Just got my first client! Does BHW have any tips for me?

a hungry bear · Jun 15, 2018

So I just got my first client and they are a local skateboard/snowboard shop and was wondering if anyone had any tips for me to help get their online presence more solid. They have an instagram account with about 8k followers and 12% engagement and their facebook page has about 6k likes. They have a good Google maps page with 4.8 rating and 48 reviews. They said they spend almost nothing on advertising and gave me a smaller budget of about 200 dollars a month but said they will increase over time. Their email list has a few thousand subscribers but they stopped email blasts a year ago since they haven’t seen too much of a return from it. They also have an online shop but haven’t been keeping up to date with their products on it and barley generate any sales from it. They also rank first for a lot of local keywords “skateboarding shop around *city*” “snowboarding shop around *city*). They said most of the customers heard them from google maps or search.

So my question is if anyone has any tips for me to start out with helping them build their online presence to generate more sales for the in store or online shop. I was thinking about starting with their email list and offer promotions though it and general knowledge/info about stating and any news revolving around it. I was also thinking about revamping the ecom site and start pushing FB ads towards it to generate some sales online while also targeting local people around the city with promotions on in-store products and their kids skate camp/private sessions that they have during the summer. Maybe even some paid shout outs on IG to promote some products they have.

They also have a lot of skating and snowboarding footage so I was thinking about using that to help promote their FB/IG with posting the content on reddit to help drive people their to social media. Also help their their blog since it was last posted a year ago. I’m really excited since they said if I do a good job they know about 10 other stores that could use some help and would refer them to me and could possibly go full time. Does my strategy look good for this client? Is there anything I could improve on with my budget? Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post and anything could help no matter how big or small it might me. Let me know if you need any other info and I can share it as well.

Best of luck with everyone on their IM journeys and just to show it’s not hard to find clients just get out there and start calling or visiting them locally! You’ll never know who’s out there.

P.S. Let me know if I posted this in the wrong spot or if there's another spot this would be better suited for and I can move it.

Billy Batts · Jun 15, 2018

a hungry bear said:
So I just got my first client and they are a local skateboard/snowboard shop and was wondering if anyone had any tips for me to help get their online presence more solid. They have an instagram account with about 8k followers and 12% engagement and their facebook page has about 6k likes. They have a good Google maps page with 4.8 rating and 48 reviews. They said they spend almost nothing on advertising and gave me a smaller budget of about 200 dollars a month but said they will increase over time. Their email list has a few thousand subscribers but they stopped email blasts a year ago since they haven’t seen too much of a return from it. They also have an online shop but haven’t been keeping up to date with their products on it and barley generate any sales from it. They also rank first for a lot of local keywords “skateboarding shop around *city*” “snowboarding shop around *city*). They said most of the customers heard them from google maps or search.

So my question is if anyone has any tips for me to start out with helping them build their online presence to generate more sales for the in store or online shop. I was thinking about starting with their email list and offer promotions though it and general knowledge/info about stating and any news revolving around it. I was also thinking about revamping the ecom site and start pushing FB ads towards it to generate some sales online while also targeting local people around the city with promotions on in-store products and their kids skate camp/private sessions that they have during the summer. Maybe even some paid shout outs on IG to promote some products they have.

They also have a lot of skating and snowboarding footage so I was thinking about using that to help promote their FB/IG with posting the content on reddit to help drive people their to social media. Also help their their blog since it was last posted a year ago. I’m really excited since they said if I do a good job they know about 10 other stores that could use some help and would refer them to me and could possibly go full time. Does my strategy look good for this client? Is there anything I could improve on with my budget? Thanks so much for taking the time to read this post and anything could help no matter how big or small it might me. Let me know if you need any other info and I can share it as well.

Best of luck with everyone on their IM journeys and just to show it’s not hard to find clients just get out there and start calling or visiting them locally! You’ll never know who’s out there.

P.S. Let me know if I posted this in the wrong spot or if there's another spot this would be better suited for and I can move it.

