Demandez le gourou seo

I haven't forgotten about my promise to write a post about how to identify closing questions. It's a topic that's dear to my heart and I look forward to writing it more than licking the turkey grease from my gravy stained tie but today I wanted to post a short comment, (as I'm so famous for doing), about the numerous posts speculating on how far the penalty train for paid links is going to roll.

I caught this post at Seroundtable http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015327.html about a poll going on at digital pointless http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=555519 asking if webmasters would care to alert Google of their indiscretions publicly. Of course denials prevail.

My favorite posts of this nature, (I should mention I suppose that while I have not read that particular thread, I've read 2,527,315 just like it on 657,893 other seo blogs and forums. give or take a few), are always the ones that start with, "I have never bought or sold a link but ------ >insert generic bitch of your choice here<.

In my last post http://massa.techndu.com/2007/11/09/TheSEOGuruExposesTheWorstSEOSalesAdviceOfAllTime.aspx

 I told you:

I’ll show you some of the top qualifying statements you should look for

So as I began making my notes for the post I quickly realized that there are just about as many qualifying statements as there are prospects.  To me it makes more sense to try to explain the “concept” of identifying qualifying questions instead of trying to give exact examples.

If I give you exact statements, then you hear some variation of that statement, you may not realize you are hearing the same thing as I had pointed out and miss an opportunity to serve someone who needs your help, (that’s sales speak for make more money). So, I’m going to use an example that if you have not heard some variation of yet, you will!

I know all about SEO

The client calls you up and very early in the conversation he tells you he has done a lot of SEO and has done well but he wants someone to get him a little higher. Notice he didn’t say he knows a lot about link building or social media optimization or anything specific. He said he knows a lot about SEO.

I apologize if you think I keep “harping” on this but it is just soooo important. Satisfying your client’s needs and desires, (again, sales speak for making more money), is more about LISTENING than about talking.  So, what is this client really telling us?

If he knows so much about SEO and has done well but wants someone to get him higher, isn’t that a contradiction? If he knows it and has done well, why is talking to you?  Obviously he doesn’t know that much about it and/or has not done that well. So, do we want to accuse the prospect of being a liar? Or do we want to understand what he is REALLY telling us?

Go ahead, accuse him of lying and see how far you get. If you do that, do yourself a favor. Get the want ads out and find yourself another job because you couldn’t sell a free buffet to the Rosie O’Donnell fan club !

He’s telling you he doesn’t TRUST you. He’s telling you that he doesn’t know much about SEO and that his efforts are not producing the results he wants but that he’s read the horror stories and all the bad press our industry seems intent on providing and he is telling you that if you try to cheat him he will catch you.

Of course if he could really catch a cheating SEO, he wouldn’t have said something like this in the first place. He said it because he is telling you he doesn’t understand the process, he is concerned that you could use knowledge you have that he doesn’t to take advantage of him and he’s telling you he’s scared of being ripped off and made to feel foolish.

The Easiest Prospect in the World to Close

He is also telling you that he is the easiest prospect in the world to close if you can just overcome the trust objection. He is telling you that just making the decision to call was difficult because in some ways it is like admitting he can't do something. He is telling you that he does not relish having to keep looking and he is hoping you can be the one so he can stop looking. Anytime you can identify a statment from a prospect that tells you he has a trust objection, he is telling you all these things and making your job much easier.

In fact, I chose this single qualifying statement as a conceptual example because the trust objection is the single biggest factor in lost sales for online promotion services. If you never learn to “hear” any qualifying statements other than this one, your numbers will jump dramatically without any more expense in advertising or promotion IF you overcome the trust objection.

The Easiest Way to Overcome the Trust Objection

There has long been a heated debate within the industry regarding SEO guarantees. Conventional wisdom seems to be that there are no guarantees in SEO.

http://www.internetmarketingherald.com/2007/03/03/seo-guarantees/

http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2006/09/seo_too_simple.html

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291

I certainly do agree that no one can guarantee specific placements on a specific search engine other than the search engine itself, but I also believe that anyone can guarantee their performance.

Back in 2004 in a discussion about SEO guarantees at searchenginewatch, I said:

***************************

 Stop thinking in terms of guaranteeing positions or even return. Think more in terms of what you can control and what expected benefit that gives to the customer. For some broad examples:

 **We will review your keyword selection and perform 3 hours of research. When completed we will send you a report to review. If we have not completed this task within 10 days of your order, you will be entitled to a full refund.**
**We will build 10 pages with up to 500 words of text and send you the completed pages for your approval. We will have this done within 30 days of cheerfully refund your money**

Start thinking more in those kinds of terms and the task of putting your client at ease becomes easier. Remember this though.

