That Pam Chick

At IM Spring Break I spoke on the IM Business panel with Chris Hart of Bruce Clay and Tony Adam of Yahoo!  My topic was SEM Client Management.  If you need some tips on client management (don’t we all?) read on…

1. Quote with confidence: Many people have trouble quoting projects because they feel the client will balk at the price.  If you know what you need to make on a project for it to be worth your time to take it on (and you should…if you don’t, you need to find out NOW), you can feel confident in your pricing.  If you are confident in what you are charging and what the client will get in return for your fees, the potential client will be more likely to accept the cost.

2. Give realistic expectations & deadlines (for you and the client): I said this in my Scary SEO presentation as well and I will keep saying it until people start doing it on a regular basis.  I know it’s hard to tell clients it will take a month or more to complete their project and then they may not see results for months after that.  But, if you give them proper expectations, they will be much happier as the project progresses.  Also, you need to make sure you give yourself enough time to do the project properly.  Short cuts will only hurt you in the end.

3. Educate your clients on what you are doing for them: A client that feels involved in the process will trust you more and give you more freedom than one that you haven’t educated. Don’t get into deep details that they don’t need to know, but explain basic concepts to them and have them be involved at the level they feel comfortable with.  Remember they know their product better than you ever will so they need to be involved to make the campaign successful and an educated client will be able to be more helpful than a clueless one.

4. Over-communicate: This is another point I make as often as I can.  The worst thing that can happen is to have a client have to contact you to find out what’s going on with their project because you haven’t been in contact recently.  Update them as often as possible. If you over-communicate they will feel that progress is being made and will leave you alone to work on the project rather than calling to question what you’re doing.

5. Prioritize tasks so it appears things are consistently being completed: In any project, there are items that will take longer to complete and some that you can complete quickly.  When you start a project, map out what you can complete quickly and sprinkle those tasks in while you are working on the longer term portions of the project.  This way the client will see things being done and there won’t be a lot of “dead time” in their eyes while you are working on the bigger picture that they can’t see.

6. Use a project management system: Trying to do everything via email can get messy and doesn’t allow for good note keeping or scheduling.  Use a tool like Basecamp which you and your clients can log into and track the project progress.  Keep detailed client notes here too.  Clients will feel more confident in your abilities if you are well organized and can refer back to previous conversations easily.  If they feel like you are fully engaged in their account they will feel that you value them and will be more likely to continue working with you and even increase their budget.

7. Assume nothing: When you speak with a client never assume that they are happy or that they are upset. Don’t assume they know anything and don’t assume you know what they want.  Always have them explain how they are feeling and what they want before you start talking.  If you assume how they are feeling or what they know, your conversation will be ineffective.  Always start conversations by asking them how they are feeling about the project and what they want to get out of your discussion that day.  After you determine what they want to discuss you can let them know what you would like to talk about as well.  That will help keep the conversation on track and make the most of your time together.

8. Document all verbal communication: If you have a call or in-person meeting with your client, take detailed notes on everything that was discussed.  Document the conversation by transferring your notes to your project management tool so there is no confusion as to what was agreed on at a later date.  It is a good idea to have the customer review the notes and agree that they accurately reflect the conversation as they remember it as well.

9. Don’t schedule meetings with clients when you are short on time: Avoid scheduling meetings back-to-back or you will be thinking about the next meeting instead of really focusing on that client you are speaking with.  Also,  make sure you have time to do the meeting recap mentioned in item 8 right afterward while it is fresh in your mind.

10. Don’t pretend results are good when they aren’t: It’s good to be positive but don’t push it.  Be realistic and discuss the results as they stand and what you are doing to improve them.  Don’t freak out either.  If the client sees that you are worried about the results, they will be too.

11. Don’t lie. Ever: You will get caught eventually.  You aren’t the only person in the world that does what you do. At some point your client will probably speak to another consultant.  If you have lied to them, your competitor will be happy to throw you under the bus.  And, if you lie to your customer you have to remember what you told them forever.  You don’t have to remember the truth, you already know it.

12. Have someone else you can bring in to back you up: Having someone that you can bring in as an “expert” to back up what you are telling your client can be very beneficial. Don’t take it personally if your client listens to this person when they say exactly what you’ve been saying all along.  It’s human nature.  It can also be beneficial to have someone of the opposite sex as you to bring in to the conversation as that can drastically change the dynamic of the relationship.