It's not hard to get clients indeed however it is hard to succeed. So you fixed a client but have no XP and have to come here for advice.. Sounds like a plan

They didn't had much success with the email list because they are noobs. An email list is one of the most important things to have.

My tip for the future, first actually research marketing a bit before you take a client. Now people have to give you advice and you get paid.. That is, is that $200 ex or incl your cut?

Revamping the webshop because? You an expert in eCom and design?

Does my strategy look good for this client?

No, because it sounds to me you are winging it. You got a business website? Portfolio? You got any experience at all?

Anyway, you better start reading the forum and brush up your knowledge as no1 is going to advice you in detail while you get paid.

Now I can't take you seriously anyway as your occupation is sex slave, maybe ask advice from your master

Sorry to be so harsh and in your face, I don't like sugar coating stuff although I'm usually slightly more mellow but detoxing and get aggro very fast

Stavro · Jun 15, 2018

a hungry bear said:
They said they spend almost nothing on advertising and gave me a smaller budget of about 200 dollars a month but said they will increase over time.

Run.

From the way you described it, I'm guessing there's no legal contract in place, which means your job responsibilities are effectively unlimited. And when the payment terms are only a vague promise of "more, eventually', you will never see any raise for your work, regardless of your out-of-pocket costs or increasing job responsibilities.

When doing work like this, you need a well-defined contract outlining the exact work you will be doing on behalf of the company, and the payment for that work. When that contract is signed, YOU set the prices, and YOU set the limitations on work to be done. The company doesn't get to hire you for dirt cheap SEO work then throw a $2000 site redesign in your lap out of the blue, these things need to be negotiated ahead of time.

Of the items you listed, I would not even accept $200/mo to do any one of them, let alone a full social media package as you're apparently offering. At best, you're going to end up working for $1/hr, or if you have to outsource any of these tasks that will eat up the entirety of your $200/mo within the first few days.

If you want to do contract work, start by building and ranking your own sites first. If you use paying customers and established businesses as guinea pigs, nobody will ever let you touch their sites again.

a hungry bear · Jun 15, 2018

Billy Batts said:
It's not hard to get clients indeed however it is hard to succeed. So you fixed a client but have no XP and have to come here for advice.. Sounds like a plan

They didn't had much success with the email list because they are noobs. An email list is one of the most important things to have.

My tip for the future, first actually research marketing a bit before you take a client. Now people have to give you advice and you get paid.. That is, is that $200 ex or incl your cut?

Revamping the webshop because? You an expert in eCom and design?

No, because it sounds to me you are winging it. You got a business website? Portfolio? You got any experience at all?

Anyway, you better start reading the forum and brush up your knowledge as no1 is going to advice you in detail while you get paid.

Now I can't take you seriously anyway as your occupation is sex slave, maybe ask advice from your master

Sorry to be so harsh and in your face, I don't like sugar coating stuff although I'm usually slightly more mellow but detoxing and get aggro very fast

Thanks for the reply Billy Batts I appreciate the harshness. So when I talked to them they know that I am new and they are my first client and said they would be willing to give me a chance. They are in need of someone, anyone for the looks of it and don't have too much to pay. I figured that I would start here and see what I can do over time and this would be a great opportunity for me to learn. I talked to them and they said they would start with store credit for my work, which is great since I need new boots and bindings for my snowboard and said after a few months will negotiate a price to pay me. For being a newbie I though this was a great way to get experience and store credit is better than nothing.

I am going to read the forum and do a bunch of research but figured that was the best I can come up with on the spot. Their online store has a few products but they don't update it. I would just go into the online store and add all their products. Their T-shirt section only has a few shirts but their store has several dozens. I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand and spoon feed me every step to do but just a few tips on how to approach this, even if I don't get any I will still find a way towards success and thinking about creating a journey thread to show the progress that I made over this past few months. Even if everything doesn't go great I figured will still learn much more then just sitting around and doing nothing.

imzeus · Jun 15, 2018

Congratulations!

