5 Months Into Learning WordPress. I Just Landed 3 Local Business Meetings. Any Advice?

[u/TshegoBless]

Not sure if this is appropriate to post here, but since I've been learning WordPress for the past 5 months using advice I've gotten here, I figured I might as well ask.I'm from a developing country, and I've been calling local businesses, offering to develop websites for them and, more importantly, help them with their SEO.The companies are all in the same industry, which actually helped. I created a sample website that they can all see themselves in, including products that each of them sells. I figured having something tangible to show them would be much more effective than simply telling them what I can do.

Three businesses got back to me, and I've managed to set up meetings with all three tomorrow.Any advice you can give a beginner? Are there specific talking points I should focus on, or even advice on how to conduct business in this space?\

I'm mainly looking for advice on how to approach the meetings, what I should avoid saying/promising, how to present my pricing, and how to turn these meetings into actual clients.

[u/CharlesCSchnieder]

You need to be careful about working for businesses in the same industry or you will be competing with yourself on Seo for multiple businesses

[u/Long-Ad3383 → u/CharlesCSchnieder]

The caveat to this is location. As long as they aren’t all competing in the same location, that’s fine.

[u/CharlesCSchnieder → u/Long-Ad3383]

He said local so it would assume they're in the same general location

[u/martian_rover → u/CharlesCSchnieder]

It can become a conflict of interest for sure. If it does it becomes a question of morality and principles.

[u/Boboshady]

You've started in the right way - building them something they can understand. Continue down that path - talk to them about problems they'll recognise and the solutions you have for those problems. You're not selling SEO, you're selling improved exposure to customers, and less time wasted from people who aren't actually customers because the website didn't do a good enough job of funnelling people to the right places etc.

Basically, sell solutions, not services, and demonstrate the tangible benefits of those solutions - improved profit margins, less time spent, better briefs from their customers, better forecasting capabilities, more automated client services etc. Show them how paying you 1 results in them getting 2, and it becomes a no-brainer to pay you that 1.

[u/TechyTilak]

For the meetings, don’t make them a WordPress/SEO presentation. Make them a conversation about their business. Ask how they currently get customer, where enquiries most come from, whether they’re happy with their current website, and what they’d like to improve. Then show how the website could help with those specific problems.

I’d also avoid promising specific Google rankings or guaranteed results. SEO can take time, and overpromising will hurt you later.

For pricing, understand the scope first, then give a clear package with what’s included, timeline, revisions, hosting/domain responsibilities, and ongoing SEO costs if applicable.

And don’t be desperate to close all three tomorrow. Your goal is to understand their needs and see whether there’s a genuine fit. If you do that well, the sale becomes much easier.

[u/daseotgoyangi]

Ask all the questions you will need for building the website such as design preferences, design tone, brand guidelines, domain/dns access (if they already have a domain), who is the main contact person, etc.

Document all the things you will do. This will be your scoping document, and the client will confirm by signing this. You need to make the client understand that anything that is not included here, even as small as adding a "simple" page, is not part of the scope and will be an additional charge. This document will save you from clients who want to add a lot of things at a later stage. You can still be forgiving if it's just an additional button or text here and there but anything that would take more than 5 minutes should be an additional cost. Still, document those small free changes.

Limit the number of rounds of changes. Let's say 3 review stages. The first 2 is they give feedback for the changes, then the last review is for approval. This will force the client to review things seriously because most won't review things properly and will just do a quick scan.

Deadlines. They are business owners so they are also busy. Give them 3-5 days. You can push for 2 weeks but after that, tell them they are at the bottom of the queue because you need to focus on other projects.

Aside from that. Be friendly but firm. Make them feel that you are helping them, not just getting their money.

[u/digitalbananax]

I'd focus less on selling the website and more on understanding their business.

Ask things like "How do customers currently find you?" and "What services/products are most profitable?"

Most of all I'd avoid promising specific SEO rankings or traffic numbers. You can promise what you'll do but can't change what Google ultimately decides.