Mitigating Legal Liability [SEO for Clients]

[Capital]

What's happening guys?

Just thought I'd drop a question that's been weighing on my mind, since I know a lot you guys have years of experience working with small business clients.

So here's the deal: My friend and I want to start a design/marketing firm targeting small/mid size businesses (local mostly).
I'd be doing design and marketing, and my boy would be handling the sales/on- boarding. But here's the thing: My friend is one of the coldest phone salesmen in his industry (he's closing multiple lukewarm leads for $5,000-$20,000 over the phone daily at a 60-90% close rate). He's also in the same general industry, only his company targets non-biz owners who want to start their own magical online eCommerce money making sites. It's quite the racket, considering his business gives zero fucks about actually fulfilling client's SEO needs (think Wolf of Wallstreet with biz op).

Anyway, we both know we could be killing it offering local businesses SEO.

My only concern is on the fulfillment end. Now, when it comes to local SEO (and SEO in general), there are no guarantees. I'm confident I can genuinely help improve client rankings, but with the way my partner likes to do things, there's always the potential he would "over promise" our service benefits in a way that doesn't require him to outright lie, but that may leave clients underwhelmed that they aren't in the top 1-3 results for competitive keywords after 3 months.

Unlike my partner's company, I don't have enough cash to hire lawyers every time someone complains they were taken advantage of. And unlike my partner's company, I actually plan on fulfilling services adequately.

But the potential for a client to freak out when his/her site isn't ranking as high as they had hoped is always there. SEO is very intangible and abstract.

So how do you guys mitigate this risk and cover your ass?
Do you have clients sign very explicit 3-6 month contracts that don't garuantee results?
Are you always 100% transparent about the risks of SEO during sales/on-boarding process?
Have any of you guys ever been taken to court or threatened with lawsuits by a client who felt you didn't "do enough?" SEO wise?

Thanks in advance to anyone who contributes their thoughts and experience.

 

[Potatoe]

I know this isn't the specific type of answer that you're looking for, but from what I've read here, you mitigate the risk and cover your ass by not hiring a salesman who sounds perfectly okay with lying and misleading customers, or you have a serious talk with him about what kind of business you're building.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Yeah, you need to manage realistic expectations, not set up pie in the sky fantasies. That's step one. Otherwise, it seems like these are things to include in your contracts. There are no guarantees since you don't own Google. You can only do what's proven to work safely in the present and past and in the foreseeable future, and every project requires different amounts of work to succeed. I'd hire someone like Aaron Kelly who specializes in legality surrounding the internet, talk over the goals (which he will already understand), and have him draw up a contract for you with ad lib spots so you have a solid template that holes can't be poked in.

 

[juliantrueflynn]

Read the --real-- reviews on RevLocal here. You can see with this kind of model it works and you can grow really fast, but don't expect a lot of praise. I personally haven't seen any legal cases against an SEO firm just for promising ranks.

I'm very transparent whenever I do client work. Everything explicitly stated on calls/emails about expectations and the realistic goals plus it's in the contracts/proposals they sign. Without tracking your performance and goal setting then how else would they know you're worth it?

If you get any big clients in regulated areas then you're used to dealing with lawyers asking for specifics on link building and getting things through compliance too.

With marketing firms BTW they're measured on their customer lifetime value. If you have any plans on selling the business later or getting any funding and they see people are only staying on for ~3 months and leaving unsatisfied then that's not attractive at all.

 

[Capital]

I know this isn't the specific type of answer that you're looking for, but from what I've read here, you mitigate the risk and cover your ass by not hiring a salesman who sounds perfectly okay with lying and misleading customers, or you have a serious talk with him about what kind of business you're building.

Oh yeah, he knows he's not going to have AS MUCH liberty in our biz as he does with his current employer. But he also knowd he'll be able to push boundaries and I'll look the other way when he closes a small biz on $xx,xxx worth of SEO services to rank better in low competition local serps. At the end of the day, I'd rather partner with an absolute bloodthirsty sales demon than a "nice guy" tech empath who's too afraid to tell prospects they're pussies for compromising their businesse's future (and by extension, kid's future). At least with the former, I know he can reign it in when he has to; the latter won't be able to sack up when needed.

Read the --real-- reviews on RevLocal here. You can see with this kind of model it works and you can grow really fast, but don't expect a lot of praise. I personally haven't seen any legal cases against an SEO firm just for promising ranks.

I'm very transparent whenever I do client work. Everything explicitly stated on calls/emails about expectations and the realistic goals plus it's in the contracts/proposals they sign. Without tracking your performance and goal setting then how else would they know you're worth it?

