Comments on: Legacy SEO Clients

By: Reuben Yau

Reuben Yau — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:39:51 +0000

Lee

I had this same debate with my partner at work just today. It’s easy to look at it simply as lost opportunity cost, however, what we find, is that typically these mature accounts require less time to manage and we can have success with a lot less effort. So another avenue you could take is to spend less time on their account. If you’re upfront with them, I’m sure they’ll understand. Everyone understands the principals of time=money and inflation – I’m sure their prices haven’t stayed stagnant since 2001.

By: Lars Koudal

Lars Koudal — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 12:58:18 +0000

It is not an easy decision to let old time clients go, but it helps when they are not profitable. I have decided to let a few go, either by explaining what my situation was like, or by raising my fees to a suitable level.

However, having been freelancing for many years, I have gone through quite a few of ups and downs, and the old clients helped me through some of the hard times, so I’m standing by my old clients, I have just explained them in a very polite manner that I had to raise my fees, and no-one had any difficulties understanding that.

By: Marios Alexandrou

Marios Alexandrou — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 03:05:16 +0000

The trick is getting past the guilt and accepting that business is business. These clients of yours are probably having the same issues with their clients or customers and will recognize your situation. You don’t owe them for being your client and they don’t owe you for being their vendor.

Also, if these legacy clients are “good” clients then they’re not going to think any less of you because you have to cut them loose. And I’m guessing they’ll still send referrals if they were happy with your services.

I used to do web development consulting and found myself in this situation frequently.

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 14:15:20 +0000

It’s definitely hard dumping clients that you’ve grown with over the years, but sometimes it has to happen. This may not apply to you but at one time we were charging #39/month for SEO back in the day when it was me in my house. Now with a staff of five $39 wouldn’t get a client a half hour worth of work. Heck, it wouldn’t even get them 15 minutes. As much as I like some clients, that’s just not worth it. In our situation with each pricing increase that came with additional services that we thought were a necessary part of having success in the SEO campaign. We often offered those new service to the legacy clients for a short time, but eventually told them that if they want to keep those services they have to be willing to pay for them. Many times they will.

By: Martin Muehl

Martin Muehl — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:15:42 +0000

Some years ago I read an interesting article that is on my mind since then. The point was, that especially “old” clients should be charged more, instead of less because they usually get more out of you than anyone else.

Like when you know a client for years and become kind of friends, he maybe won’t hesitate to call you Saturday, 9pm for anything that could wait another two days. Things like that.

I wouldn’t say I agree with this 100%, but it made me think since then.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 04:33:18 +0000

Those are good points Janet. This is a situation with 7-8 year old clients. How many SEO firms are in that situation? I think the crux of this issue is that it is completely avoidable in the first place, which is why we’ve allocated more than double the staff and resources to account management than we did 3 or more years ago.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 04:28:06 +0000

Scott, you are right about the upsell situation. And it’s an upsell in the interest of serving the client as well. The legacy client situation can be avoided when there is a proper plan in place with account management, but as mentioned in the post, it can happen that a few slip by.

By: Janet Driscoll Miller

Janet Driscoll Miller — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:40:45 +0000

Overall, I’ve unfortunately not found it profitable to keep legacy clients, unless they are willing to move to the new pricing model. As your agency grows, so too do your services and your overhead. For many growing firms (especially those growing from a one person shop to a small business), prices may be very low to get started, but those prices may not be able to be supported in the long term.

First and foremost, you have to decide WHY you are in business. If you’re not interested in growing your business, then pricing exceptions (for legacy clients or otherwise) may be fine. BUT, if you are in business to grow the business and make a profit, then you have to keep focus on the goal of your business — to make revenue.

I ask myself constantly — does what I’m doing today in my business — does this business decision — adhere to my ultimate goals and business plan. If not, I have to be strict and discontinue the activity.

It’s like you said, Lee, unfortunately, we are not charities, we are businesses. And growing businesses aren’t just accountable to their clients and themselves, but also to employees. Selling a contract short sells your dedicated employees short too. That may be one less bonus, one less vacation day, or less pay you can offer employees just to please the client. It’s all a balance. Just something to consider.

By: Scott Fish

Scott Fish — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 16:42:02 +0000

The Search Marketing environment changes and so must the offerings to a client. In some sense, you should be able to offer a client the same service LEVEL at the same price. In another sense the time required to provide the same level of competitiveness may require more time/resources. Consider social media campaigns, 2 years ago those didn’t exist like they do today, and that’s something that older clients probably don’t have as part of their service description. However, to achieve similar goals today as 2 years ago, using a social media campaign may be required. I guess that I’d take the stance that the market for some niches is much more competitive today than it once was and that takes different tactics and in some cases more time/resources, which translates to a higher cost of service. If a client wants better results (or to stay competitive) it may cost more, but if they are fine with their “maintenance” service level, then I’d keep them at the same price level. Honestly, I think this issue provides a great chance for an Up-Sell.

By: David Temple

David Temple — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:20:40 +0000

Lee, I think you have a unique situation where your clients are better served by using all of your services, seo, pr, blogging, etc. If they’re just using legacy seo services then I would either move them into a more holistic sem program or pass them on to someone else.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:46:54 +0000

Great feed back Stoney, thanks. No matter what, we’re running a business, not a charity so profitability is high on importance. I think there’s a balance possible too.

Jim, you and I are totally on the same page.

By: Jim Boykin

Jim Boykin — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:21:58 +0000

Lee, Great topic!
We have several “old” clients. We basically keep that at older hourly rates. I can’t bring myself to “loose” these older clients, even if there’s little profit now from them because without them signing when they did we wouldn’t be where we are today.

By: Stoney deGeyter

Stoney deGeyter — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:42:37 +0000

Lee, we’ve gone through this several times in the past four years or so. At first it was our desire to stop losing money and then our desire to be able to provide higher quality services. If you “force” an upgrade it’s inevitable that you’re going to lose some people. On some rare occasions we’ve managed to work out a compromise where the client is not quite getting all the new services but also isn’t paying as much. We do this on a case by case basis. Sometimes its just best to let a client go. The difference between profitable and not-so-profitable can be a big one. The not-so-profitable clients can ultimately stand in the way of providing a better service to the profitable clients. While legacy has benefits… if you can’t remain profitable then its not good for anybody.