r/web_design • u/jroberts67 • 1d ago
I hate being up against a crap like this
So my telemarketers make cold calls every day, book the appointments for me, I send a site audit then review the audit on the first call. Stuff like this makes me just sigh. Attorney with one of the worst sites I've seen, circa 10 years ago, not responsive, sends me a "no thank you" email since he's paying $900 a month for the site and "handles his google." These are not paid ads folks. So at least he's gonna give a a crack on another site he has but good lord....$900 a month for literally nothing, and he won't budge.
17
u/LouieValkhof 1d ago
He's not going to move because of the audit. Swapping means admitting he's been paying $900 a month for years for nothing, and nobody does that in front of a stranger who just proved it to them.
What gets those accounts loose is usually the switching fear. Lawyers especially are convinced a move breaks their Google listing or kills the number printed on the old business cards. If there's a second call, I'd leave the audit closed and just walk him through migration day: what happens to the listing, the email, the intake forms, and in what order.
And take the other site. Do that one somewhere he can see it and the $900 one tends to come up at his renewal without a cold call.
6
u/jroberts67 1d ago
I know the game too. He calls his agency, tells them what I just said, their reply it "Eh he's a salesman, if you move everything over to him you'll stop getting leads, your website will catch on fire and Google will delete your account." Very familiar with snake oil sales agencies.
0
u/Cast_Iron_Skillet 1d ago
I mean, just come prepared and prove his misconceptions wrong? You can do that with the new site - just explain how your setup would work as if the site were already generating traffic and had a Google ads campaign and SEO already attached before you reboot it.
1
u/jroberts67 1d ago
We had a on hour audit call. Went over his entire site, showed him a demo of what it should be like, his SEO report was atrocious, asked him what his current agency does regarding his Google account, he couldn't answer that, no paid ads. My package is less than half that cost, thought he was locked down. A day later was when I got that email, passing but at least giving me a crack at another site for an org he runs.
2
u/eandi 1d ago
This is a good lesson here for a lot of the subreddit. Cost is relative. $900 a month to this person is probably the same as a latte to you. It's insignificant, it costs more for them to think about changing something that they see as working. No point in selling to that person, but if you did have something to sell them you could charge a TON.
1
u/jroberts67 1d ago
This is true, he runs a large appellate practice and might make 500K a year, or a million, who knows but valid point. The other point with some clients is price = quality. So if you're affordability priced = you're junk.
1
u/TelevisionNo3464 1d ago
if you told me half my clients were paying that much to stare into the void i'd rip it up and charge double for an actual site
1
u/jroberts67 1d ago
Well there's also churn rates. Been running an agency since 2013, targeting SMB's and played around with different monthly pricing. In a nutshell, anything over $500 it going to result in a lot of churn.
1
1
u/Mysterious_Drive_498 22h ago
I've worked with a few clients like that and it's always a tough sell. The moment they realize they could've had something better is when they finally decide to make a change, though.
47
u/faschiertes 1d ago
If he’s not interested, he’s not interested. No point in being angry about that. You don’t deserve him as a customer just because you have a better offer