Watch our free masterclass on client consulting to learn how to attract 20-30 leads per month for your digital marketing business using only your email.
I’d like to introduce you to a close friend of mine, Armando Saenz.
Armando is a local digital marketing consultant that runs a multiple 6-figure business focusing on local SEO and digital marketing.
Back when I first started scaling my SEO business, I asked Armando if he had any advice on closing. I was getting leads, but not closing enough.
He recorded a 17 minute video training for me, packed full of value, but one nugget really stood out. Within a couple weeks of hearing it, I used it to close a client that ended up being worth over $40,000 to me. We can cover how in a bit more detail later, but first…
Armando has kindly created a 4-part video series for you on how to get clients. This covers everything from the ideal sales funnel, to his favourite client acquisition method, to what to say in your meetings.
If you haven’t seen this strategy before, the third video is going to blow your mind. Watch it below.
Contents
How to land clients like a boss
How to prospect and build a marketing list
How to get your prospects attention
How to close clients with a consultation and proposal
If you want to learn more about closing deals once you’ve got leads, watch my free client acquisition masterclass.
The masterclass training expands on this even further, with strategies including:
- A simple step-by-step email process for generating leads (incl. my 7 figure template)
- How to increase your prices to $3,000+ per month while making it a no-brainer for your clients
- How to close 80% of your proposals even if you have zero sales experience
Now, what if you don’t have the skills or resources to do this?
Here is why you can do client consulting
There are a number of reasons people use for why they cannot do this, here is my response to the main ones…
You don’t need to work with clients local to you.
I have never met most of my clients and probably never will, it is not necessary. With that said, don’t think you need to target the US to make money, there are plenty of businesses spending money on SEO all over the world.
You don’t have to be a good speaker.
I’m a really bad speaker. I messed up so many good opportunities, but once you learn what to say, it is easy.
You don’t need examples or case studies.
As Armando explained in the 4th video, you give everything away in the proposal call. This is selling by teaching. Businesses do not ask for examples because you come across as an expert.
You don’t need to be an SEO expert
Knowing SEO will be beneficial for providing your clients with great results, but it is not necessary for the actual sales process. Just by knowing what a PBN is, and having a basic understanding of how to rank, will make you an expert to 99% of business owners.
You don’t need startup capital
This is where the consulting model triumphs over others, especially for beginners. You do not need any money at all to start. Instead you can use the clients money from the setup fee and/or monthly retainer to pay the outsourcers and costs of ranking them, while making a tidy profit for yourself.
Next Steps
Please thank Armando for creating this video series in the comments section below, he will also be answering questions there.
Watch our free masterclass on client consulting to learn how to attract 20-30 leads per month for your digital marketing business using only your email.
Thank you Armando for providing these videos on how to acquire SEO clients, and thank you Daryl for putting this out on your site for FREE!
I would like to hear from Armando and yourself about setting up a hands-off funnel where the prospect initially opts into a form, then is taken to a video where they are sold SEO at a lower cost (to try you out) and then put into an email sequence that would then flip them to a consulting client.
Ok, I’m going to watch these videos and I look forward to your next post.
Patrick
Hey Patrick, That’s certainly doable and something that can be scaled up using PPC or even social PPC. Perhaps that will be another post 🙂
i would love a post about this!
Have fun implementing the strategies in the videos Patrick.
I’ve actually had success with these types of funnels before and got some running now. Definitely something we can cover later if there is enough demand.
Oh yeah! What a way to start the day 🙂
Thanks Daryl and Armando for sharing this cool post. So MUCH values. Very good with details step for lumpy mail. Looking forward to the next post.
Merry xmas and happy new year. Hoho
Good luck with implementing these strategies Chris.
Hey Patrick,
You mean an auto responder funnel to bring them on board to convert higher and make a small “yes” first?
I would have a lead, probably around traffic generation
From there take them into a 7 step funnel to educate the value and benefits of their market
Then I would offer an easy optin sale, perhaps even an aff sale of maybe local citations etc
From there then educate further re other methods of optimising for local rankings
(Yes we could optimise their account for them, or we can teach them how to do it themselves and be indebted/offer to do it for them)
Then I would bring it back to the initial value of their seo and make a consultation call offer
If they go this far and don’t convert, continue with educating and aff products etc
They will convert eventually
Do you recommend having a website for people to visit? If i missed it sorry:)
While you don’t need one, it’s better that you create one. You can show your services here, create your branding/positioning, rank it for seo keywords, and link people to it from offline advertising including lumpy mail.