If you get any big clients in regulated areas then you're used to dealing with lawyers asking for specifics on link building and getting things through compliance too.

With marketing firms BTW they're measured on their customer lifetime value. If you have any plans on selling the business later or getting any funding and they see people are only staying on for ~3 months and leaving unsatisfied then that's not attractive at all.

Thanks for the tips bro. Interesting link... that business seems more shady than what I'm looking to do (I'm essentially trying to charge high prices for streamlined services without having to hold the client's hand through every step of the process), but it's interesting to see them get away with so much bullshit. Makes me feel less guilty about potentially overcharging for services

Also, I WOULD be setting goals and tracking progress. And I would certainly try to deliver on the promises as best as possible. But I'd also like to give my partner room to operate in the grey area without incurring legal risk. For instance, when I bring my client from 16th to 7th in the SERPS at the end of a 3 month contract, I don't want him sending lawyers after me because my sales villain partner blue-balled him several months prior with possibilities of sitting at #1 or #2.

Question for you, Mr. Flynn: Did you consult an attorney when devising your SEO contracts or did you simply find and revise a preexisting template? I ask because I want to be as cheap as possible starting out, but I'll hire an lawyer if I absolutely must.


Speaking of lawyers, shout out to Ryuzaki for the link. Bookmarked.

 

[Capital]

Read the --real-- reviews on RevLocal here. You can see with this kind of model it works and you can grow really fast, but don't expect a lot of praise. I personally haven't seen any legal cases against an SEO firm just for promising ranks.
.

Holy shit, I decided to create a GlassDoor account and went through the rest of the reviews of that company and I'm shivering.

What a shit business.

I'm all for aggressive sales tactics, but it sounds like the owners are a bunch of lazy sociopaths. It's like the "Churn and Burn" of marketing agencies.

The sad thing is, if they scaled down, stopped trying to close so many clients, and focused more on fulfillment, they'd probably have more long-term profitability. But their retention rate is absolute shit. And their employees fucking hate them.

...

Note to self: Stay small, focused, aggressive, and effective, but don't get too greedy.

 

[lion1978]

I'm all for aggressive sales tactics, but it sounds like the owners are a bunch of lazy sociopaths. It's like the "Churn and Burn" of marketing agencies.

Churn and burn describse it pretty well, it's all about closing the client no matter what, and these guys takes full advantage of the fact that a lot of small business owners don't read the contract they sign or doesn't understand ti but can't afford to hire a laywer.
The funny thing is though if they were to under promise and over deliver on those promises, their retention rate would be through the roof and so would their referal rate.

One advice to avoid your business partner from becoming one of these wolfs, could be something as simple as giving them a free preview of what you can do for them, what you'd simply do is rank a youtube video for an easy keyword that you decide, and remember to put the video on YOUR youtube channel.

 

[Capital]

Churn and burn describse it pretty well, it's all about closing the client no matter what, and these guys takes full advantage of the fact that a lot of small business owners don't read the contract they sign or doesn't understand ti but can't afford to hire a laywer.

Actually it's the complete opposite. From one of the reviews:

"They've also taken so much out of the hands of the people who actually deal with clients that there's little control or strategy involved. It mostly seems to be translation of data for business owners. This is a huge problem since IMA's are constantly told they are solely responsible for "retention" and paid accordingly. But there's no contract so clients can start or stop whenever they want and those decisions may have nothing to do with the IMA at all."

This was echoed a few other times in the reviews.

1. Basically the sales floor closes as many clients as possible as quickly as possible.
2. After raking in the initial investment, they throw the clients to a bunch of incompetent "technicians" and "marketers." Apart from a few gimmicky tools, it doesn't seem like they're really hooking clients up with much.
3. Many (most) clients catch on that they're being taken advantage of, and quickly eject as soon as possible since they aren't under any contract.

My suspicion is that the decision to offer non-contractual services to the clients was very intentional, and is actually vital to the "success" of their business model.

The funny thing is though if they were to under promise and over deliver on those promises, their retention rate would be through the roof and so would their referal rate.

Fuck, if they were to just deliver on a BASIC LEVEL, their retention rate would be much better.

It's like they tried to systematize and "productize" a fairly complex process (local SEO) but went about it all wrong, and instead of fixing it, just decided that short-term money was worth it.

One advice to avoid your business partner from becoming one of these wolfs, could be something as simple as giving them a free preview of what you can do for them, what you'd simply do is rank a youtube video for an easy keyword that you decide, and remember to put the video on YOUR youtube channel.

