 For this last session is David Zimmerman and he is an internet marketing consultant who specializes in search. He has several years experience working with B2B companies, especially manufacturers. He started his own consultancy, Reliable Acorn LLC, after working in several agencies. David's core belief is that all marketing should be measured. Measured marketing is more effective and less expensive. There's no excuse in David's mind for marketing efforts whose results are not measured. So without further ado, Mr. David Zimmerman. Thank you so much. Thank you guys for coming today. It is the last session of the day and bowling will begin shortly. So yeah, my name is David Zimmerman. I'm an internet marketing consultant. I've been on my own for about three years now. I started Reliable Acorn then. Before that, I was working in various agencies around town. I lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. And while I was working with these agencies, I kind of gained a reputation. It was actually a good reputation because what they would do is they would give me all the difficult clients. The clients that people didn't want to work with because they were unreasonable or difficult or just plain mean sometimes. Oh, just give them the David. He'll handle it. Now I gained this reputation because for some reason I was able to actually hold on to some of these clients. Sometimes I was able to resurrect the relationship with these clients and that ended up getting me more difficult clients. Which led to job security because people wanted to keep me around, which is actually pretty nice. But I think the secret to being able to hold on to and work with really difficult clients was one word that I would use that a lot of people were not willing to do. This is a very scary word to use with clients even under the best circumstances. You know, it's like we're told everywhere around us the customer is always right and then somehow it's wrong to say to a client, no. But sometimes it's really about the money and we're afraid to say no to a client because we're afraid they're going to take their money somewhere else to someone who's going to say yes. So we're scared to say no to our clients. Now you might not be working on your own, you might be working in an agency and the same fear could be true. Your boss tells you to do something and you're afraid to tell them that's not a great idea because they're the boss, they're the expert, they should know. Or you don't want to say no to your boss because well, you got to pay the mortgage next month and you don't want to take their money somewhere else to someone else's pocket. Saying no is a scary thing. But I'm here to tell you saying no to your clients will help them. It will help you and is well worth your time. We'll start with the basics. Saying no will help your clients. Have you seen the oatmeal, right? The comic How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell. This would be hilarious if it weren't so true. One time a client called me and they said David, David, I want to add my puppy dog to every page of my website. Okay, why do you want to add your dog to every page of your site? Because my dog is really cute. I have no doubt your dog is cute. But how will that help you get more plumbing customers? Well, you know, I just thought about it the other day. Is this a brainstorm? Nevermind. You see what I did there? I said no. And I ended up helping them. Now, as a small plumbing company, they might not have had an unlimited marketing budget, say, at least. And even though they might not have taken a lot of time and effort to put the dog on every page of the site, that time and effort could have been better spent doing something else that is more productive later. Now, even if you're working for a large company, there's going to be limitations. Maybe if you're working at a large enterprise company, the limitations is developer hours. And if you come with an idea that your developers don't have time to implement or that you can get them to implement, another idea later you needed to implement, they won't implement because you've already used up your time. Saying no can help your clients out. A few months ago, a client called me, David, David, our competitor has 72 followers on Instagram. How many do we have? We have none because we don't have an Instagram account. Oh my gosh, we must be on Instagram. Stop everything and we need an Instagram account because we need 72 followers as well. Well, okay. Side note, how many of you follow a personal injury law firm on Instagram? Okay, that's what I thought too. So we said, listen, we could spend your time and your effort developing a strategy for Instagram, growing your followers, and maybe one day we'll have 73 followers on Instagram. But your AdWords account is only limited by the amount of money you can spend because every click is really expensive, your personal injury law firm. So why don't we take the money from your Instagram and put it into AdWords and you will actually get more customers rather than maybe possibly get a customer from Instagram? Oh, that's a great idea, David, here's more money. You see what I did there? I said no and I helped the client out. No helps your clients and that's why we need to be sure to tell our clients no. The second reason we need to say no to our clients is because saying no helps ourselves. And let me tell you a secret, it's okay to help yourself. Like I said, I had a little reputation of dealing with the difficult clients and I was working at an agency and I was on the phone with someone who was a little disappointed. As we spoke, as we were speaking, they became a little bit agitated. I tried to listen a little bit closer. They started to lose a little patience. I tried to suggest some possible solutions and they related me to an orifice on my backside. I was really surprised it went there and I found myself staring at the phone in shock until my boss stormed in my door and pantomined to me, you hang up the phone. I didn't know what to do, I was paralyzed. You know, if I hung up the phone with the angry client, that's done. If I don't hang up the phone, I lose the job. Well, I hang up the phone. Boss leaves, storms into his office, calls the client. And I think, where can I find a box to put all the stuff from my desk? Because I'm going to need one soon. Until I heard my boss say, you do not get to speak to any of my employees in that fashion. You are no longer working with our company. You are no longer allowed to speak to David directly ever again. I will personally handle the transition of you away from our company. You see what he did there? He said no. And that's why I