If THEY offer a guarantee and you don't, your sales could suffer. THEY have the competitive edge. There is a reason most businesses offer a guarantee. As someone else stated earlier, IT HELPS SALES. Consumers expect a certain level of commitment from the provider that they will actually get the value they think you are selling. You expect it, I expect it and to not assume your potential customers expect it, is basically forcing them to my doorstep reading my billboard, (me being your competitor of course).    http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?threadid=1429

******************************

Back in ’97 and ‘98 I could literally place in the top 10 of Infoseek, Alta Vista, Excite and Hot Bot, within 48 hours, (those were popular search engines back in the 90’s for those of you who aren’t old fart SEO’s http://searchengineland.com/). I did it time and time again and by ’99 I had done it enough times that I started offering the net’s best SEO guarantee.

·  Top 20 Search Engine Placement Service
Best Guarantee on the net. We will place you in the top 20 of the major search engines and you don't pay a dime until we do!

Of course things changed and placing in 48 hours became a little more difficult even for the SEO Guru, (it can still be done but #1 I don’t guarantee it anymore and #2 it costs a LOT more than it did back then), so that guarantee had to be modified. We now offer to refund every dime paid to us if we can not prove and fully satisfy you within the first 30 days that we do what we say we will do. Whether we are working for a single client or an SEO firm as a wholesaler, we will provide detailed weekly reports, we will deliver strategy proposals that must be approved and we will review the project at least once a month to make sure the project is producing. http://outsource.techndu.com/seo_guaranteed.html

If you really can do what you say you will do within the confines of their budget and your costs, (those are the types of qualifying questions you need to find out from them and we’ll talk more about that in an upcoming post), then all you need to do is get the prospect to give you the chance to prove it. The easiest way to do that is with an honest, iron clad guarantee that can eliminate the prospects fears that he may be taken advantage of.

Just remember that every statement a prospect makes is telling you something about his needs or desires, what he thinks is a fair price he can afford and what he thinks is a value proposition but if you are talking instead of listening, you’ll never hear it and you’ll waste their time and yours.

Next, time I'll tell you how to identify closing questions or "how to tell when it is time to poop or get off the pot".

You kids be quiet! Gunsmoke is comin’ on

Peace y’all

The SEO Guru

After my post about how to get more success with less effort from a software development project, http://massa.techndu.com/2007/11/05/TheNDAJoint.aspx, I had a comment posted and 3 emails asking how I qualify prospects or close the deal when the customer is wanting me to be specific while they remain vague. http://massa.techndu.com/CommentView,guid,c4aed57e-7468-4fb0-aeb9-a87d482721a6.aspx#commentstart

I don’t really understand what I’m doing with my blog that gets people emailing me privately instead of posting on the blog so a lot more people could benefit but I’m just glad to be getting the chance to help. HOWEVER, you might as well post because I’ll probably just talk about you anyway and if you post, you get a Guru link, and everybody knows those are the best kind of links you can get :)

Anyway, it made me stop and think about what I’m doing here, (I hate when that happens!), and who my readers are and I realized that a lot more of them are real, in-the-trenches-everyday, working SEO’s than are newbies wanting to know how to get to the top of Google by diddeling their meta tags.

I also realize that most of you reading are probably much better than I as a code jockey, designer dude and/or dudette, researcher, copywriter, link acquisition specialist, (or master baiter as I like to call them),and about a thousand other skill sets that are valuable to the SEO process, (whatever that is?). BUT, I do have extreme confidence in my ability to give benefit of my experience in two primary areas.

#1. The management of an online promotional services business. I can help you avoid hundreds of mistakes and ways of doing it wrong.

#2. Sales.

Do you know why I love sales?  Because once, and just as soon as, you can overcome some popular misconceptions about sales and salespeople and accept a few basic concepts, you cannot fail, you can only miss your numbers. If you can accept that missing those numbers was directly related to something you did, adjust your strategy and try it again, you WILL hit your numbers unless you give up.

So, today I want to try to help those who are responsible for making the sale and you know what, that is each and every one of you. The things that I can tell you that apply to looking someone in the face are applicable to saying those same things on a website. Whether you work for an SEO firm or whether you run 300 affiliate sites from your bedroom, you don’t make money talking to clients or building sites. Those things are an expense and they COST money. You MAKE money when you get your commission check and that means making sales.

The Worst Sales Advice on the Planet

Today I want to do what I believe will be the most help I could offer in a single blog post. I want to kill, destroy, cause to cease to exist in your mind, the single worst piece of sales advice on the planet.