Stavro · Jun 15, 2018

a hungry bear said:
For being a newbie I though this was a great way to get experience and store credit is better than nothing.

If you practice on your own sites, screwing up means you lose a $10 domain. If you practice on an established business, screwing up means bankruptcy, and potentially even personal liabilities for the losses (an LLC would limit the damage here, but it won't eliminate the risk).

Webbers UX · Jun 16, 2018

Copy what big guys do. Follow Alex Becker on Insta - he gives solid advice for IG Growth & Marketing. Follow Tai Lopez too.

You can copy "Viral" videos and relate them to your niche, that will grow your IG nicely.

I generally like to stay away from clients that say things like "don't spend anything on marketing" and "cheap" type of clients - they turn out to be a headache generally and your actions generally require justification (regardless of how good or bad they are). We miss 4-5 figures of business a year due to rejecting certain clients (nicely, ofc) and it was honestly one of the best decisions for my businesses. Work has been 10x easier.

Congratulations on your first client, bet it must be feeling awesome. I don't mean to push you down but if they're not aware that you don't have experience, you should let them know as it won't end up well in the end. If they're aware and willing to give you a try - then that's perfect. Focus on learning a lot and copying what major brands do to market their business (spy on their competition). Replicate, use your own twist & scale.

Be a 100% honest with your clients,even if it means losing business. They will respect you for your honesty (which can be quite rare), and in the future they may come back for other fields that you have experience in, or even send you clients. Being honest & open in general (even non-business) will help you as a person, A LOT. Major respect for that, and in many cases clients may end up staying with you - it's that powerful.

If you have skills in other fields that may benefit them, help them out - even if it means for free. It's really fucking awesome to do it (it's sort of a drug) and actually will directly help you & your business.

Those are just general advices, some points don't relate to your question it's a few things that will go a very long way in business.

Best of luck G, do everything in your power to make sure they are satisfied, even if it means going out of your way. Don't let clients micro-manage you (which often happens with cheap clients. And by cheap, I don't mean where they spend a lower amount. A client paying $5k/Mo can be cheap). They hired you for a reason.

a hungry bear · Jun 16, 2018

Stavro said:
If you practice on your own sites, screwing up means you lose an $10 domain. If you practice on an established business, screwing up means bankruptcy, and potentially even personal liabilities for the losses (an LLC would limit the damage here, but it won't eliminate the risk).

I do have a LLC formed, and this is a smaller town and everyone kinda knows each other here. They have someone that helps out with the online presence already but they only have 5 people total working at the store and he also has to manage the register and all that as well and doesn't know too much or has that much time to focus on that. They said they were looking to hire someone that can just focus on online presence and wanted to get my on payroll to work for them rather then contract work. My new roommates actually had a friend that worked there and I talked to the owner and said he would like me to him help out. I wasn't going to do anything to risky like bot his IG account but just to see if I can generate a few sales with the 200 a month budget or just build his SM following up more with it.

manpreet · Jun 16, 2018

Contrary to what the other posts say i think this is a great way to start. The clients looking for someone cheap and are willing to reward if they see results and you are wanting to gain experience.

If i were to suggest something it would be to definitely take a quick look how other more established sites are doing in this niche and exactly what they're doing in terms of social media and inventory. Try to follow them to a degree if you see results them pump up the effort if not them test something else amd keep repeating this until you find a good combo

Exine · Jun 16, 2018

I own a local agency - PM me and I'll help you out... You need to do what is the most effective with your time and their money right now. You're not going to do 1,000,000 things under the sun. If you want to help them, you look at their budget and figure out ONE thing that you can do that will help. Their budget is not big enough to do many things. Because if they try, they will fail. You will not complete the work because they are not paying you, and they will not sell their products. Therefor you have to do ONE thing that WORKS and build from there. Once that one service, traffic source, whatever is producing ROI. Started working on another thing.

a hungry bear · Jun 16, 2018

LukaB said:
Copy what big guys do. Follow Alex Becker on Insta - he gives solid advice for IG Growth & Marketing. Follow Tai Lopez too.

