Hey guys,

I hope you are in a helping/giving advice mood

I am meeting a dude tomorrow who is looking for SEO, Facebook management (running contests on his page, getting more fans), managing his other social media (Google+ Google+ local) and so on. He wants a lot done.

His business is vacation rental properties in an area where people flock to from all over the world, and he's for sure making money. He needs kind of a LOT done for his SEO. It's a real estate site with a billion images (none are optimized) so I'm guessing it's going to take me some time to get just the on-page stuff done.


He actually knows a lot about marketing and has done pretty well for himself, but now wants to get out of screwing with it. I think sometimes this is a problem because maybe people figure "I CAN do it, but I don't want to" which sometimes means "I also don't want to pay a lot".


Here is my dilemma.


I have shitty luck. I've met quite a few people in a row who just don't want to spend money on their marketing. I mean the type of people who after you give them a price ( a lower price than most others around would've given) they say "Well...how about a fair price". As if I didn't give a goddamn fair price FOR ME!


Anyway...

Bottom line. This shit is going to take a long time, and it's kind of a lot of work. I can't handle one more asshole telling me "I can't pay that" but I can't kill myself on this account for $250/month...it's not going to work for me.


Oh...also, he has already asked me what my "rate" is per hour. I don't want to do per hour at all. I was just thinking of just telling him "You'll save money by the month", but I'm not sure.


I was thinking of somewhere around $600/month for all of his stuff and maybe $500 to get started...somewhere in that area.


***NOTE****

I feel like that is honestly not enough. I also feel like I need this dude to say yes, so I am sort of stuck not having any idea. Maybe I should just walk in and say "$1,200/month, I kick ass" and see if he takes it.


I deal with a lot of backfires in life though...I just don't know what the hell to do.


Any advice would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!


You guys are the best,

Cheers!

If i were you put a fixed price like around 1500$ per month for your services..
Also make sure that you do the talking..

If your client do the talking then good luck

To cheap, and the price depends on the results he wants. If he wants results right now, charge a nice price and start doing everything you can to bring in new clients and such. You could easily charge $10,000 USD monthly if he wants FB fans, seo, you could even go into advertising budget with him for YouTube viral videos and shit like that. Just keep in mind, its up to your psychology and negotiation in order to close this deal.

Originally Posted by therage

To cheap, and the price depends on the results he wants. If he wants results right now, charge a nice price and start doing everything you can to bring in new clients and such. You could easily charge $10,000 USD monthly if he wants FB fans, seo, you could even go into advertising budget with him for YouTube viral videos and shit like that. Just keep in mind, its up to your psychology and negotiation in order to close this deal.

Thank you! Yea, I know it's cheap

I wonder if I should just ask him what his budget is. I guess it can't hurt to just see what happens. I'm just so goddamn tired of people cringing when I give my low low low prices....sigh

Thanks

Yeah don't let these idiots dictate to you how to run your business. Give em a fixed price like rigolo said. I always make sure that the price is slightly higher so that when I bring it down for the client he/she thinks their getting an AMAZING deal.

But if this guy is dealing with real estate and all of this mess. Plus you say he knows how to do almost everything you will be doing for him of course he's going to want a cheap price and want you to be his slave. That's how all these type of scum are.

Their over there making hundreds of thousands yet their some of the greediest bastards you will find.

So I suggest you to become the dictator and become the MAN, tell him what your prices are and the work involved. The amount of time it takes etc. Including the amount of time it took YOU to learn all of this.

He wants you to be his employee so to speak. But you are not an employee are you?

I dont have much experience with selling SEO services like youre explaining but I do know if you walk in with your head held high and make it known you know what youre talking about WITH confidence you should be able to get what you want.

I'd start the price at $5K/mo minimum, really though, what you charge should be dependent on the results you're truly able to provide. If he's truly banking and in a hot niche, developing his online presence could be worth hundreds of thousands or more to him.

Originally Posted by Cratos

Yeah don't let these idiots dictate to you how to run your business. Give em a fixed price like rigolo said. I always make sure that the price is slightly higher so that when I bring it down for the client he/she thinks their getting an AMAZING deal.

But if this guy is dealing with real estate and all of this mess. Plus you say he knows how to do almost everything you will be doing for him of course he's going to want a cheap price and want you to be his slave. That's how all these type of scum are.

Their over there making hundreds of thousands yet their some of the greediest bastards you will find.