We’ve all seen it time and time again, over and over. Every time I see it I have to fight the urge to upchuck, (my apologies to everyone named chuck. Thank goodness a form of “bob” never became accepted into the American vernacular as a synonym for a rather unpleasant body function).

The advice I’m referring to are things like:

Feel Their Pain

"Another way to get emotional with your prospects is to feel their pain. Like the things they like. Hate the things they hate."

"So take this advice to heart: Fill your prospects with warm and soft emotions, and you'll be filling your pockets with cold hard cash."

“Make your prospect like you by finding out what he likes and then telling him you like the same thing.”

The most common example I see used is fishing for some strange reason. You’re told that if your prospect likes fishing then tell him you do too.

{I don‘t want to provide links to these quotes not because I want to deny them the guru link love but because my intent is not to ridicule}

CONDESCENDING LOSER

Of course we are all free to believe what and who we want, but I can assure you that if you don’t fish, (and he does), yet you enthusiastically tell him how much you love fishing and he asks you what the biggest walleye you ever caught was and you tell him it was an extra large, not only do you look like an idiot, you also look like the biggest condescending loser the guy has met today.

Think about it for just a second, what would you think of someone you had just met and they made some comment about a topic you knew something about to try to get you to like them, and you also knew the comment illustrated their lack of knowledge of that topic, would you be impressed? Would knowing this other person was a liar make you like them and feel like you and they were relating to each other?

You see, you don’t have to try to get the prospect to think you and he are two peas in a pod. You don’t have to lie to find something to relate to each other about. You had something to relate to each other about the moment they decided to contact you. They didn’t call you because they were looking for a fishing buddy. They didn’t call you because they were lonely, (unless of course you are in the lonely business). They called you because something gave them the perception that you had something to trade that they needed or wanted.

Be honest, answer their questions and look for qualifying statements and closing questions. Do you know why you look for qualifying statements? So you can overcome objections and identify those closing questions.

Don't waste your time and theirs while running the risk of looking like a liar and a loser by trying to make them think you are something you are not. There is no need.

In another post I’ll show you some of the top qualifying statements you should look for and how to identify those closing questions but for today let me leave you with just two things that will do a LOT to help you serve your clients better.

#1. Learn that sales is not about talking it is about listening

#2. Anytime you see anyone giving any advice that suggests you do anything even the slightest less than honest, you can be sure the advice was not written by anyone who is actually involved in making direct sales.

Peace Y’all

G

You kids go outside and play. You’re driving me crazy bein underfoot all the time. And DON’T SLAM THAT SCREEN DOOR!

Don’t forget to post your comment instead of emailing me directly and get you some of that groovy guru link love. The Guru is already averaging over 750 uniques a day. Say something even remotely smart, (or at least something that sounds smart), and it could float to the top of the blog clog like a fart in a bathtub.

Prelude:

{todays article is only indirectly related to SEO. BUT, the objective of the blog from day one was to do whatever I could that I thought would do the most good for the most people. Since going to India, I've spoken with a lot of people who are in the custom applications development business. They all seem to have one common problem. To a person they all say their biggest challenge is to get the prospective client to be open with them and give them the details they need to actually get them a solid quote. I'm hoping this post gives both the buyer and the seller a little insight into how to overcome a big part of the trust issue.}

We’ve all had great ideas. Imagine how much money has never been generated because we never got our idea off the ground.  The difference between the great ideas and the businesses that make their founders rich and famous is that someone turned that great idea into a reality and put the missing pieces together.

With internet technology exploding in your face like a cheap firecracker with a short fuse it’s easier and cheaper to get an idea off the ground than ever before. One of the things I love most about the internet is the fact that opportunity is running faster than a fat guy for a free buffet.

IF YOU HAVE A NEW WAY OF DOING THINGS ONLINE – YOU ARE GOING TO NEED NEW SOFTWARE

I’m getting more and more requests for quotes on custom software applications, (the concept of the more you give the more you get at work), and while I’m glad to have the shot, I’m realizing just how much I’ve got to learn about the software development business.  One of the things I’m learning is that ignorance can piss people off.

For several years now I’ve been on the buying end of custom application development. One of the main reasons I set up shop in India was to cut out the middlemen and have more control over the people doing the developing but I’m starting to feel like the pot smoker who decides to start dealing to support his habit. The more I smoke the more I gotta sell and the more I sell the more I can smoke.

 That’s kind of cool I guess but I wish it paid better.