You can copy "Viral" videos and relate them to your niche, that will grow your IG nicely.

I generally like to stay away from clients that say things like "don't spend anything on marketing" and "cheap" type of clients - they turn out to be a headache generally and your actions generally require justification (regardless of how good or bad they are). We miss 4-5 figures of business a year due to rejecting certain clients (nicely, ofc) and it was honestly one of the best decisions for my businesses. Work has been 10x easier.

Congratulations on your first client, bet it must be feeling awesome. I don't mean to push you down but if they're not aware that you don't have experience, you should let them know as it won't end up well in the end. If they're aware and willing to give you a try - then that's perfect. Focus on learning a lot and copying what major brands do to market their business (spy on their competition). Replicate, use your own twist & scale.

Be a 100% honest with your clients,even if it means losing business. They will respect you for your honesty (which can be quite rare), and in the future they may come back for other fields that you have experience in, or even send you clients. Being honest & open in general (even non-business) will help you as a person, A LOT. Major respect for that, and in many cases clients may end up staying with you - it's that powerful.

If you have skills in other fields that may benefit them, help them out - even if it means for free. It's really fucking awesome to do it (it's sort of a drug) and actually will directly help you & your business.

Those are just general advices, some points don't relate to your question it's a few things that will go a very long way in business.

Best of luck G, do everything in your power to make sure they are satisfied, even if it means going out of your way. Don't let clients micro-manage you (which often happens with cheap clients. And by cheap, I don't mean where they spend a lower amount. A client paying $5k/Mo can be cheap). They hired you for a reason.

Thanks for the advice LukaB in a few of the other replies I gave a good description on the situation. They know I'm new and never had a client before and wanted me to help them out. The shop is less then a mile away so I will just go to the shop and work with the person that already is doing their online presence but that person also runs the register and helps customers out so they can't focus on their online presence full time. Since it's a small, local store they only have 5 people total working there. He said he would give us $200 a month and just see what we can do so there would be no micro managing, just a small budget and let us do our thing. He said he would pay me in store credit at first which is great since I need new bindings and boots for my snowboard and would give them to me for helping him out. After a few months he said he would put me on payroll or sign a contract and would refer me to other local shops that need help if all goes well. If it doesn't work out too well I walk away with some new gear (His words). I really just want to help out the business and gain some solid experience since it's a really cool store and everyone there is really chill.

I will do some research on Alex Becker and see what the big players are doing. I saw in the downloads section someone posted the Tia Lopez digital marketing course and will be watching that and follow his advice as well. I figured starting with his IG account, his email list and maybe some FB ads to get the ball rolling but will do a ton of reading before investing in PPC. Maybe like locally target people for a 10% promotion on Wednesdays so the ads aren't running full time to help with costs.

WizGizmo · Jun 16, 2018

Thread moved to the "Online Reputation Management" section.

Micoli · Jun 16, 2018

All you mentioned in your plan are general ideas. But mainly it depends from how exactly you will implement and manage it.
I don't now you expertise and knowledge so that's hard to give you any practical tips.

1. Stop ignoring their own mail database. They didn't get results, because made it wrong.
2. For a Huge part it's all about content creation, no matter where you plan to publish it to the FB, Reddit, or the site. I would definitely focus most of the effort on the blog. Simply because it can be SEO optimized (specially long tail keywords) and you always can share it in social networks (make it correct, not just pressing share button).
3. 200 $ it's pretty small budget. So try not to spray you attention and your budget on too many traffic sources.
4. Keep in mind and invest you time in Analytics setting. You need to find the way to count all conversions. Without it will be hard to estimate efficiency of your campaigns and CPC. Your client needs sales.
5.If you don't have experience working with paid traffic. Don't spent money first month on it, invest in content, SEO, Analytics. Focus on audience you already have (mail base, facebook subscribers) and learn as much information as possible. Everything can seem very simple at first glance, but it's a big chance you will spent all budget in nothing. It is important to be able to work and target the audience correctly.