Great information as always Armando, I will be following this post to get some ideas. For anyone who doesn’t know Armando he is the real deal and really knows he stuff. He has personally given me some sound SEO advice.
Hope you get value from the content Frankie!
Great stuff! Really looking forward to the future trainings.
I would like to see how one determines the niche’s competitiveness, or if that is even a factor when looking for prospects.
Thanks for the great content Armando and Daryl, happy holidays to you both!
Thanks Mary.
How competitive a niche is, is really a last factor to check, but it can be important. Generally though, as long as the client pays enough, you can rank them. We can definitely cover how to analyse competition in later content.
Great Christmas gift guys! Whatever Armando says…do it. Don’t wait, don’t think about it, just do it!
Armando is a boss! Too many people procrastinate by thinking about things, implement and you will see results 🙂
Is the second video gone, or is it just me?
Nevermind, it was in safety mode. I just opened it back up in incognito and that fixed it 😀
🙂 Enjoy the content Steve
First of all:
Thanks for the amazing vids, Armando. Loved it!
Second:
Obviously a big YES on the proposal piece of it. Al though you did give me a bunch of ideas. Writing up a marketing plan is pretty darn easy. You can even template it. Having that said, very interested in how YOU do it based on YOUR experience. 🙂
Also, another video could be common objection clients may have. But also tough questions they may have like “how much do you cost per hour” and so on. And how you answer those.
Also, I agree on the webinar to close request. Having a form to capture leads, doing a webinar and then closing them from there. Even if they don’t take action right away. I have a lot of experience doing webinars with other types of products, and I can definitely see how I can make it work here. But if you already have this information, it would be super useful.
Thanks again for the content guys. Loving it!
Great ideas Nick, I’ll have a chat with Armando later to decide what we should cover next, if he is happy to do more videos (I believe he is). Have fun implementing these strategies!
Great videos and awesome info! I’m looking forward to seeing the other info you’ll be releasing. I can attest that cold calling simply doesn’t work is not a good use of valuable time and energy.
Glad to hear Jared!
I wouldn’t plainly say that cold calling doesn’t work, but it does take a huge learning curve to start seeing results from it. With these strategies, a complete newbie can start seeing results straight away.
Thank you so much for this video.
Daryl, I can’t seem to find a newsletter subscription on your site? I’d like to keep in touch especially when you discuss such value like this. PLEASE!
Was kind of lazy and only bothered to install SumoMe (popovers) for it, just added an extremely ugly opt in box in the sidebar now so you and others that are interested can sign up easier. Enjoy 🙂
Really awesome information Daryl & Armando! Look forward to the proposal article & package article as well.
Thanks Cory, hope you get some awesome results with this training!
Thanks Armando and Daryl! Especially being a beginner, this was hugely helpful in overcoming my lack of knowledge as well as the excuses I was making in my head as to why I couldn’t do it.
Glad to hear Nate 🙂
All of these videos are great. I watched a webinar recently about how to become a marketing consultant – not really focused on SEO…but a lot of the same concepts were used. If one person tells you something, could be something there. If more than one tells you and they are making a ton, just do it.
Awesome content. Do you think its easier to use direct mail or facebook ads?
I’ll let Armando answer for himself but I’d say that neither one is really any easier.
You can start running FB ads within an hour, which you can’t do with direct mail. But then with FB ads you need to setup a lead funnel, which is more complex than direct mail.
Don’t think about what is easier, think about what will get you the most results 🙂 I’m personally running FB ads and doing direct mail.
One is not easier than the other, however I will say that which ever method you choose stick to it and give it a real go. You can apply these methods to pretty much any vertical. With direct mail I find that the impact is much greater and is has a wow factor to it. With Facebook ads you can reach more people faster.
If you are considering the FB Ad method make sure you have a real funnel and use power editor to create your ads so you target the right people. Essentially the prospecting piece will be done via your custom audiences and filter within FB, Send people to a lander and try and make it as focused as possible.