I’m not complaining about that mind you. For the first time in my 11 year attempt at making my mom believe what I do constitutes a “real” job, I’m actually building myself quite a little library of really cool online promotional tools and databases. I’ve struggled for so long doing so much with so little that it’s really nice to be able to finally have a “menu” of hotrod goodies that actually kick ass at the click of a button.

 My problem is coming from the fact that I made the decision to get into the sales end of application development because  I thought I could use my past experience to help others get through the inherent problems of outsourcing software development faster, easier and at a lower cost. As it turns out it ain’t as easy as it looks!

There are several issues that I have been able to find pretty slick ways of overcoming but one issue keeps coming up and the more people I can educate about it, the better it will be for buyers and sellers .

IF YOU WANT ME TO BUILD YOU A TOOL FOR A NEW IDEA – YOU HAVE TO TELL ME WHAT THE IDEA IS

This past week I pissed someone else off and lost another job because I could not read minds. I won’t use any names or specifics because my intent is not to make anyone look bad. Like I said, I understand because I’ve been there too. My intent is just to illustrate how to save yourself some time and actually get a step closer to getting that great idea off the ground. I'll put the prospect's comments in bold and my replies in red.

New Quote Request:

I need a popunder ad serving software, so I can make a site similar to  popupxxxxxx.com. It would need to track how many popunders actually  loaded (i.e. got past all popup blockers), ability to target by country, ability to automatically pay publishers via paypal, and it would be nice if it could get past the most popular ad blockers like firefox (plus a few other features I'm forgetting right now). If it would be easier, you could base the program off of Open Ads ( openads.org).

Notice the words “AUTOMATICALLY PAY PUBLISHERS” and “COULD BASE THE PROGRAM OFF OF OPEN ADS”.  So right off the bat I know this person is new to software application development. Anytime a program “AUTOMATICALLY PAYS” someone, it becomes much more than adserving software.  And any time you “BASE THE PROGRAM” off of anything else, (even if the other program is some kind of free offering), you just added the time it takes to research and reverse engineer the other program to the cost of the project.

That’s completely all right with me as I know MOST people don’t understand the ins and outs of software development. That’s why they come to someone like me asking the questions. The delivering ads and tracking how many actually loaded is not too big a deal, even the ability to target by country isn’t much of a stretch.  BUT when we get to the automatic pay and the get past ad blocker stuff, now I have some questions. So I ask him:

Hello xxxxx.  We have done a lot of work in ad serving/tracking stuff.
In order to give you a quote, I need a little more detail.
do you have a design document?
do you have a preference in language. java, .net, php ?
since this is going to need to be a revenue sharing program will all
commissions be the same, like 50% across the board or will there need to
be ways to set up and pay "groups" like premium publishers make more and affiliates with lower traffic level makes less etc?
I'm not familiar with popupxxxxx.com so we'll have to do a little research
If you don't have a design doc, don't worry about it. Just tell me a
little more about the business model and we can build from that., If we
do it that way, we will provide you with the design doc and the SRS,
(software requirement specification).

do you have a non-disclosure agreement., If not, we have a standard one
that you can use but you really should have an NDA for your own protection.

It may be that the program you need is not all that complicated and we
can use some, (if not all), open source apps and off-the shelf stuff but
I always take the approach that we are not just building an app, but we
are building your business and the first step is to make sure that we
see YOUR vision.

Massa

After all that, keeping in mind we have both spent two days with this so far and this is what I get back.   

Hi Massa,
I don't have a design document (not sure what you mean by "document"), but I can have a design made. I kind of wanted a stand alone program that I could include in multiple sites with different themes.

I tend to prefer php just because I know it and could better correct errors and whatnot, but if you think another language would be better, that's fine too.

The commission would be a flat rate. Maybe $1.5 CPM for US/UK/Canada traffic, $0.5 for all others. No need for groups right now.

Notice how he says FLAT RATE commission and no need for groups but then shows me two different payouts making at least 2 groups? Now I know he is thinking this program is no big deal and should only cost $1000 or less, (probably a LOT less).  But I also know he doesn’t realize what kind of programming juice he needs to really pull off the base it off of thing and the automatically pay thing, let alone the different payout  amounts . So, if he doesn’t want to discuss the details of his idea with me and let me help him find ways to accomplish his objectives, then my dilemma is, do I tell him what he wants to hear or tell him the truth and hope he realizes that what I’m giving him is a very inexpensive way to have the bare minimum to actually run a business like I THINK he’s wanting?

Well, I have no choice but to tell the truth based on what I think.  My response to him. 3^rd exchange.