I will say that for big success, you just need to do a little bit more than the client expects. Most often it happens differently, big promises selling service, and less value providing.
Hope that make sense and will be helpful.

awesomewebsites · Jun 16, 2018

Congrats . My only suggestion is to be very communicative with them during the process and satisfy their requirements. This will make them stay longer with you and can also give referral business.

riz_a · Jun 16, 2018

I've been skateboarding for 14 years. I've seen 6 skateshops open and close in my city alone in that time. That's not an exaggeration. They typically rely on a handful of customers (regulars) to keep the place afloat. I'm going to be brutally honest here, these shops fail because skateboarders are cheap. Most of the younger guys don't work and they rely on hand me downs from the guys that are sponsored. It's the same everywhere I've been in the world. The "skate rat" lifestyle.

The vast majority of these guys you'll find on Instagram. It's the platform of choice so if you are planning on posting footage then make sure it's on Instagram. Take a look at how the big guys like Thrasher tag their content and if the footage is good you should be able to grow organically.

In regards to paid advertising, I would be going after the parents of young kids, the ones that buy a skateboard for a birthday or some other special occasion. Reddit is a good idea also for targetting people that are new to the activity, subs like /r/newskaters. Don't waste a cent targetting "skate rats", just grow that following organically on Instagram.

I can't really comment on the snowboarding aspect. I'd find out what does better for them and that should give you an idea on what you should focus on.

I don't know if that helps in anyway or not but if you have any questions about skateboarding specifically you can fire them my way. Good luck!

Billy Batts · Jun 16, 2018

a hungry bear said:
Thanks for the reply Billy Batts I appreciate the harshness. So when I talked to them they know that I am new and they are my first client and said they would be willing to give me a chance. They are in need of someone, anyone for the looks of it and don't have too much to pay. I figured that I would start here and see what I can do over time and this would be a great opportunity for me to learn. I talked to them and they said they would start with store credit for my work, which is great since I need new boots and bindings for my snowboard and said after a few months will negotiate a price to pay me. For being a newbie I though this was a great way to get experience and store credit is better than nothing.

I am going to read the forum and do a bunch of research but figured that was the best I can come up with on the spot. Their online store has a few products but they don't update it. I would just go into the online store and add all their products. Their T-shirt section only has a few shirts but their store has several dozens. I'm not looking for someone to hold my hand and spoon feed me every step to do but just a few tips on how to approach this, even if I don't get any I will still find a way towards success and thinking about creating a journey thread to show the progress that I made over this past few months. Even if everything doesn't go great I figured will still learn much more then just sitting around and doing nothing.

Ok that change perspective a bit. Getting paid in products can be a good deal sometimes, did it myself a couple times

Sounds like that company has no idea what they are doing, not utilizing a mail list and a webshop is Just being stupid.

Find a successful company in the same niche and see how they are managing their SM pages and webshop. Subscribe to their list and see what kind of funnel they running.

Also subscribe to some bug name in IM as they have mastered email marketing and have a long funnel for sure.

GL.

scentedGhost · Jun 16, 2018

Revise their site with the latest e-commerce plugins connected to Facebook. You can add that in your goal. Just research more!

irishengteacher · Jun 16, 2018

Hey OP.

I can see myself being in a similar situation to you in the near future. Just to echo what others have said, so long as you are honest with them about what you know at the moment and what you are capable of then you will be fine and this should be a good experience for you.

If you start blowing smoking up their arse bigging yourself up as some guru then it will end in tears and you will look more like a scammer.

Sounds like they are doing zero and only have the resources to do zero. I think that they will be happy with ANY improvement and that they are at least doing SOMETHING. A lot of local businesses are like that.

So to repeat, just be honest, and no harm to downplay what you can achieve. Under promise and over deliver should be your aim. Also you seem like a nice guy to work with, no one wants to work with some IM whiz who is a gigantic asshole.

Just got my first client! Does BHW have any tips for me?

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