Expectations & Boundaries
One thing I see far too often, is agency owners and people in general, don't set expectations up front. They don't frame their services properly to their clients. This miscommunication leads to issues down the road. "I thought we could revise the site until it was they way we wanted?" "You promised me x number of leads from social posting?" "My GBP is in the 4th map position I thought I would be in 1st position, after all it has been 2 weeks..." Setting clearly defined expectations will help alleviate this sort of thing... "You get 3 rounds of revision at dev level and at content level beyond that it cost you extra..." "We generate activity, we hope that generates opportunities for you but do not control fb, insta or the people who use it..." "We can not and will not guarantee placement in the search rankings nor on google maps, We do not control Google, But what we will do, working within our system, is build you the highest rank we can and we will continue to work month after month to improve and maintain your rank. We can not control the timeframe, that is why we require a 90 day commitment from your upfront..." And that brings me to boundaries! SET & MAINTAIN THEM. "I'm sorry that is outside our current scope of work. We can do what you need done but it will be an up charge..." Learn this script, memorize it. It will save you from doing the little ticky-tack free stuff client inevitably ask you to do. If you do one extra thing at their behest, they will scope creep the hell out of you. Set behavior boundaries as well. I had to fire a very big client because an employee from his company start sexting one of my employees, calling her personal phone at all hours, emailing inappropriate things to her. When she brought it up to the client, he made excuses "Kid being a kid" and when she pushed back, he yelled and cursed at her, said some very derogatory things to her. She was 19. She came to me in tears, played me the recording. I immediately called him and in a very professional way, let him know we were firing him. He got loud and rude, I got louder and ruder lol FAFO moment for him.