13. Don’t use accusatory statements: Frequently people use statements such as “you didn’t do XYZ” or “you were late getting us XYZ.” When “you” statements are used, they put the other party in a defensive state.  Instead, you should use more passive statements that make the same point such as “We didn’t receive XYZ by the due date” or “According to Basecamp, we haven’t been sent the materials we need to complete this portion of the project on time.”  The conversation will be much smoother if you don’t use accusatory statements and in most cases the client will apologize for missing the deadline instead of being defensive.

14. Be prepared to walk away: Sometimes you have to fire clients.  If you don’t see any way to make the client happy or if they are taking up considerably more time than they are worth (creating a large opportunity cost), you may need to walk away.  If it has gotten to the point where you are considering breaking up with a client, it’s probably in your best interest and theirs to just make a clean break.

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, FL on April 1st for IM Spring Break, put on by the IM Broadcast crew who have the best conferences at the best prices.  I wasn’t speaking until the last day so we were able to relax and enjoy the great networking, food and fun for a few days.

CK and I both played in the poker tournament with the other Spring Break attendees.  There was a bounty on Neil Patel’s head so whoever knocked him out would win about $120, if I remember correctly.  I, of course, had had a few drinks and decided to shove the money down my shirt for safe keeping.  I had all but lost when Aaron Chronister decided he was bored with playing and left his chips to me, making me the chip leader.  Even with more than double the chips than most people had, I still managed not to win.  When we were down to the final four players we just decided to chop the pot and go back to socializing by the pool.

We got to spend time with Los Angeles Chiropractor Michael Dorausch, keynote speaker Chris Winfield of search and social media marketing company 10e20, and Paul Macnamara as well as many other talented, influential, entertaining and awesome people.

The rest of the conference was excellent as expected with amazing speakers, including NDA sessions giving the actual attendees a leg up over those who were watching tweets and blog posts about the conference, great food and an open bar every night.  I was on the IM Business panel with two of my favorite people in the industry – Chris Hart of Bruce Clay, Inc. and Tony Adam from the Yahoo! Audience Marketing Group.  The details of my presentation are available in my IM Spring Break Client Management Presentation post.  It’s a good read in my opinion but Tony out did us all by bringing beers in for our audience members!

IM Spring Break ended with a bang and the next day we hit to road to Miami.  We spent a night in Miami where we met up with some of CK’s friends from college, had some great Cuban food and put our feet in the water to officially say we went from coast to coast.  We got up the next morning and hit the road for our week long trip back to San Diego which I’ll recap in the next post.

On March 27th, 2009 Kid Disco and I embarked on a 2 week drive across the country and back that most called crazy and a select few called awesome.  We left San Diego at 6:30 AM on March 27th and drove to Mesa, AZ.

In Mesa, we were able to see the Cubs vs. White Sox in a pre-season game at Hohokam Park.  The Cubs spanked the Sox in front of a sold out crowd!! After the game we met up with Brian LaFrance and Chase Granberry of AuthorityLabs.com for dinner at Bison Witches off Mill Avenue. We grabbed a few drinks after dinner and turned in early since we were planning on driving as far as possible the next day.

We spent the next two days driving from Arizona to Austin, TX with a stop to sleep in the middle of nowhere.  In Austin we met up with some friends, including Kate Morris, for dinner with Drinks at The Continental Club after where CK, Elvis and I had a nice Eiffel Tower moment.  We decided to spend another day in Austin to see more of the area. Kate told us about Lady Bird Lake which has a great jogging path so we were able to get in a run to burn off some of our road trip snacks!

That night for dinner we negated any benefit from our run by going to one of my favorite places in Texas, The County Line, where we had all you can eat BBQ.  And we did eat all we could before they rolled us out of there.

After Austin we were on a mission to drive as much as possible each day to get to IM Spring Break in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  We drove through five states that day to get to Tallahassee, FL where we spent the night before driving the rest of the way to Ft. Lauderdale.  We got settled in to our hotel at IM Spring Break and started the Spring Break festivities.

We’d like to thank a few of our sponsors for sponsoring the first part of our road trip: Los Angeles SEO Company RankLab Interactive, Internet Marketing Firm Primary Affect, MatterMidia and the Twitter white & yellow pages TweetFind. More to follow in my IM Spring Break Recap and IM Road Trip Recap Part Deux!