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how did you convince them to stick on for a year when most clients want to see some results within 2 months or they give up? according to your schedule they’d

by mygo 9y ago

how did you convince them to stick on for a year when most clients want to see some results within 2 months or they give up? according to your schedule they’d ask what I’ve been doing and if I tell them I’ve just been “collecting data” that translates to them as “I haven’t done anything in 2 months”. If I say “keep paying me and you’ll see results in a year” that translates to “I haven’t done anything in 2 months but I want you to continue to pay me for another 10”. What do you do to qualify a client? How do you know your engagement with them won’t just waste everyone’s time when they quit halfway through and then damage your reputation?

1123581321 9y ago
Companies with budgets are willing to think in terms of quarters or years. You’ve laid out the plan for them and they’ve agreed to it. The money is allocated in an annual budget or obtained with a purchase order, so it’s not going to be suddenly reallocated unless there’s a big problem. Experienced clients wouldn’t move to another agency to do analytics “faster” because they would know they’d just have to ramp up the relationship and the systems again.
- mygo 9y ago
  well then in that case in many regards working with companies that have quarterly / annual budgets is easier than working with clients who do not. But it appears to be harder to make the sale if you don’t already have a legendary track record that warrants their one-year-commitment.
  - 1123581321 9y ago
    No, analytics management is something many companies feel they need to pay for since the marketing team wants to show good numbers, they need to justify ad spending, web development etc. You do need a good relationship with a client to sell more than piecemeal work, but you don’t need to be “legendary” to get enough clients.
  - PeterisP 9y ago
    Making B2B sales is hard, that's unavoidable. Expect to spend literally as much manpower and budget on sales as you do on engineering. Also, you need a proven track record - if you don't have previous clients, have a working proof of concept for something similar; which can lead you into signing them up for a 3-6 month pilot project, followed by a real contract or two and maintenance. This also leads nicely to the pricing - this can not be done cheap, since if you sell, say, 20 man months of engineering to a customer, it's not enough to get paid for 20 man months of engineering they do; the contract also needs to pay for 5 man months of sales (including engineer time) it took to arrange their contract, the 15 man months of sales you spent on other, failed leads to get this one contract (I mean, most sales will fail), and for a part of 20 man months of R&D it took to develop the various proof of concepts and demonstrations that were absolutely necessary to start getting contracts but not paid by anyone.
ehnto 9y ago
Bigger clients (and intrepid smaller clients) are willing to commit to longer term plans. The key is to be clear about what it will take and what it will return. If it's the first time they have even thought about using a large dataset the ROI could be high, and it's a long term strategy to start collecting and using data anyway. Bigger clients budgeting can also be conducive to longer term planning as well. In year one they can write it off as an R&D investment, year two it can start to make returns. Clients who have been burned by less capable companies are also comforted by very well defined plans, so they are happy to hear you have actually accounted for the issues that likely "came out of nowhere" last time.
soared 9y ago
The other answers are good - For my experience specifically it was at a very very small agency, so the client chose us specifically for this purpose and knowingly agreed to it. The first few months aren't just us working silently. It was always a very intensive process, I'd be on the phone with the client a few times a day to work through issues. They also get valuable tidbits of data early on. Most clients had ideas about how they expected data to look (70% of my revenue comes from product x) but often times the reality is different and they see immediate value. Clients sign up for a contract that auto-renews every three months and they have to give 30 days notice to terminate. At a small agency you have the luxury of denying clients all the time too that you don't want to work with.

by mygo 9y ago

1123581321 9y ago

Companies with budgets are willing to think in terms of quarters or years. You’ve laid out the plan for them and they’ve agreed to it. The money is allocated in an annual budget or obtained with a purchase order, so it’s not going to be suddenly reallocated unless there’s a big problem. Experienced clients wouldn’t move to another agency to do analytics “faster” because they would know they’d just have to ramp up the relationship and the systems again.

mygo 9y ago
well then in that case in many regards working with companies that have quarterly / annual budgets is easier than working with clients who do not. But it appears to be harder to make the sale if you don’t already have a legendary track record that warrants their one-year-commitment.
- 1123581321 9y ago
  No, analytics management is something many companies feel they need to pay for since the marketing team wants to show good numbers, they need to justify ad spending, web development etc. You do need a good relationship with a client to sell more than piecemeal work, but you don’t need to be “legendary” to get enough clients.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  Making B2B sales is hard, that's unavoidable. Expect to spend literally as much manpower and budget on sales as you do on engineering. Also, you need a proven track record - if you don't have previous clients, have a working proof of concept for something similar; which can lead you into signing them up for a 3-6 month pilot project, followed by a real contract or two and maintenance. This also leads nicely to the pricing - this can not be done cheap, since if you sell, say, 20 man months of engineering to a customer, it's not enough to get paid for 20 man months of engineering they do; the contract also needs to pay for 5 man months of sales (including engineer time) it took to arrange their contract, the 15 man months of sales you spent on other, failed leads to get this one contract (I mean, most sales will fail), and for a part of 20 man months of R&D it took to develop the various proof of concepts and demonstrations that were absolutely necessary to start getting contracts but not paid by anyone.

ehnto 9y ago

Bigger clients (and intrepid smaller clients) are willing to commit to longer term plans. The key is to be clear about what it will take and what it will return. If it's the first time they have even thought about using a large dataset the ROI could be high, and it's a long term strategy to start collecting and using data anyway. Bigger clients budgeting can also be conducive to longer term planning as well. In year one they can write it off as an R&D investment, year two it can start to make returns. Clients who have been burned by less capable companies are also comforted by very well defined plans, so they are happy to hear you have actually accounted for the issues that likely "came out of nowhere" last time.

soared 9y ago

The other answers are good - For my experience specifically it was at a very very small agency, so the client chose us specifically for this purpose and knowingly agreed to it. The first few months aren't just us working silently. It was always a very intensive process, I'd be on the phone with the client a few times a day to work through issues. They also get valuable tidbits of data early on. Most clients had ideas about how they expected data to look (70% of my revenue comes from product x) but often times the reality is different and they see immediate value. Clients sign up for a contract that auto-renews every three months and they have to give 30 days notice to terminate. At a small agency you have the luxury of denying clients all the time too that you don't want to work with.