More proposal video please. Great value 🙂
Great article and really awesome videos. Can you please turn the sound much more loud in your next/following videos? Because I nearly cannot understand. Would be wonderful!
Thank you
Sorry for the audio. I will make sure that the next videos are good. 😉
Armando: Thank you for your videos. There where some great insights here. On video one and two you mentioned about finding how much a local business’s sales are per year. You mentioned a website but it did not come across clear. Would you mind sharing a link where I can find this information?
Thanks so much! ~ Cheryl
The website you can use is either manta.com or infousa.com. Please note that manta is free and not always accurate just a ballpark and infousa is a paid service. If you focus on one industry at a time you really get lots of insights and will get a good understanding that specific industry making it easier to prospect. 🙂
My local library has databases you can use for free online or at the library to look up business information.
Great article.
Not sure if you are still replying to comments on here, but how long are your lumpy mail letters? I’ve written a couple and they are both around 1 1/2 pages long (about 300 words and some pictures) but I am thinking is that too long?
Hi Greg, think someone already answered this for you in the group. It should be as long as it takes to convert the prospect into taking more action i.e. visiting your website to watch a video, or booking a consultation call. Personally mine has a headline, image, and subheadline on the first page, then a second page which is a letter.
Thanks for the video series Armando! A thought popped up: How is it possible to know you can help out the client’s local area with SEO? What happens if you close a client and the top sites for “pool services austin tx”ends up having TF/CF of 50+?
“You do not need to learn how to rank beforehand, as long as you know how to acquire and close clients, you can figure the rest out later.”
^ Could you please provide a few tips on how to figure this out? It’s very difficult to promise a client something in an area you have very little experience in… Thanks!
You can rank for anything if the client pays enough. I don’t know about Armando, but personally I don’t check the competition on the keywords, especially since I’m sending them in bulk (it would take too long). They are all local keywords though, so it’s unlikely the competition will be anything too impressive.
Read through the PBN Guide and understand how and why it works. Then you can create your proposal and offer advice to clients based on this information. You don’t need to actually invest money or time building a PBN, you just have to understand how it actually works. I don’t mean you should have literally never read anything on it, but you honestly need zero experience and very little knowledge, since your clients will know absolutely nothing it is very easy to come across as an expert.
Hi Daryl,
Thanks for your time. I looked through your PBN guide and I have a question: If google does a full manual backlink review and finds the PBN cluster pointing to the client site, would that pose any risk (penalties/de-index) to the client/money domain? Wouldn’t it be obvious to see that client site is affiliated with the PBN?
Can’t give you a 100% answer on that because who knows with Google. What I can say is I have never had a clients site manually penalised or de-indexed. Though I have had badly setup PBN’s de-indexed, it had no impact on the client sites.
Sites part of a cluster are not linked to each other at all, the idea is they all look like random sites. Google could find out they are related or part of a PBN if they investigated, but I share a lot in that guide about future proofing to protect you as best possible, and it’s unlikely Google will be manually investigating your client sites thoroughly.
Hope that helps.
Hi Darryl,
Thank you for the latest article – the timing is perfect as I’m just about to start prospecting again 🙂
Just had a super quick q for you if you’ve got a second;
In your guide you recommend not linking to more than 8 money sites from a single PBN. Can that include the SAME money sites?
For instance, I have 3 clients in a particular niche that I’m building a network for. Currently, I am linking to each of these clients’ sites from every new PBN I build. But I was thinking, surely linking to that same combination of sites must be an obvious footprint that an algorithm could detect?
Your thoughts on this would be massively appreciated 🙂
Zak
Yeah, it is a footprint, but unless you have a huge network is one you will inevitably have to put up with.
That is why clusters are great, as mentioned in The Future of PBNs Post. At least then, the worst thing that can happen is 1 cluster gets de-indexed (which seems to have no impact on clients sites or rankings, at least in de-indexing that has happened so far).
As of yet though, I haven’t found it to be a harmful footprint. But it definitely is a footprint.
Make sure to include some authority links to make it a bit more normal, that way it is simply a relevant site that links to other trustworthy sites within the industry.