So I suggest you to become the dictator and become the MAN, tell him what your prices are and the work involved. The amount of time it takes etc. Including the amount of time it took YOU to learn all of this.

He wants you to be his employee so to speak. But you are not an employee are you?

Yea! I like that attitude. Thanks!

Whatever you do make sure you get numbers and proposals in writing. Its not fun to pull numbers out of your head when you're under pressure.
Laid out the services to be perform and their prices.

MAKE SURE you have 3 packages something like....$399, $599 and $899. make it as the middle package is not much more over the first one, so it'll look like a better deal.

This sounds like you will have a lot of work to do to get things flowing, so ask for a set up fee.

When/If they say, too much..blah blah, cross the dollar amount and write a new figure like 20-25% off the original amount (plan for this when deciding on original prices) and tell them that to get them on board you'll give them a discount TODAY ONLY.

If a lot of people are telling you they don't have the money is because you're likely not showing them the actual monetary benefit that your services will bring them. Don't focus on the links you'll get or how many likes they'll get, but rather on how much money that could make them.
Or maybe they really can't afford you, in that case you need to do better prospecting.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by the_demon

I'd start the price at $5K/mo minimum, really though, what you charge should be dependent on the results you're truly able to provide. If he's truly banking and in a hot niche, developing his online presence could be worth hundreds of thousands or more to him.

This is what's up. Completely agree with what the_demon wrote. If you know you provide quality work and you KNOW that he's going to bank hard on all this do not let him think of himself as superior to you. You are the one that is going to be helping him reach that level.

Well, I don't sell websites but do know they start at 500. What you have to do sounds like a full time job. If he can't afford to pay you right he wont treat you right either imho.

Any business deal I ever made I had an attitude of I-do-not-care. I tried being nice but people just laughed at me, didn't buy after long talks.
If you stand for your product, know it is a great deal for them, you won't budge and after explaining it 3 times walking away from the deal is not a bad thing either. They have your number if they need the service but you won't starve yourself helping others.

But, I think it has to do with attitude and understanding people too as other mentioned.
When you go to the shop you don't pay extra either, your clients are shopping.
Then again, you can't deliver a service without pay and you know what you're worth. It is an old trick to raise prices so people feel they are buying quality. lol
When you work for peanuts, you are not happy. When working for less than X a month you are not happy either as you have bills to pay too and a steady job is more profitable at a given point...

Either they want your apples or they don't. Simple as that. With some people it does help to give a fake discount, some cultures won't buy otherwise even.

Erm, for the rate thing, why not say you don't do hourly rates but look at the project as a whole and determine price from there. Otherwise you get into the discussion of how much time twitter would cost you compared to facebook. Not something you want to do with him I think. Either you run the PR or you don't, if it grows, you renegotiate, should be something about that in the contract anyways. :P
Also, try to avoid mentioning a set price. If you can sleep on it you might avoid some boobytraps.

Also, rigolo has a good point about talking. You want him to go to yes-mode.
You do that by talking and making him agree with you as much as possible. Also, when you let a salesman talk, he will sell. lol
Also, when he is oh so happy, mimicking your body language and you suddenly hear yourself agreeing with him...


Just my 2 cents, hope it helps. Good luck.

While I agree that you should charge based on the amount of business you help him get, you can only do that when you have a proven track record of doing the same for other businesses.

Don't walk in there asking for $5k, he'll show you the door.
Also don't bored him with how much work you have to do, he could care less. Tell him how your services will help him get more money, give him an example and don't be afraid of sharing a good strategy for his business, he will realized that you can walk the talk and get you closer to a $1k set up plus monthly.

Good luck, come back and tell us how it goes.

Don't make the mistake of adjusting your price based on the client's willingness to pay. It's fine to start with a lower price to get started in your business, but this guy is asking for a lot. If I were you, I wouldn't focus on all of those at once, at least not at first. Perhaps you could have the first month just to set everything up and work on the billions images.

How much is your time worth to you? How much time do you think you'll need to work? I can't speak for the price since I don't know what you're able to offer. If he doesn't like the price, you can offer to take his price but put in less work/services. As mentioned, know what you're talking about (or at least sound like it). A good idea is to come up with difficult potential questions clients may ask and think of answers to prepare yourself.

Btw, how did you respond to those who asked for a "fair price"? :P

Originally Posted by carlikito

Whatever you do make sure you get numbers and proposals in writing. Its not fun to pull numbers out of your head when you're under pressure.
Laid out the services to be perform and their prices.