would like to work for him again. We have lunch every month. Saying no helps yourself. Nobody pays you enough to abuse you. Right? Nobody does. Nobody can pay you enough to abuse you. It's okay to say no to help yourself. Now, thankfully not every client is quite so aggressive. You know, but even the most friendly clients can be problematic. When I went out on my own, it was scary. It had people coming to me from all over, willing to pay me just a little bit because it's all they had for all that they needed. It was really tempting. I'm just starting. I'm scared of where the next paycheck is coming from. But I realized if I take a really high-demanding client for pennies and the dollar, I'm ending up working for less than a minimum wage. I'm not going to enjoy what I do. And frankly, just as a one-person shop, I don't have the resources to help someone that small. They need a larger company who can scale. I can't scale me. So I decided to turn down those clients. It was scary, but I had to say no for my own good. So my peace of mind, what I wanted to see out of my company, what would make me enjoy working for myself more. I'm glad I said no. The thing is, we were just talking about this. If you say yes to anybody, no matter how little they have, you are just a commodity. You are suddenly competing against Odesk for any old fool who will say yes for a price. The next thing you know, you are making even less money. And here's the secret. If you say no, you are now the expert, and you can charge more. You're not just the person who jumps and drops everything and builds an Instagram account because they said they had to have an Instagram account, even though it wouldn't have done a darn bit of good for them. Saying no helps yourself, and it is totally okay to help yourself. Now, let's just pretend that I'm such an amazing speaker that I totally convinced you you must start to say no. How the heck are we going to do it? Well, you'll notice there's something in common with all the ways I say no. Don't really say no. I give people options. We can do this, or we can do that. We could put a puppy dog on your page, every page of your site, or we could wait for something that will actually help you. You could cuss at me, or you could work for somebody else. Give options. I have a client that redesigned the site in two weeks after a six month long process. We will finally launch this site. They want everything on their homepage. It has to have a video. It has to be in parallax. It must have two slider widgets. It must be everything. How do I say no? You can't have everything on your homepage. Well, the other thing we have to do when we say no to our clients is support our ideas with data. Do you know, dear client, that Google says you have less than three seconds or someone is not going to wait for your site to load? That's less than three seconds. That's not as long as your website loads in three seconds, people will wait. Data won't wait to three seconds. And if you have a video of this, of that, and everything else on your homepage, it might be the best homepage ever, but nobody is going to wait to see it. Supporting the idea with data helps us couch our nose in a productive way that makes them see the benefit, which ends up helping them out. A few years ago, when our phones looked like this, remember that? A client called. He's like, I have to have a mobile website. You don't need a mobile website. No, no, David, somebody wants to sell me a mobile website. I must have a mobile website. We looked in Google Analytics. They were getting a couple visits from mobile, but not a single conversion in months from mobile. So maybe people were visiting mobile, but it wasn't converting. So it wasn't really worth it in my mind. But I have this rule. We could try anything, but we're going to measure it. So I said, listen, let's try this. We're going to have a little pop-up when a mobile visitor comes. It's going to be a little pop-up say, hey, give us a call. And we'll track every one of those phone numbers. And we'll show you at the end of a couple months. Ain't nobody want to talk to you. Ain't not worth your time to build a mobile site. A week later, we started building a mobile site. Right? Because I supported my idea with data, and it showed that I was wrong. Because that's another benefit of really kind of reinforcing this idea of data. It prevents us from just saying no. I've been working volunteering with kids lately. There's a couple portraits they drew of me. I don't beat them, so I don't know why I have a black eye, but whatever. You know, when you're working with kids, it's easy to kind of get in this rut of saying no. Can I do this? Can I do this? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It just cascades. And next thing you know, you're saying no to... You can't go to the bathroom. Well, you know, you can't say no to that, right? But if we check ourselves by giving options and supporting our ideas with data, that becomes protection for our clients to make sure that we're saying no in a productive fashion. So maybe you want to start saying no. Maybe you know now how better to say no to your clients, but you know what we need to do? We have to practice. About a year ago, I decided it was time for me to get healthy, so I signed up to start taking Krav Maga. And this is me being tossed around doing Krav Maga. You'll notice I have a big smile on my face because it is a lot of fun to be tossed like that. This is Paul. He's a nice guy, despite the fact that he has totally tossed me around. You know, when I started doing Krav, it was a little scary. I remember one class instructor say, okay, today we're going to learn choke hold defenses. That's totally cool. Like, what do you do? Someone tries to choke you. And he starts to say, it's really easy. You put your hand up, tilt your head, twist your body, break the hold, clear it with your arm, move to the side. Done. And you can do that. That's easy. Exactly. So my partner stood against me and he goes up and he goes, all right, ready? Go. The partner puts his hands on my throat. I freak out. Nobody has ever put their hands on me like that before. Now, this guy's name is Herb. He's smaller than me. He is the nicest guy in the world. He does not want to hurt me, but my brain shut down the first moment someone put their hands on my throat. So I think Herb saw the terror in my face, backed off, asked if I was okay. Put his hands on the throat again. A little bit more presence in mine. Okay, I think I did this, and this, and I twist. Yeah, all right. So I did it again. Now I can do it. I don't even think about it. Put your hands on my throat. Please don't. Put your hands on