Thank you, really appreciate you responding.
“(which seems to have no impact on clients sites or rankings, at least in de-indexing that has happened so far).” – I would guess that it would have an impact on a client’s ranking, though, if the cluster gets deindexed that was ranking it?!
And that 8 number – that’s your personal limit of links to same money sites on a PBN?
As of yet, de-indexed PBN sites seem to make no difference to the rankings or the clients/money sites. I’ve never had that many sites de-indexed at once though i.e. a whole cluster, so I have no idea what the result of that would be.
I only link to 8 money/client sites from a single PBN site. Max 2 links per money site.
Hey, This is an awesome blog. I have read all the blog articles and watched all the videos and I will be putting a lot of this great info to practice. Thanks.
I would love to see you go into more details especially pricing, more on closing etc. That would really help.
Thanks again Daryl and Armando.
Glad to here Noorz 🙂
Already got some new content in the works!
Thank you Armando and Daryl. You are very generous with your experience and knowledge. I hope you’re rewarded many times over.
Do you ever get discouraged because the direct mail doesn’t work? Do you know what is your response ratios are?
Also, do you have any examples of real video reviews that you sent to prospects that have landed clients (not recent clients but maybe from last year)?
Glad you liked the content David!
Everyone starts to get discouraged, just push through it and be persistent.
The response rate will vary highly depending on the letter you use, and the list. So I can’t give you an exact number. I’ve seen successful campaigns have a 1/10 response rate, others, less than 1/100.
I’ll probably share the exact template for creating these review videos in some later training.
Daryl, Great Hangout with LCT. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks man!
Hi Guys,
These videos are excellent! I’ve been in sales for many years, but most things I’ve sold have been small or medium ticket items. I understand that bigger ticket sales can require a bit more work up front, but the long term benefits can be lucrative.
Actually, I was on a Google Hangout webinar last night where Armando was one of the experts. Great stuff! That’s how I heard about this site.
I would REALLY appreciate it if Armando would create another video on how to put together the proposal, how to fulfill the services you offer, etc. I’m assuming that much of this is outsourced. I already have a part time VA that does well at what I’ve trained her to do, but I can see already that some of these tasks will be beyond my skill set.
Please make more videos! 🙂
Thanks in advance.
Joe
Awesome, Joe!
Your sales background will definitely make it much easier for you, that is usually the biggest learning curve for people starting agencies.
Armando has been super busy recently, but we’re looking at getting some new content made. If you’re on the “VIP list” or in our Facebook Group, you’ll get notified.
Hello Daryl,
How can you do Local SEO, If you are not from US or UK? I assume i really need to give them cold calling, because cold emails just doesn’t work for me, out of 100 sent emails i got 1 respond and it was probably some SEO guy which already did SEO for that client. And just see what message he posted
“I know you are already aware that the below emails come from automated generators. Just for grins, I looked up the contact form you got from the guy promising a high Google listing. The guys email is actually on the scam advisor list and he is actually in Germany. Most of these guys are running scams, but this guy might even be a thief too.
Let me know when you are ready to setup your campaign. Even though you are not ready to start the campaign, we should get it fully built and ready to go.”
I guess cold calling is must for this, they just don’t give a damn or think it’s spam message or such. Also if client spends like 20k$ on adwords, monthly budget. And let’s say he accept my deal how much should i ask and charge for sure not $1000, If they are spending 20k$ on adwords every month. Let me know your thoughts. Regards.
Hey Sone,
You can do SEO anywhere. Some countries definitely have their advantages, where there are more wealthier businesses, but there are businesses all over the world that can benefit from our expertise.
Cold calling works, as does cold emailing, and a number of other strategies.
If you determine a strategy doesn’t work that quick, you aren’t going to get any results. 100 cold emails is very few. Not to mention that you need to test things. Your email could have been written badly, you could have sent it to the wrong businesses, etc.
Cold calling is not a must. There are plenty of better ways.
I said $1,000 in this post because it is the minimum you should be aiming for. You need to charge accordingly to how competitive the keywords are. If they are spending $20k/month on AdWords, and want to rank #1 for all of the same keywords, you could probably get them onboard for $10k/month. And then either turn off the AdWords when those rankings are achieved, or dominate organic & AdWords for maximum results.