MAKE SURE you have 3 packages something like....$399, $599 and $899. make it as the middle package is not much more over the first one, so it'll look like a better deal.

This sounds like you will have a lot of work to do to get things flowing, so ask for a set up fee.

When/If they say, too much..blah blah, cross the dollar amount and write a new figure like 20-25% off the original amount (plan for this when deciding on original prices) and tell them that to get them on board you'll give them a discount TODAY ONLY.

If a lot of people are telling you they don't have the money is because you're likely not showing them the actual monetary benefit that your services will bring them. Don't focus on the links you'll get or how many likes they'll get, but rather on how much money that could make them.
Or maybe they really can't afford you, in that case you need to do better prospecting.

Hope that helps.

Thank you, that helped me a lot. I like the 3 prices thing, and the "Today only" discount is a nice back up to have instead of just cussing and going straight to the nearest bar.

Thanks a ton!

I'm no expert here. I'm just giving my two cents on what I would use to base my monthly price.

Since you will be dealing with his social networking use it to your advantage on price negotiation. Think about how many fans you think you could provide him in any given month....at first it would be kinda tough but as his page grows in numbers so will the daily likes...

If the stats are correct - they say each fan would be worth around $1......of course the numbers won't be the same every month but as his fanpages grow so will the momentum. Let him know that.
Another thing is to possibly set him up with an email list where he can blast specials and other deals...people who opt-in here are worth approximately $1 per email also...I feel like if he really wants great marketing and you are able to provide him with some statistics that he would jump on the deal immediately as long as your price is justified.

I know that the SEO side is a lot of work but the social media alone can make it well worth the hassle.

DON'T SELL YOURSLEF CHEAP. I am sick and tired of people saying:"It's an easy job", "It's easy", etc - these "employers" are not worth dealing with.
After all, we are doing IM/making money online just to buy ourselves FREEDOM, not becoming another kind of a slave.
I had so much clients, that just wasted my time and paid me pennies.

If the client is not going to pay you well, but you'll still have time to work on other projects/clients than accept the offer.
BUT if this project is going to consume most of your time for almost no return, just SHAKE HANDS and tell him you are not interested.

Most of the business owners(offline), doesn't see SEO/IM as an investment with high return, but as expenses.

Don't ever undervalue your services. You need to show him the potential with numbers of what he stands to make. Figure out his lifetime value of ONE client (Average profit per deal + Average times they buy again if any + Average amount of referrals over their lifetime as a customer) A lot of business owners don't know it but he will probably understand one client is worth over $10,000 to him would be my guess. Show him how (CONSERVATIVELY) you see him closing at least 2-3 new deals per month from your services. Talk in money, and bottom line, don't talk about technical boring stuff that they don't care about. You need to be charging this guy atleast $1,500-$2,500 per month and trust me he has the budget. If he wants to negotiate a lower price, do not EVER do this, here is what you can do though.. you can remove services you were going to perform if he wants a lower cost, but never offer the same original plan for a lower price. You will lose respect and your value drops quickly. Good luck if you didn't have the meeting already!

there is a lot of good advice in here already...
...and as i know the dilemma you are dealing with, listen to the said above. do not let him route where this will be heading. because he would basically have you do the work for nothing if it`s up to him. at least as it sounds - because he does want work done but not pay for it.

i would not recommend to get with the high-pricing as well i read above. that would be a move to do on big companies. so why don`t you just set a price for yourself. the cash you DO NEED to see for the work mentioned. then put a certain amount on top of it and let him negotiate a lower price. that way he feels good about it and gets it "cheaper" and you get the money you want. or deal out a certain set of tasks for a certain price so he can see what you are able to and then negotiate again.

to back it up - gather some info and pack it up nicely to show him what such services and works do cost elsewhere...what all the work really means etc. etc.
compare to yourself, beat the prices but remember as said above: DO NOT SELL YOURSELF SHORT.

if he shows you the door - leave and remind him that he knows how to get in touch with you if he did face the reality of that market or experienced what he gets for a dirt cheap deal from someone else.
he is a buisnessman - approach him like that. if you do not show him such an attitude he will not see any reason to negotiate with you on a realistic level. he of course will try - as he is a salesguy. know how to answer that.

good luck and all the best with this...
...and keep us updated lease on how things went.

If he were to pay for a full time employee to come work at his office to do this stuff - do you think they could afford to live on $600 a month
as it seems almost a full time job to keep the guy happy.

