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Prospects who go claim the places page after you contact?

by qu4rk
7 replies
What do you guys do with prospects who go claim the Google Places page after you have a conversation with them?

I had a lady who we spoke in detail about getting her business going on the internet & then she went to claim the page herself? Anyone have any insight on how to prevent this as well?
#claim #contact #page #places #prospects
  • Profile picture of the author KingOfContentMarketing
    Ultimately, they will never have enough time to do their own marketing and maintain all their sites/Facebook/etc. So if she claimed her own Places after you told her about it I would welcome it. Tell her, great, I have 10 more ideas to help you maximize your places and the rest of your social media. If she doesn't want any help they are not a good prospect anyway.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheCG
      Well, wasn't it hers to claim in the first place?

      If she said no to your proposal, it isn't like you could claim it and hold it hostage anyway.

      It doesn't sound like she was a good prospect anyway although I would probably still follow up with her since it seems like she knows she needs the exposure.
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  • Profile picture of the author PaulFL
    Not much you can do except move on to the next person unless you believe she'll buy other services from you. You can't prevent someone from doing something they have the right to do.
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  • Profile picture of the author dancorkill
    I always registered under their account anyway. Depends how you look at it, it means she is someone motivated to take action. After she gets results from the places listing go back to her and get her to commit to getting you to setup more stuff for her.

    Don't give away all the magic at the start, discussing anything technical is really a waste of time (that is why they want to hire us), you got to sell people to help people. Holding assets hostage is the wrong mindset.

    If all someone wants to do is talk technical about how they can improve things before they pay you, they could potentially just be pimping you for ideas. Steer the conversation away from specific tactics and towards how much you can help them, what they want to get out of this etc.

    Repeat: real prospects do not want to learn internet marketing.
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    • Profile picture of the author qu4rk
      Well, I led into our meeting with getting her listed on GP, since she didn't even have one let alone claimed it. We talked simply about the benefit of it & some keywords. Nothing technical, then I was supposed to send her a proposal. I was doing research on the company this morning before I was going to send it & saw there was a claimed page that is pretty filled out & definitely not completely optimized on-page.

      I still need to contact her, but at this point I'm looking at how to handle this. So far, I'm thinking, congratulate for taking initiative after that I'm a little stuck. Should I speak on the optimization bit when speaking with her?

      Any suggestions?
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      • Profile picture of the author KingOfContentMarketing
        My Spidey sense tells me there may be more people involved. Is she the only decision maker? Make sure she is the one who can say yes and no.
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        • Profile picture of the author BradleyC
          Congratulate her for claiming it showing that she understands the importance and value of this to her business. And then inform her (while selling) how technical of a job it is to create a first page ranking, especially in a competive market place.

          You could even point out how other business owners, not knowing better, have claimed their Google Places listing but did it wrong, that Google is very strict about the NAP and it must be done exactly correct. Let her know you'll check hers out and as part of the price you'll fix anything that she did wrong, and then point out that when things are done wrong it causes that listing to go into this holding pattern while Google looks it over and this could take as long as 6 months "so do be aware of that", and let her know fixing it quickly is better than not.

          You get the idea of where I'm going with this.

          In the end, you'll subtly be trying to scare her from doing it herself, that she needs to leave this kind of technical stuff for the professionals.

          You'll also need to be selling her throughout that conversion on the advantages of this to her business, what it means to her and how this will help her make money, create a stead stream of leads coming in, etc. but NOT until you fix what needs to be fixed now that it's been claimed and data has been entered and the other key elements get put into place.

          But, in the end, you want to make sure she understands that it takes people with that key technical knowledge to properly optimize a Google Places Listing in order to create a first page ranking. You could even point out that you've spent months studying and learning how to properly optimize a google places listing.

          Like I said, you get the idea.

          Bradley
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