The Old File Method to Build Your Business

---- THREAD CLOSED 02/02/2015 ----
I was bumping around some news sites about a month or so ago and came across an article that reminded me of an old client so I looked his "stuff" up to see where he was at as far as his site, his social media, rankings, and such.

I was pretty surprised with what I saw as there was little done after I handed everything off to him. Very little FB/Twitter activity, only a few posts added to his site, no off site SEO to speak of, nothing in the way of press releases or other online public relations either. This client is not a bum; he has a viable business and has been in business for several years and has a bit of a customer base.

Also, when we parted ways, I gave him a PDF doc as to what he would be best doing to keep his position in Google on the local level as well as made videos for some of the step by step things he needed to do to continue his pursuit of a constant flood of new business and to continue to build his business to the $ amount he had projected.

So I shot him an email and asked how things were going... not a sales pitch, just a "How are things, Joe Client?" email.

His response was , 'Business is OK but not really kicking it, no real growth to speak of, nothing that he would write home about.'

When I asked him if he had trouble understanding some of the information I left him with to continue to build his online presence he said it was too much hassle and although he believed it would help just not something he wanted to personally handle and would I consider some kind of plan or something along those lines to help him out.

I put together a maintenance plan that I use for many clients in one variation or another for him that would make him relevant again in his local market (I actually shared this exact method of maintenance with Techxan before he passed) as well as help him get back in the local search algo where he belonged... nothing real heavy but something that would give him life in that end of his marketing again.

Bingo... a client from just going though "old files".

So what did I do, I contacted a bunch more former clients over the past few weeks and ended up with 6 new clients just by checking in with them and there are still a few in conversation that may come along as well.

The old file method of building a business has been around for years and has been used by just about every vertical in the business world and actually takes a little more effort than just snagging new clients sometimes. You have an edge in that you know the client, you lose an edge in that the client can say. "I've tried that in the past".

More often than not though, you know why the client is no longer a client and if you were a decent provider you have a shot at re-kindling the relationship once again.

Setting the client up again is usually not as hard as when you initially started with them as you have a pretty good idea (or you should) as to what their goals are, what things are important to their industry and what their target market is. That is pretty valuable information and saves you a ton of preliminary work with your "new again" client.

So if you are looking to expand your personal SEO service, dust off the old files you have laying around and see if there is a way to help out those that you have already helped out; it will be nice to reconnect at the very least, could be great for your old client to get some help with their online marketing and could lead to new business for you.

An old business technique indeed. I always referred to this as the "re-qualification". It takes someone dedicated to keep records of their clients, complete their work, and then cycle through them a year or so down the line, and resell them. Top notch information here, BTB.

This Method is Good to try Once a Year.

OutOfTown said:

An old business technique indeed. I always referred to this as the "re-qualification".

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Good name for it, Re-Qualification.

I used to use this when I was acquiring Bottled Water companies back in the day... I would pay roughly 325.00 per active client when purchasing and then once acquired, take all the old records and have someone call the clients that had quit their service.

I had a salesman named Alex that loved to make those calls as he was real successful in the "Not sure why you quit XYZ service but we are under new ownership and would love to give you a free trial to see how you like the new and improved company."

His retention rate for those that accepted was over 90% so it was a real successful method.

its an occasional method but, precisely a nice one

Nice idea.. although it does leave me wondering if you where so good to them in the first place why on earth did they ever leave you...

t0mmy said:

Nice idea.. although it does leave me wondering if you where so good to them in the first place why on earth did they ever leave you...

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People leave for a lot of reasons... budgets are changed, focus is changed, they want to try something else, their goals for the site(s) you were working on were met, they moved into a different vertical and wanted to go it alone.

A 100% client retention ratio would be pretty near impossible in any business from my experience.

BassTrackerBoats said:

People leave for a lot of reasons... budgets are changed, focus is changed, they want to try something else, their goals for the site(s) you were working on were met, they moved into a different vertical and wanted to go it alone.

A 100% client retention ratio would be pretty near impossible in any business from my experience.

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Yeah just curious.. As I find clients tend to stick around and not worry about budget if I'm showing them results as they're making enough bank to cover the costs, the last thing a client doing well does is go with something else too, but I guess everyone is different heh

t0mmy said:

Yeah just curious.. As I find clients tend to stick around and not worry about budget if I'm showing them results as they're making enough bank to cover the costs, the last thing a client doing well does is go with something else too, but I guess everyone is different heh

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The ones that have achieved their goals have no reason to continue to spend, those that sell their properties have no reason to stay, the guy that has a local business that just wanted to get the ball rolling and needed a foothold or a presence has no reason to continue.

This particular client, the one that gave me thought to revisit some old files was a guy that started a new business and wanted to lay a base and after that go it alone. We knew that going in which is why I made those videos and PDF for him.

I'm not going to get into each of the 6 that have come back on board but several wanted to target new keywords which could be a good opportunity for them to grow their businesses. To be clear, these are local SEO clients in this instance but I'm sure it would work for global.

I've dealt with a dentistry clinic before and one of the dentists split and he now needed SEO. This method works as long as you keep files or stay in the loop on everybody. Great method.

BassTrackerBoats said:

The ones that have achieved their goals have no reason to continue to spend, those that sell their properties have no reason to stay, the guy that has a local business that just wanted to get the ball rolling and needed a foothold or a presence has no reason to continue.

This particular client, the one that gave me thought to revisit some old files was a guy that started a new business and wanted to lay a base and after that go it alone. We knew that going in which is why I made those videos and PDF for him.

I'm not going to get into each of the 6 that have come back on board but several wanted to target new keywords which could be a good opportunity for them to grow their businesses. To be clear, these are local SEO clients in this instance but I'm sure it would work for global.

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Sure thing :top:.. just speaking from my own experience I find they tend to stick around even when they've acheived their goals to maintain the positions they have reached, agreed the local guy looking for a footing and the seller have no reason although they wouldn't be returning anyway deffos not the seller with that same site..

Here's a pretty good example of the responses you could be getting from dusting off those old files. This client was with us up until about 8 months ago when she stopped service:



The emails you send out should be personal in nature so it can take some time to do this correctly.