[DEMANDING PROSPECTS] How Do You Side Step the Guaranteed Results Request??

Point them to the Google site where they themselves say to be careful doing business with anyone that guarantees certain rankings.

Only Google can make those guarantees and only 2-3 people at Google have the "code" for those rankings.

To ease the clients mind, just show them all the work you are doing and where you are listing their business (citation sites along with Places)

You can offer a guarantee to do the work steps that you agree to, but Google and other competitors affect the results.

Say:

Did those other people entice you with guarantees?

Yes

Oh really how interesting.

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Point I'm getting at above is differentiate yourself from all the no results sales people offering guarantees he has dealt with before (I'm assuming this based on people don't usually develop this fear on the 5th time, I bet he asked the first guy the same thing). You seem to be on the right track doing this already.

Also I always went with people pay me month to month, I don't need a contract because people love to keep paying me when they see results (and charge upfront). Position it to him as not "committing to your services" but as "making an investment in his business so that he can achieve X", X being the thing he wants most, e.g. more money, more time with family, new boat etc. His alternative is to take no action and get no results, if that's what he wants move on fast, don't waste time on him.

People that need a guarantee have a poor mindset and are unwilling to invest money, that is their problem not yours. Boss business owners know marketing is an investment and like all investments there are no guarantees. I notice a lot of offliner's unwilling to spend money on their own biz.

Other thing you can try is flip it around onto his Industry. e.g. if a real estate agent, do you offer guarantees to your clients on what you can sell their house for. Mechanic so you can guarantee me my car will never break down ever again etc

you can suggest this (up to you) , a tiered payment system that means that if you do deliver leads really well to the clients then they will end up paying you maybe even 100% more than if they take the usual route.

ie lets say they 'expect' 30 leads a month

if you deliver 25-35 leads you get the agreed monthly fee

if you deliver 15-24 you get 75% fee
if you deliver 8-14 you get 30%
if you deliver 36-46 you get 130%
47-60 180% etc etc

or enquire what guarantees of satisfaction/ performance they gives to their clients/ prospects

First of all, it depends what kind of service you offered to him. Leads, sales, top position, new website... What was it?

If they ask, if you can guarantee customers, simply say "absolutely not". Even Google
doesn't offer clients (they sell you clicks with adwords), neither does YellowPages...

Thomas

Before you end up with a client you hate, keep in mind that you're interviewing him too. If he's not a good fit for your company, don't bring him on. This guy's probably just being careful, but you don't want someone who's waiting for the phone to ring just so he can hound customers about if they heard of him online.

This almost reminds me of a girl I dated once, briefly, that told me she'd dated a lot of guys and they were all jerks. She was crazy.

Don't take on everyone.

I had this conversation with a client yesterday...I told him we can control his site, his content, his links.

What we cannot control is if his competition is in a meeting right now talking about SEO and willing to spend $5,000 a month

He agreed and sent me $1,600 via paypal to kick of the SEO project an hour later

It is a combination of things - you could even get them on page one of Google but if their site is horrid and they don't want to change it what good will it do if no one responds to their message. If they have all the right elements in place they should get more business but they have to understand they need to get found and get engaged. They will get better results with the more exposure they have and the more they are buildig relationships online. Anyone can guarantee a page one ranking but it isn't necessarily for keywords anyone is looking for. I see this happen all the time and it is disturbing that people in this industry are not being honest.

If you buy a subscription to a gym can they guarantee you going to lose weight? If you go to the Dr. for a medical condition - do they guarantee the can make you better? If you put an ad in the paper,magazine, tv radio, etc - do they guarantee you will get calls? This isn't fast food where if you don't deliver in 30 minutes you get it for free
What guarantee do they give their customers?
I guarantee that I will work to the best of my ability and continue to work for the client as hard as I can to achieve the desired results. If something doesn't work we tweak the campaign.

Ask the business owner if he advertises locally in Newspapers, or with other Print Media such as Brochures, Flyers, etc. If so, ask if they guarantee leads? Ask how he tracks the leads he gets from these sources. No one can guarantee leads or sales in business.

The best idea would be to set them up with the least expensive marketing ideas you have, and explain how they can make use of them to get leads. Then give them your contact information and let them know you are available if they decide to progress further.

In general, I try to set all my clients with a Business Website that converts online traffic into Leads (It is up to the business to convert leads into sales). I then help them set up Google Places, and show them ways to get happy clients to leave their review on the site (or other business directories they have claimed, such as Yahoo, Bing, etc). They should also be visually advertising their website at their place of business (Or through business cards if they are a mobile business such as a Plumber or Electrician).

Hey Ben,

I like the way you handled it, but putting value on 1 new customer. I would then follow that up with a question like.

From the xxx searching for you every month, if you were positioned properly, how many new customers do you think you would get? (or a variation of that)

Shawn

Two excellent points have been made in the replies:

1. You don't have to try and turn every prospect into a customer: many just aren't a fit

2. You can only control what *you* do, not what other people do.

The best prospects are those who have an urgent need for what you can provide, and can afford it.

You can guarantee you'll make calls, set up backlinks, write content, follow a process consistently.

Hi Benin,

I tell my clients "look, I don't guarantee ranking, I guarantee that you're PHONE WILL RING". Then explain and show Google's opinion on shady SEO services such as a "guaranteed first page ranking".

No offense to the post by Mike Bailey but I highly suggest you do not tie results back to leads generated. For me, it was a waste of time and I got tired of the calls from my clients such as "It's the 15th of the month and it looks like you're not going to get me more leads". If you want to sell leads, then by all means, go that route but again, I don't recommend getting pinned down on a lead number.

What I tell my prospects (after you close them they then become clients obviously) is that I will help you close business by making the phone ring. If the prospect pushes back then I just tell them I want 20% of EVERY sale I generate (this works well in service business's with high margins). They realize that's more money then paying me for the monthly residual so the greedy part gets the best of them and they back off.

You need to also threaten to walk away. What works for me is before I ever meet a prospect in person or a conference call I make sure I have their competitors. I tell the prospect I'll just work with their competition (props to Justin Brooke). You obviously can't say this in a mean way, just be professional and to the point. I also offer a 60 day money back guarantee. I've only had ONE offline client ask for refund.

There's a lot of great closing techniques in a book "The Art of Closing the Sale" by Brian Tracy. Here's the link (NO Aff. link) Amazon.com: The Art of Closing the Sale: The Key...

Brian's book is the best in the market for closing sales in face to face selling. A MUST buy.

Good luck!
Dennis

@benbro

I have found that clients who want guarantees end up being the most annoying.

If you go to a doctor, he doesn't guarantee that you will get well. He only offers to give you information and pills that may or may not work based on his experience. Then they have a caveat, actually a whole 500 pages of disclaimers.

Be very specific about what you are offering. Then guarantee that.

For example, if you are offering Google places rankings, you can't offer that they will get a phone call or 100 phone calls. Your service is to do the work.

You guarantee that you will do the work that is needed to rank them in Google places eg 100 directory links, 1million comments etc. If you are a professional, you know what you need to do to get there.

Probably that's the guarantee that he's looking for. That you know that if you took 100 dollars from him and you followed your SEO plan, then he will rank number 100. Based on current research,yours, then he will likely get 1 visitor. That you can guarantee. But not he will make money or he will get 10 customers.

So your first problem is to figure out what he wants guaranteed and be very specific in what you are actually doing. You are not ranking him to first spot, but doing the work that is needed to rank him first. Caveat, you are not google.

Hi Emasaa. Very true-setting very specific expectations upfront can make a world of difference. Thanks for pointing that out.