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Client-Facing Skills
Hey everyone,
I’m new to the world of client facing and have about 2 years of experience of hands on SEO, being the “workhorse” of our campaigns. What I mean by this is that I was always the one to implement our strategy, execute keyword research, OPO, outreach, backlink building, etc without presenting to clients.
I’m very familiar with SEO and knowledgeable with everything that goes into it, but I get so nervous communicating strategy/updates to clients. Can any of you relate? Any tips or tricks that have worked for you? Thank you I’m advance!
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4 Replies
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Watch videos on communication skills and practice the skills you learned. Also you might have to ‘dumb it down’ as you’ll be talking to people who might not be able to understand the technical stuff.
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I do 99% of my communications via email. With the last 1%, I turn on my Russian accent, and they immediately join the email club.
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write out bullets to guide your conversation (keep them on a post-it if on video or on another monitor if not)
Practice presenting on video, record the video and watch it a few times to make sure you don’t use too many crutch words
I personally slow down my speech a little bit depending on client, but some are extroverts and will want more engagement, mirror their energy
Dress professionally, or at least look presentable when on video
Be prepared
Email an agenda the morning of your meetings
If you are on a team, use them!
If you don’t know the answer to a question, feel free to say “that’s a great question/point, we will look into it”
Speak about us/we/our team/our site – try not to say “I” or “your” too often
Relax and breath! Have a glass of water ready for if you get thirsty
Stop intermittently to ask if anyone has any questions
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Yep… Nearly 6 years at an agency happily pumping out email updates and the odd phone call here and there.
Then came the client meetings which didn’t happen too often thankfully…
Things going well? It’s all smiles…
Things not going well? Then you find yourself answering difficult questions about ranking drops (thank you penguin!), knowing at times spinning BS was sometimes more believeable than the truth!
*”What do you mean those links we paid for 6 months ago that got us to page one have now caused a penalty and you want to charge us to remove the links we already paid for?” (Thank god the disavow tool showed up when it did!)*
But then worrying they know you’re talking shit, but difficult to know as they stare at you with blank, puzzled faces. Are they buying that Google are shitting on us all?
Or do they think we’re taking their money and stuffing it in shoe boxes to hide it from the tax man whilest getting away with doing sod all work and blaming Google for our failings to improve their traffic!
Do they understand SEO ain’t PPC? No Google Rep to get help from if things go south!
And… That’s why I’ve been working in-house for the past 3.5 years! Hopefully won’t ever find myself going back to all that again!
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