Haha nah man, ranking a video for EACH CLIENT is too much work. I'd like to close clients in 1-2 phone calls without having to prove myself too much. I have a few past clients/projects (and one current client) I could show off just to demonstrate I'm not all talk, but ultimately, I don't want to perform magic tricks. Hell, I'll rank some lead gen sites for super easy keywords and pass the sites off as "client sites" since I need more social proof and haven't actually owned a legit agency before (and thus, don't have a robust client base).

But I think it all comes down to phone sales and a smooth on-boarding process. Just gotta cover my ass by actually delivering.

Thanks to everyone who contributed!

 

[Andrewkar]

I really like term "churn and burn" also. Where I live right now it works very similar with one exception, business owners are "trapped" in a 12, 24 or even 36-month contracts. If they decide to leave the "SEO firm", at any point during the contract, they have to pay fines to SEO company LOL.

Of course, SEO company is doing completely nothing. I've seen many invoices (higher 3-4 figures) for SEO done for KWs that have virtually no traffic at all

That's true, bus owners don't read contracts! They behave like sheep waiting to be consumed by wolves.

 

[lion1978]

Fuck, if they were to just deliver on a BASIC LEVEL, their retention rate would be much better.

It seems like it might never have been the intention for them to deliver at any level, I am going to call this business model (if you can even callit that, more so scam model) the wham, bam, thank you mam model.

Funny thing is I just got a call from one of them companies, they promised me to rank for an broad global serch term for $ 90 PER YEAR that is even a bad scam model ffs

 

[turbin3]

I'd be doing design and marketing, and my boy would be handling the sales/on- boarding. But here's the thing: My friend is one of the coldest phone salesmen in his industry (he's closing multiple lukewarm leads for $5,000-$20,000 over the phone daily at a 60-90% close rate).

Here's an idea. Both of you start your own individual companies. Subcontract out your sales to him. If you ever run into serious issues, cut ties if necessary. You'll have that "buffer" or excuse of him having been a subcontractor, if it ever really becomes an issue someone complains about. If need be, sell it to him as a, "You do your thing. I do mine. We both bank." type of thing. If your friend is really that much of a wolf...fuck...I have some job opportunities for him if you don't want to take advantage of that!

 

[Capital]

I really like term "churn and burn" also. Where I live right now it works very similar with one exception, business owners are "trapped" in a 12, 24 or even 36-month contracts. If they decide to leave the "SEO firm", at any point during the contract, they have to pay fines to SEO company LOL.

Of course, SEO company is doing completely nothing. I've seen many invoices (higher 3-4 figures) for SEO done for KWs that have virtually no traffic at all

That's true, bus owners don't read contracts! They behave like sheep waiting to be consumed by wolves.

Hahaha this game is so fucked. Small business owners entering the 21st century have no idea what's going on.

It's open season for those with no conscience.

Start selling those shovels, guyz.

Here's an idea. Both of you start your own individual companies. Subcontract out your sales to him. If you ever run into serious issues, cut ties if necessary. You'll have that "buffer" or excuse of him having been a subcontractor, if it ever really becomes an issue someone complains about. If need be, sell it to him as a, "You do your thing. I do mine. We both bank." type of thing. If your friend is really that much of a wolf...fuck...I have some job opportunities for him if you don't want to take advantage of that!

Love it. That's the perfect sort of plausible deniability I'm looking for. Thanks for the suggestion.

He can literally pillage people's credit cards with impunity. And lil ole' me can deliver as best as I can!

Sales floor gets busted? Oops. Here's a new "subcontracted" sales floor (with no relation to the previous one, of course).

Of course, I'd never want to get to the point where I'm taking on clients who expect me to fulfill shit I don't even offer, but as long as I can dutifully deliver on what was sold, I'm good.

And fuck yeah, Turbin. This guy is a childhood friend. If for some reason our operation doesn't get off the ground, I'll send him your way.

I love seeing people win.

 

[Andrewkar]

Hahaha this game is so fucked. Small business owners entering the 21st century have no idea what's going on.
It's open season for those with no conscience.
Start selling those shovels, guyz.

You are right, that's what smart guys are doing now... IMO

It's just money...

 

[juliantrueflynn]

@Capital Yea, a lawyer wrote it up. There's templates online though if you needed something quickly, that's fine. The main parts of these contracts are pretty similar... AKA you can use their branding, they can't sue you for damages (ex. host down), payment schedule with terms, etc.

I understand you're not trying to start a shady business, but I see an issue here with your sales running a muck. I know you said your sale's guy is good but just hear me out. Any dummy can close a sale if they can say whatever, they need to be measured on their quality (same way with leads). This means customers who aren't erratic, have the budget, and understand why they need the services AND that they want them.