I think you got to be pricing yourself at $1200-$1500 a month - for a set amount of services .. if he requires more work above that then
just add on to your base price.

Everyone wants things for cheap - but bottom line you need to eat.

if it's a musician....that's a shitload of money to a struggling musician. haha i assume struggling because otherwise they wouldn't need seo help

I've not provided a service like this before, but do have a lot of sales/management experience in the IT sector. My biggest tip is DO NOT undersell yourself. A lot of people work along the lines of "You get what you pay for" - especially someone who is extremely rich.

I wouldn't recommend asking him for a price - this will make you look inexperienced and unassertive. I have two ideas about how I'd be pricing it:

1) Splitting your price out into "Modules" - for example Facebook @ $100, G+ @ $50 etc. This will help you clarify exactly what he is getting for his money - "SEO services for $600 a month" is quite a vague statement.

2) Estimate the number of hours this will take you, and then times it by an hourly rate. If you think it will take 100 hours a month (25 hours a week) and you are quoting $600 - then you're being paid $6/hour! I'd imagine the going rate would be at least $25-30 per hour.

Start high and you have room for negotiations, start low and you'll be working for peanuts!

There is no shame in not discussing exact figures tomorrow. You could get a better understanding of how much work is involved, and say you'll come back with a bespoke quote - you can always arrange a second meeting after you've done some number crunching for him. If he's really pushy for price maybe give him some estimates - but say you will need to finalize these.

I would also get some "One-liners" or "Statistics" to go in with. You need to show the value of your service - statistics such as "On average 70% of vacations are booked online. This number is ever growing, and I see that other companies in your sector are putting masses of resources into their online marketing campaigns."

You are offering the service (And your time) here, so make sure you take control of the situation. O and make sure the suits ironed!

Wally, how did your meeting go man? Did you land the sale?

Originally Posted by Chizz

Wally, how did your meeting go man? Did you land the sale?

Thanks for asking! It went well!


I talked with the guy and he didn't need quite as much as I originally thought. He wanted mostly SEO, and he did want to run some regular Facebook contests, so still enough.

I had a huge time trying to figure out a price though. I hate cheap people. I hate thinking I'm doing a ton of work for free, but at the same time I was beyond broke and had to land this guy. This isn't a fun position to be in, and I will never be there again!


So I came up with an amount that would save my life, and I figured if he didn't like it I would just have to not care...I wasn't going to offer less. So I told him $550/month for the SEO with a $550 one time fee.


He was fine with that. I feel like I could've got more. I'm pretty sure actually, but again...$550 compared to $0 is a huge deal for me right now, and he doesn't expect results for 4 - 6 MONTHS (he's actually educated on SEO and marketing) so I think he'll be easy to deal with.


The next time I have a meeting I will have a ton more confidence. I'll just name my price, and if there's hesitation I'll just walk. Overall I'm happy though, because I was totally out of money


He's sending a check out today, or I may pick it up (it's an hour away) so I'm satisfied to fight another day.

Originally Posted by wally666

Thanks for asking! It went well!


I talked with the guy and he didn't need quite as much as I originally thought. He wanted mostly SEO, and he did want to run some regular Facebook contests, so still enough.

I had a huge time trying to figure out a price though. I hate cheap people. I hate thinking I'm doing a ton of work for free, but at the same time I was beyond broke and had to land this guy. This isn't a fun position to be in, and I will never be there again!


So I came up with an amount that would save my life, and I figured if he didn't like it I would just have to not care...I wasn't going to offer less. So I told him $550/month for the SEO with a $550 one time fee.


He was fine with that. I feel like I could've got more. I'm pretty sure actually, but again...$550 compared to $0 is a huge deal for me right now, and he doesn't expect results for 4 - 6 MONTHS (he's actually educated on SEO and marketing) so I think he'll be easy to deal with.


The next time I have a meeting I will have a ton more confidence. I'll just name my price, and if there's hesitation I'll just walk. Overall I'm happy though, because I was totally out of money


He's sending a check out today, or I may pick it up (it's an hour away) so I'm satisfied to fight another day.

Fantastic! Imo you are off to a good start

Originally Posted by wally666

Thanks for asking! It went well!


I talked with the guy and he didn't need quite as much as I originally thought. He wanted mostly SEO, and he did want to run some regular Facebook contests, so still enough.

I had a huge time trying to figure out a price though. I hate cheap people. I hate thinking I'm doing a ton of work for free, but at the same time I was beyond broke and had to land this guy. This isn't a fun position to be in, and I will never be there again!