I've had several conversations with Chirag. He is the one responsible for getting
the quotes, the time estimations and managing the coders.

based on the details you have provided, we feel that what you are
looking for is something similar to a project we are building for
another client now. That project has a LOT more features than you described such as allowing
advertisers to upload video ads, blog posts, podcasts, etc as well as
basic banners and graphic ads. It also has functions that allow the
administrator to allow payments by the month or by the click or by the
impression. It also has functions to allow payouts to be adjusted so
that one ad could pay out a different percentage than another. It could
allow for premium publishers compared to basic publishers for example. it also has
spidering features to make sure the ads are displaying properly and there are no major content changes to the hosting site etc. It has a desktop communication and notification function and it is much more involved than what you had described but we
feel the ad delivery/tracking and payout functionalities are very
similar. Of course we can’t use this software BUT we do have the knowledge of how it all works and have staff that is very familiar with the entire process.  this could save you a lot of time.

Anyway, to provide you with a stable, scalable application to perform
the functions you mentioned, you are looking at about 1300 man hours
@$10 per hour for a total of $13,000 US. that could be one developer
working for 6 months or 6 developers working for one month.

If you are interested in proceeding let me know and I will call you on
the phone and give you a brief demo of the software. You should probably
at least take a look at it so you if nothing else you could get some ideas.

Massa

I knew two things. #1, $13,000 for a program like this was very cheap and #2. He would freak out at the price, feel a little intimidated and I would lose the deal . His response----

Google updated their toolbar PR recently lowering the PR of many sites that appeared to be given a little negative nudge to encourage “certain” webmasters  to see that selling, leasing, trading, using as a personal hygiene implement, links priced on PR, intended to increase PR, to rub PR or to look sideways at PR was not going to come without a cost. 

FREAK OUT!!

Across the webiverse the typical circular debates ensued.  It’s a penalty. No it’s not. It’s for selling links. No it’s not, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

A few days later the link pimping penalty was confirmed by Googleguy himself, http://www.searchenginejournal.com/matt-cutts-confirms-paid-links-google-pagerank-update/5906/ Not ending the circular debates or the righteous indignation of course, just shifting the focus more to the, “I never sold a link for page rank” malarkey.

So, it’s true. Everyone really does get gitch slapped for selling links. Or do they?

You would think that when G sets out to put a little muscle into the, “don’t guck with the PR”  FUD  the most severe gitch slapping would be applied to the face of the most well-known, the most visible, the most advertised of the pimperati  right? Well then maybe you can explain the PR 7 for the best managed, best marketed and most visible link laundry out there, http://www.text-link-ads.com while a prominent competitor http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/ now lives with a measly 3.

I got an unusual request in response to my last article about my poor cancerous canine named King
http://massa.techndu.com/2007/10/25/OhMyGawdMyPageRankHasDroppedAndNowMyDogHasCancer.aspx

It was a unique request for a link in the form of “a mention” which I usually ignore, (unless somewhere in the subject line or body I see symbols resembling one of these - $), but this one was a perfect example of a technique I had mentioned in an earlier post about how to get well-known SEO's to do things for you for free. http://massa.techndu.com/Default.aspx#a2323c2bc-995a-4fee-adc5-ccda78d3238e

That post was telling you how to get people to do what you want by giving them what they want. Mostly, validation in the form of obvious, blatant flattery. And this email illustrated that concept very well and providing, once again, irrefutable proof that the Guru was right. (Always – did you ever doubt it?), So you know I’m gonna talk about that.

The email said:

Dear Massa,

>> 

>> I've been an RSS reader of your blog since the beginning in August.

>> I¹m so sorry to hear about your dog. Ok, today was the funniest

>> article you¹ve written yet.

>> 

>> I'm starting an internet company, and I'd like to ask you to mention it.

>> 

>> Starting today, Advice Network, will be running an article writing

>> contest, and we¹d like to offer you and your readers an

>> invitation-only chance to enter. If you could post about the contest,

>> I¹d really appreciate it. Let me know and I will link back to your

>> from my blog (www.advicenetwork.com/blog ) right away.

To which the Guru replied:

I don't mind mentioning your new internet company Alex. I appreciate

> your unique approach to asking.

> Massa

> 

> PS

> I have a good feeling about King's survival odds in spite of the fact

> that his tumor has now grown to a threemor.

So, there ya go RSS reader since the beginning. Even though I don’t know you, don’t do contests and aren’t familiar with your new internet company, I took a quick look at the site and it looked fine and will gladly give you that coveted link. Of course after your well worded ego booster it could have been a meta refresh to a German poker site and the Guru would probably still have shot you a little juice.

See ya later kids!

 If you don’t quit pickin at that it never will heal!

Peace Y’all
the seo guru