Hope that helps.
Hello Daryl,
“If they are spending $20k/month on AdWords, and want to rank #1 for all of the same keywords” Does this mean i have to rank over thousands of keywords? Because when i run PPC research to estimate things most of them have over thousands of keywords they bid on. So does that means i would need to rank all of this keywords?
If they wanted to rank for all the same keywords, sure. But presumably they aren’t coming up top 3 for every single one of those keywords in Adwords? And I don’t know how well their AdWords is setup, lots of those keywords could be a waste of time being targeted.
You’ll also rank for long tails and variations of keywords targeted, naturally, without deliberately going for them.
With that said, it’s advisable you just pick a few specific keywords at first. Start the commitment a bit lower (still min. $1,000/month), and crush it with those rankings first. Then you can progress the campaign from there.
Wow this post was really helpful. I literally just started doing SEO about a week ago. I’m excited about learning new strategies and implementing things quickly!
Darryl I read your post and you said that you we’re going to hire a VA to do some prospecting list building. I was thinking about doing the same thing. How has that turned out for you, was it worth it? Or should I just do this myself?
Awesome, glad to hear that Joshua!
The VA worked out great, I am not doing much with that now, so I ended up introducing her to a friend of mine who hired her now. Got some decent leads from it. Obviously the real work comes in leveraging this leads with cold emails, lumpy mail, cold calls, etc.
PBNs work well. thats my experience an tested many times.
I am a java web developer with many self hosted wp websites.
particularly local seo is very easy using wordpress, google local etc.
before using PBN our family biz site did not come as first entry in google india.
we get lot of biz from local area after using PBN .
also manually building backlinks and blogging etc.
most small business owners do not understand seo and not interested in service.
they want magic wand. they want immediate results. not patient enough to wait for 3-6 months for ranking.
Only bad clients are like that, or prospects that don’t trust you.
You need to either skip the bad clients, or learn how to build more trust with your prospects.
Try teaching them why it takes 3-6 months, rather than not explaining what you do.
I cover this in the SEO sales training series here: http://lionzeal.wpengine.com/closing/
Hello Daryl, Armando
Complete newbie here, your articles on getting client is not only good, it’s superb. I will refer to this video over and over again. thanks for the info and encouragement too.
Nathan
Cheers Nathan, glad you got some value from it 🙂
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for this.
There’s so much value we can add to our clients… And, future clients.
Digital Marketing is a lot more fun than I thought it would be.
Especially SEO.
And, the community that I’ve found so far has been amazing.
Thanks again.
It’s really fun man. I remember starting out, I only got into it so I can “make a bunch of money and play video games all day”. Now I’m absolutely in love with marketing. Glad you liked the post!
Hey man,
Just came across your blog post and I love the info!
You mentioned that you use direct mail to reach out to your prospects. Any advice if you wanted to get clients who’re based a couple of miles away from you, like let’s say, another continent?
Direct mail for that would be a bit expensive, especially sending multiple ones.
Thanks.
Joseph.
Thanks Joseph. Find a service or someone within that country to send direct mail for you. Or you can just switch mediums, cold emails work great too, but the volume/follow up is much higher to get the same number of responses.
Thank you both so much. I just started my SEO business and after spending 3 months creating my website, I knew I could do SEO for my own site and PPC or join a networking group, but these videos really empowered me to do something on my own that I feel will have real results! Thanks again for your generosity Armando and cheers to you Daryl for posting this stuff so I could find it!
Awesome, let us know how it goes Paul!
Hey Thanks for this great video series! I have a question regarding the client seo part 3 video. In the video you take snap shots of the search term they have bought ads for to put in the mail envelope and put below it something like “your business website is nowhere to be found”. Only the ad can be seen at the top and not their actual website, I fear that the business owner would justify that their ad can be seen so it is fine. Would it be better to show both their ad at the top and then the organic search below? Maybe also some info on why the ad is not doing much? Tomorrow I will be sending out direct mail for the first time and just wanted to know if it really matters. Thanks!
Glad you like the videos! If they’re in AdWords, then yes, just explain that AdWords is less effective (with stats to back up your reasoning).