So I came up with an amount that would save my life, and I figured if he didn't like it I would just have to not care...I wasn't going to offer less. So I told him $550/month for the SEO with a $550 one time fee.


He was fine with that. I feel like I could've got more. I'm pretty sure actually, but again...$550 compared to $0 is a huge deal for me right now, and he doesn't expect results for 4 - 6 MONTHS (he's actually educated on SEO and marketing) so I think he'll be easy to deal with.


The next time I have a meeting I will have a ton more confidence. I'll just name my price, and if there's hesitation I'll just walk. Overall I'm happy though, because I was totally out of money


He's sending a check out today, or I may pick it up (it's an hour away) so I'm satisfied to fight another day.

Awesome dude! congrats.

Congratulations! Now you can try offering some additional services that would go well with social media. Videos that he can share on his website, Facebook and Google+ for example . They could be promotional videos (easily outsourced) or videos showing his properties. Perhaps panoramas if you know a bit of photography.

A lot of great advice on this thread that was new to me even. Another thing is actually being able to put some real numbers in perspective for a prospect: keyword search result numbers, Facebook activity and likes numbers, transaction values, REPEAT customer potential, and the potential of viral positive reviews/referrals. Just telling them "Dude, you could make lots more money with me and my services!" is not enough for discussing larger contracts with the more savvy business owners.

Congrats man.

If anything, the amount you charged is good for you and your client AND will build your relationship with him that much more which could lead into him talking about your services to his friends

Originally Posted by squidkai1

Congrats man.

If anything, the amount you charged is good for you and your client AND will build your relationship with him that much more which could lead into him talking about your services to his friends

Yea, I thought it was fair and I think it will be a good thing in the long run too!

Thanks,

Congrats bro, I've been there and when you need to close a deal you need to close a deal. Good work.

Originally Posted by Arsis

Congrats bro, I've been there and when you need to close a deal you need to close a deal. Good work.

Thanks! It is a good feeling. For a while I was starting to think that I would never hear "yes". After a while you start to think that your buddies at BHW are "lucky" or "lying" because you can't make anything happen.


It was a huge morale boost, and the money really helps.


Here's to more!

Originally Posted by wally666

Thanks! It is a good feeling. For a while I was starting to think that I would never hear "yes". After a while you start to think that your buddies at BHW are "lucky" or "lying" because you can't make anything happen.


It was a huge morale boost, and the money really helps.


Here's to more!

Congrats! And I really hope to see you grab more clients in the upcoming months!

Congratulations on getting a new client!

I figured I'll throw in a tip for people in the future that will open this thread:

Do some research and computation. How much is a guest typically spending in his vacation rental?

Let's say that a typical guest spends $500 per stay. Now, let's say that with your efforts, you can get 5 guests to book per month. That's $2500 right there. Charge $1500 a month and he has a cool $1000 extra. Obviously, this is simplified as there will also be costs incurred by the rental so they don't get the whole $500. But you get the idea.

Also, tell him that these guests can very well be lifetime customers, so the number of lifetime customers will grow ready to drop $500. Let's say that in a year, you were able to get 20 lifetime customers who will book once a year, then he has a cool $10000 a year in addition to the $2500 per month.

You should also let him know that the guests are more than likely to share the information about the rental.

Explain this to the client and he'll understand the game better.

Again, this is a simplified explanation, so please, no one tell me that there's no way that a customer will pay $500 a stay in a rental or he'll get 20 lifetime customers per year.

Really now, you can overcomplicate this - or make it easy.
There is no "how much should I charge" but "how much should I work"

If he wants to pay low, then he will get low quality, slow work. If he wants to pay $500 a month, you'd better not be putting in a full week's worth of work per month. If he is willing to pay 10 grand, awesome. Work your ass off and bring in the bucks.

And you let him know that. The best advice on this thread so far was to make sure you don't let him do the talking. And...based on the fact that he's in high dollar real estate, while you're on this page asking this question - the odds of you succeeding at this are pretty low. So...MAKE yourself succeed. Give him an offer, and tell him what you can do with that money. If he lowballs you, let him know that you can drop the price but the service will drop as well. You can get the work done at $500 a month, over a long period of time...or you can kick ass and get what he needs for 10 G's. (Provided you can actually do 10 G's worth of work)

This isn't a negotiation about how much you are going to be compensated, the negotiation is how much work you are going to perform.