my throat. I will just do it by reaction at this point, because I practice. The same thing goes for saying no. So let's practice saying no. And for the benefit of the people next door, they need to hear us. We need to empower them as well. So let's talk about hypotheticals that you may have encountered before. Let's practice saying no. Hey, I got this really tiny little website change. Can you just make it for me really quick? I'm sure it will not take much time. No. Here we go. Thank you. Winner, winner. All right, there. Thank you. See, exactly. No. What kind of website design is this? My kid could do better than that. Why am I paying you any money at all? You're an idiot. No. Hey, you know what? I know we're supposed to launch a website tomorrow, but here are 10 pages of changes that we really need to have done before the end of the day. No. Some of you have encountered these, I see. These do come from real life, right? Hey, you know what? This is my favorite. I have no money to pay you now, but if you build this for me, I will bring you a lot of business later. Hell no, yeah. Yeah. But we don't always have to say directly no, right? The little website change. Hey, you know how important is this that we make it right now? Okay. Maybe it's not that important, but we talk to them about their options. The person who is just furious with your design. Hey, you know what? Can you give me some specifics and I'll be happy to help you? Or maybe another alternate is here is a phone number for another local web design company, your competitors. Maybe they can help you better than me. Yeah. You know, or maybe it's, you know, I learned this at WordCamp Greenville. Let's save that for round two. Was that you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's save that for round two. You know, or the free, well, there's sometimes, you know, with free, no is the only thing you can say. Right. When the mortgage company takes good intentions, I will be happy to take them from you. In the meantime, thanks for nothing. Yeah. Point is, you don't always have to say it so bluntly, but saying no will help your clients. Saying no will help you. And it's probably the most important thing you're not telling your clients. Right. Thank you. You know, do you have any questions or hypotheticals you want to run through? Do we need to practice any? Yeah. The first doggy photo at WordCamp Greenville, that was the puppy that the plumber won on their way. No. No. No. It was a Pomeranian. And, yeah, it was, we actually had the oatmeal comic posted in her office when they asked, so someone took a picture of the Pomeranian and stuck it on the poster. Luckily, the client didn't come by and see it. To your point, no is not always, and you can tell someone no with tax. Right. And the definition of tax, of course, at least I wanted to go to hell in such a manner that they look forward to the trip. Yeah. Yeah. I did it yesterday. I have pages with the, have like a paragraph on each page. Yeah. And I, so I asked, well, why do you want me to do, well, it makes more sense. I said, well, they're not going to go to this page because it's out of context of the whole strategy of your ministry. Right. Well, we need to have more pages. Yeah. Why do you feel like you need to have more pages? Well, we're going to rank more if we have more pages. I said, well, where in the world did you hear that? Well, I read it somewhere. Well, Somewhere is my favorite source for SEO advice. Right. Yeah, exactly. This is your best page of content because somewhere Yeah. Yeah. This is the right thing to do. Yeah. I can add those many points to your menu, your strategy menu. Yeah. Under strategy at some points, they can come to that sub-strategy on that page and, but it keeps the pages happy. Oh, you can do that? Absolutely. Wow. And, you know, I'll have it done in 15 minutes. Yeah. And so, I mean, it was just a simple anchor length. Right. Made them, told them no because it was a disaster idea, but made them happy. Yeah. And helped them out. You know, because Google's not going to share a page with 100 words on it. Exactly. Or even 200, right? If you're just putting a paragraph, Google will be like, well, what do I care about this page? And now, no one's going to find them. Yeah. You know, at all. So, especially if that's their page that's driving their traffic. Yeah. That's your point about giving the customer options. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even start rewriting the content on all the rest of your pages. Right. And, oh, and she was, well, we have it done, then we just come back to you and we're going to pay you to change that, right? And I'm like, absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. I mean, that ended up being really, really good because now the client not only avoided a disaster, but now they have a reason to go and actually help themselves out all from standing up to them rather than becoming a desk and now you're just another person who just makes changes to whatever they say, right? They're paying you to be the expert and now they respect you as the expert and that's the benefit of this. Yeah. Right. I have fired clients before who want me to be their pencil and it's not just for their own good. It's kind of for my good because it's not really what I want to do with myself and, you know, I don't want to be a jerk and I don't want to be like, I'm above you, but, you know, I am doing this. One of the advantages of being on my own is being able to pick my clients, right? Right. Right. I'd rather go have no clients than a company than do that. And I found myself and the mobile example was exactly what I did. I was so used to telling that client, no, that I almost knowed myself into a bad decision, right? And that's why I have to check myself because otherwise, just like, you know, you get in this habit of nose and it's really, especially if they kind of trust you after a while and if David says, no, I won't do it, well, I need to check myself, right? And so that's why, that's how I learned to make sure I don't just get too full of myself. Yeah. Yeah, toys. Yeah. Any other hypotheticals? Any other challenges with saying, no, how can I encourage you? I want you to be like, go home and say, no, right? You guys might not be WordPress experts after this weekend, but you guys know more than the people who aren't here. You know? And that means you've got something valuable that's worth using now. So next time your boss, your client says something contrary to what you've heard this weekend, use it. You are the expert. Use it. All right. Thank you guys. I hope to see you get an eye to bowling. Have a great weekend. Yeah. Ha, ha, ha.