Even Wolf of Wall Street that you referenced, there was a script the guys were reading, they weren't allowed to say whatever. Your sale's guy needs to formulate on how he's doing these calls and share it with the team.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Agreed with julian. It's not just closing a lead in these cases. You aren't selling a product, but an on-going service. Cold, Warm, Hot... doesn't matter here, because once you close them you close them. And the game isn't to close everyone and their mother, because you don't take their money and they walk away with a vacuum cleaner. Your guy needs to focus more on filtering and qualifying these leads.

You want quality leads. The kind that have money to spend and don't get anxious about it and try to call or email you every day. The kind that understand that you don't move your hand for less than an hours worth of work. So if they call you because they want their H1's a tad bit bigger, thinking it's only going to take you a few minutes to do, they are right but it's going to cost them an hour's worth of work. The kind that are smart enough to save up their requests and not be up your ass constantly. The kind that trust you to do what they paid you for, instead of getting on Google and suddenly becoming a medical doctor / SEO.

You get my point. Closing anyone and everyone sounds like a nightmare to me. It's always 80/20. 80% of those people are going to be a nightmare and 20% are going to pay your bills and leave you alone.

 

[turbin3]

He can literally pillage people's credit cards with impunity. And lil ole' me can deliver as best as I can!

That's a GREAT problem to have.

Of course, I'd never want to get to the point where I'm taking on clients who expect me to fulfill shit I don't even offer, but as long as I can dutifully deliver on what was sold, I'm good.

Take it a step further. Start developing a core group of providers (covering a WIDE variety of relevant services) to subcontract the work to, if and when you're over-booked or suddenly in need of an unprovided service. Sell that shit homie! Plenty of people looking for work. Just build the structure, subcontract what you need to, and you'll find plenty of people willing to fulfill it. The harder part will be maintaining accountability and developing the structure and SOPs to ensure it.

 

[Capital]

@Capital Yea, a lawyer wrote it up. There's templates online though if you needed something quickly, that's fine. The main parts of these contracts are pretty similar... AKA you can use their branding, they can't sue you for damages (ex. host down), payment schedule with terms, etc.

I understand you're not trying to start a shady business, but I see an issue here with your sales running a muck. I know you said your sale's guy is good but just hear me out. Any dummy can close a sale if they can say whatever, they need to be measured on their quality (same way with leads). This means customers who aren't erratic, have the budget, and understand why they need the services AND that they want them.

Even Wolf of Wall Street that you referenced, there was a script the guys were reading, they weren't allowed to say whatever. Your sale's guy needs to formulate on how he's doing these calls and share it with the team.

Okay, gotcha. Starting out, I'll use a template contract but once there's momentum, we'll lawyer up.

And thanks for the advice on leads. That's something I've thought about, and honestly, dealing with shitty clients is probably going to be the biggest threat to this operation unless I can find a solution that accommodates aggressive sales tactics.

And yeah, he's not a dumbass. He knows his script is going to have to have constraints. That's something we'll work on once I've got more of the structure down.

Agreed with julian. It's not just closing a lead in these cases. You aren't selling a product, but an on-going service. Cold, Warm, Hot... doesn't matter here, because once you close them you close them. And the game isn't to close everyone and their mother, because you don't take their money and they walk away with a vacuum cleaner. Your guy needs to focus more on filtering and qualifying these leads.

You want quality leads. The kind that have money to spend and don't get anxious about it and try to call or email you every day. The kind that understand that you don't move your hand for less than an hours worth of work. So if they call you because they want their H1's a tad bit bigger, thinking it's only going to take you a few minutes to do, they are right but it's going to cost them an hour's worth of work. The kind that are smart enough to save up their requests and not be up your ass constantly. The kind that trust you to do what they paid you for, instead of getting on Google and suddenly becoming a medical doctor / SEO.

You get my point. Closing anyone and everyone sounds like a nightmare to me. It's always 80/20. 80% of those people are going to be a nightmare and 20% are going to pay your bills and leave you alone.

You and Julian have fantastic points. There are only a few options I can think of to mitigate client nightmare scenarios:

1. Really qualify leads. This is what you guys are getting at. Filter out the cheap-O's, control freaks, and idiots who think we're magicians, and only work with solid clients who understand what they're getting into and respect boundaries. Pros: Less stress, long term retention, deeper pockets, potential to earn great reputation, and potential referrals. Cons: Missed opportunities to rake in extra easy $$$, more work on the sales end, and potentially more work on the fulfillment end.
   
