframe. This is also the timeframe for setting your expectations on what the client will be responsible for internally. Implementation delays of recommendations and legal approvals can wreak havoc on delivering results in a timely manner. Getting these issues ironed out before a formal statement of work is signed or within the project kickoff will ensure both parties are held accountable. Knowing who is responsible for each piece throughout the delivery and approval process will help expedite any roadblocks.

Get to the point

Clients often don’t have the time to address internal questions about search performance, algorithmic updates, or why certain campaigns aren’t working as fast as some would expect. That’s our job. They are busy wearing multiple hats, managing numerous digital properties, and trying to get internal resources allocated to make their efforts a success. This is where pushback and campaign lulls set it.

The key is to not to take this as a burden, but an opportunity to support your clients. Take the necessary steps to make them aware their investment in your agency was worthwhile and that you can be tapped to support their findings, or answer questions that are out of their comfort zone. Probably one of the most valuable and least addressed areas of an engagement is proactive education.

Investing in client education can help make them the internal champion, an added proponent for the benefits of search marketing and the value behind your work. I’m not talking about training clients, but rather weekly updates about changes in the search landscape and how those changes could impact their business. Find out when they have internal meetings or 1:1’s with their direct reports and arm them with updates about search and recent wins. Identify areas of importance or topics that resonate well with their internal teams, provide information that makes your client an expert within their organization and bring some added insight they may not be aware of.

Knowing the internal hurdles they face on a daily basis and aligning the recommendations to back their strategy can have immense success.

Trust and success are built upon small wins

Search marketers love finding silver bullets–that core set of recommendations, glitches or missed opportunities that can have a profound impact on the success of your client. Getting those core issues resolved is another hurdle all together, especially if you haven’t built relationships with the individuals or teams responsible for resolving them. Without trust, or at least an introduction on how you can help, you are just another consultant adding to someone’s increasing workload.

One of my past e-commerce clients had a dedicated person responsible for managing the site’s robots.txt and XML sitemap. This individual was organizationally segregated from the digital marketing team. A five minute fix involved a written functional requirement document, three meetings and a handful of internal approvals. It was an uphill battle for a simple fix that would also curb an increasing amount of errors that were getting indexed that the client’s technical team didn’t know about.

Rather than following the established chain of command that wasn’t resulting in any progress, we found out who was responsible for making the changes and gave them a call. We communicated that implementing our request would also resolve a few critical issues caused by a web application and that one fix would be mutually beneficial. In the end we gained trust, and recommendations that didn’t require more than 16 hours of development resourcing were given the green light. We learned we could build trust by framing the conversation through the lens of wanting to help, as opposed to highlighting a bunch of problems and parading them through the IT department. Ultimately, providing the client’s team with education and insight on fixing a critical issues put them in a good light.

When clients don’t trust your recommendations you feel defeated, so you need to establish that trust right away. Lobbing recommendation after recommendation over the proverbial fence rarely has much benefit, and the tone in which you make suggestions can cause delays. Your value and expertise spans more than an audit or strategy deck. Talk to your clients, find out what can help them in their role, and most importantly, be honest about what realistically needs to happen to meet their short and long-term goals.

It happened over Facebook, coffee, and early morning conversations.

After spending my first four years in SEO at another local SEO company and six years at a large digital agency in NYC managing and directing a group of highly talented SEO’s, I decided to look for a change. I just didn’t know what that change was going to involve.

What I did know:

I was willing to take a leap of faith and I wanted to not only grow personally and professionally, but to help build something and hopefully lend some of the experience I’d picked up over the years. I didn’t want a rigid set of guidelines on how to approach a client engagement, standard buckets of deliverables, or working under a set of unrealistic expectations. I wanted to work with talented people in a fun environment, to be generally excited, and to feel good about the clients I work with each day.

Simple enough, right? When looking for a job in SEO, money, perks, vacation, stock, benefits, and profit sharing are all important, but after those wants are met, what are the criteria for fulfillment?

Finding what you want is rarely easy, and it often involves change. Change sucks; it’s difficult and downright terrifying to step out of your comfort zone. But change is a necessity to keep progressing. Large agencies, small agencies, leading in-house teams, and heading back into the consultancy route were all areas I explored.

Then one evening, while sitting beside Lake George, Mike King (who I had the opportunity to hire years earlier) reached out and put me in touch with Rhea. There is nothing entirely special about that, people are being connected constantly, we live in a hyper connected world, but Rhea and I live five miles apart, work in the same industry, worked for the same people, have the same friends, and somehow never managed to connect. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we were having coffee at a time in the morning that was visibly too early for each of us with the intention of just having a conversation. Fifteen minutes later I was across the street in the Outspoken Media office in a roundtable interview with the entire company. If you know Rhea, you’re not the least bit surprised by how fast she moves, and I think she even turned the conversation to OODA loops.

Having the opportunity to interview with the entire direct team I might be working with was a great opportunity. It provided an avenue to gauge fulfillment levels, general knowledge, and what excited them. I’ve always had concerns when potential employees don’t ask questions. My interview advice to other SEOs–if you are going to spend 40+ hours a week with someone, you want to ask them as much as possible.

Here are some of the questions I asked the team:

1. How did you end up here?
2. What does your day to day look like?
3. What do you love about working here?
4. What do you hate about it or wish you could change?
5. What could be done to improve your day with tools, training and processes?
6. What is your career path and long term plan?
7. How could I help you if I was part of the team?

Then I asked Rhea the tough questions:

1. What is the company vision?
2. What do the individual client relationships look like and who are we supporting client side?
3. What are your biggest client hurdles?
4. How long have you been working with each client?
5. What are the primary services clients seek out from Outspoken Media?
6. What do you specialize in versus what do you love doing?
7. What are the three, six and twelve month growth plans?
8. What is the contingency plan?
9. Are you growing for the sake of growing and does it align with the business goals?
10. How are you accounting for profitability and do hourly bill rates make sense?
11. How are projects quoted?
12. How do you vet potential clients?
13. Which clients would you fire and why?

This is when the direction changed from “how do you” to “how will we”:

We both want to start families, how the hell are we going to do this?

I never entirely intended to do more than make a local connection, but she had a great vision for how she wanted to grow the company and we kept meeting to talk. I don’t even know if she was looking to hire someone, but the general approach and topics we discussed were unique. She inquired about my experience building and managing teams, involvement with business development, implementing processes, and my approach to managing clients. I pressed on about pipelines, profitability, employee development, client retention, service offerings, community outreach, charitable giving and most importantly, what and where is the process to get us where we want to be?

The one question she asked that really resonated with me was whether this was the right fit for me. It has since been a common theme and a topic that we bring to many discussions including new hires, tools, processes, and most of all clients.

Building a company with multiple goals beyond successful client work and managing profitability was refreshing. It’s also the cornerstone of my decision to join the team and the approach we take for long-term growth.

That’s how I ended up at Outspoken Media, hopefully these questions can help other job candidates and share what has worked for you in the comments. I’m typically a behind the scenes person, but you’ll be hearing more from me in the coming months about methods to achieving client goals, solving site-side issues, and helping people get where they need to go.