So many positive things to learn from this post, like I do not need to have anything to get the first client except a will to accomplish. Thank you
Exactly 🙂 Let us know how it goes.
I’ve got to thank you Daryl, you were the spark to my SEO career and now operate a full client SEO agency as well as do lead generation. As of This month (6/2016) I am completely self employed.
For anyone reading this, act now and jump in with both feet. You won’t regret it.
Awesome man, great work and glad I could help in any way.
That’s awesome, Sam!!! Way to take action.
Wow, i’m so happy to see this kind of content. I’m from Brazil and online marketing and SEO market are far away distante. This will help me a lot to get clientes!
One doubt, after implementing the changes and well ranking the site of my client, what can I offer to him, charging a monthly fee like $ 1000 / m?
Thank you in advance 🙂
ps.: i see your name and came to know the blog on ViperChill
Hey Aile, you’re offering them top rankings for $1,000/m. Obviously requires picking your clients correctly, but for many businesses you could very easily generate them over $10,000/m in sales/revenue from being ranked top for the right keywords.
I find local clients are very reluctant to pa! It’s like they think you should sit on your computer and do your work free of charge, because there is no physical product.
I find local clients are very reluctant to pay! It’s like they think you should sit on your computer and do your work free of charge, because there is no actual physical product you are handing to them.
You’re just not doing a very good job of selling it. If they understand the value of what you’re providing, and they like and trust you, it’s an easy sale.
Hi Daryl & Armando, I’ve seen paid courses with less information that you’ve given away for free here in this post. You’ve captured many ideas I’ve read about / heard about before but have never implemented… so as soon as I finish kicking my own butt, I’ll be implementing with my own VAs 🙂
Many thanks for the share and the wake-up call!
Cheers Glen, let us know your results!
Wow – thanks for all the value guys. Video #3 really opened my eyes to how important upfront value and education is. Would you mind sharing the email templates you use for outreach to potential local seo clients?
Thanks again!
Joe
Thank you very much! I’m just in the process of opening my own Digital Marketing Agency in Europe and your blog is phenomenal. I greatly appreciate it.
Great stuff, just bought the closing course – looking forward to it! Have a couple of prospects from reaching out and offering value, but want to nail developing the relationship. Also, maybe most importantly, want to make sure I actually find out what I need to know from them to deliver.
Enjoy the training Benjamin! I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it, really proud of that training & the results it’s helped people to get.
Very very helpful! I just launched my own agency and got my first client. I read all of your posts, thank you very much!
Does Armando also offer a paid SEO training?
Not that I know of, but you can always reach out to him and ask.
I first heard Armando on your podcast (which I’m addicted to) and now I find this post packed with great value! Thank you
Haha, sounds like a good addiction to have 😉 Armando killed it with these videos, definitely worth bookmarking and watching again.
a very thanks to you dary for putting such an informative material for free. i enjoyed reading it and also thanks to armando who created these videos
I love it. I’ve been studying for about two weeks. Mind blowing. Thank you
Has anyone got results with it?
Does the method still works ?
What is conversion rate in this method ?
Hi Lion Zeal,
All videos are on 2014. And now 2018. Will you please Make some videos with new technique? Thanks
Wow… the value I took from this was immense. The 3 videos were brilliant and a great funnel. I had never thought of that particular funnel before. Great work and can’t wait to see what else you post Daryl.
Saved us newbies an bunch. Always use your series as a reference point. great read.
First heard Armando over on another SEO training group a few years ago and always listened or read every time I’ve seen his name since!
Thanks for sharing great article as finding SEO clients are very hard.
Hey Chris, nice post. Today I used your strategy and I contacted 8 potential clients. I will tell you next days if someone contact me.
Hi.. this is really an inspiring article.. it’s boost my confidence.. expect more from you…I am a new entrant to the SEO world… looking for your golden hued advise…
This was a very well put together article, and the videos were super useful! The biggest issue I’ve had is getting the attention of the business owner, so your idea with the direct mail and envelope standing out is something I’m definitely going to try!
Keep at it Mark. It works super well if you’re committed enough to sending them and following up.
Thank you for the amazing work. Daryl’s stuff works, guys. I’m a premium member right now.