2. Churn-and-Burn. This is what I DON'T want this operation to become, but it can easily slide in this direction without careful consideration. Basically, tell clients what they want to hear, close as many prospects as fast as possible, pressure them into buying packages they might not fully understand, and keep them at a safe distance until fulfillment is delivered, at which point they either stick around for more (and swim?) or eject (and sink?). Pros: No hand-holding - literally just throw them down some automated pipeline and hire an Indian "support" VA to keep them calm while we deliver. Potential for substantial one-time initial investments. Greater volume (potential for scale). Cons: Poor retention, potentially poor reputation, bad conscience (on my end, anyway), and not very sustainable.
   
3. Multi-Tier pipeline. Basically, separate the wheat from the chaff by qualifying prospects well. Only in this case, we don't throw away the chaff -- we simply funnel them into a separate, lower-tier sales pipeline for offers/services that don't require hand-holding or substantial on-going engagement. For leads that are genuinely interested in seeing BIG GAINS, we'll send them down a higher-tier pipeline for services that require more hands-on engagement, time, and investment. Pros: No sense of "lost opportunity;" Can achieve both scale (side-services for the chaff) AND magnitude (bigger investments from wheat). Can still leverage quite a bit of automation without losing the "soul" of company. If backlogged with wheat projects, can focus on closing chaff in the meantime. Cons: Potential for epic scope-creep. Requires a lot of moving parts. Optimizing multiple funnels sounds scary. More overhead to get started. More shit to supervise and manage.

I like 3. Sounds super challenging, but also fun and will force me to be innovative.

That's a GREAT problem to have.

Take it a step further. Start developing a core group of providers (covering a WIDE variety of relevant services) to subcontract the work to, if and when you're over-booked or suddenly in need of an unprovided service. Sell that shit homie! Plenty of people looking for work. Just build the structure, subcontract what you need to, and you'll find plenty of people willing to fulfill it. The harder part will be maintaining accountability and developing the structure and SOPs to ensure it.

I love it!

Like you said, there's lot of moving parts to manage and coordinate. For every service provider/subcontractor I use, I'd need a Plan B and C for when shit inevitably gets fucked up.

Not only that, but I'd need top-shelf CRM and Project Management Software to avoid insanity.

Anyone have any good CRM software recommendations in mind?

 

[turbin3]

Like you said, there's lot of moving parts to manage and coordinate. For every service provider/subcontractor I use, I'd need a Plan B and C for when shit inevitably gets fucked up.

Not only that, but I'd need top-shelf CRM and Project Management Software to avoid insanity.

Anyone have any good CRM software recommendations in mind?

This may not be the best recommendation, as it could significantly depend on the exact services you're offering and performing the most. I've had good results and fairly efficient workflows with Raven Tools. It's far from a perfect platform, but it does have a lot of great capabilities tied into one platform. Here's some of the highlights I can remember off the top of my head:

• Campaigns: Every client can have their own campaign, making it easy to switch between accounts.
• CRM: There are some CRM / task management / contact database type features. It is by no means a Salesforce, but for typical day-to-day, keeping workers on task, it works well enough.
• Integrations: Google Analytics / AdWords / Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/LinkedIn, can integrate with Wordpress blogs to post/schedule from the platform, TextBroker, and some other platforms.
• Users: Good degree of user groups, permissions, and customization available. This is great if you want to actually give customers a specific user level, that only lets them see what you want to see, which could open up some cool opportunities for small business (upcharge!).
• Custom Branding: You can custom brand the login gateway and platform as well as host on a subdomain on YOUR domain (extra $50/mth I think). That, combined with customer user groups could be very cool for giving clients access and/or upcharging accordingly.
• Reporting: This is the best part, and what I use them for the most. Most components that are present in GA / AdWords / GWT and most of the other integrations, are available in custom reports. You can run GA reports using advanced segments, and tons of other cool things. Best part is, you can schedule reports to the point where they are about as automated and hands-free as possible. Reports output as PDF, HTML that's full responsive even for mobile, has interactive elements and help/info pop-ups (great for clients), etc.
• Misc: There are a bunch of other features, like link monitoring if you want to dump lists of built links in there, keyword rankings, email campaign stuff, etc.

Best part is, if you have to manage a LOT of moving parts, subcontractors, people working on different on/off-site efforts, you can manage the vast majority of it from that one platform.

 

[Capital]

^Thanks for the plug. I'm checking it out now, and it has a lot of features that interest me. Doesn't look like it there's really anything that tracks leads or delineates funnel stages, but for client WORK this looks pretty fucking badass.