I know most of you are dealing with businesses that understand they need to be seen to get conversions from their web presence.  However, as the economy tightens and competition gets more aggressive, I believe more of us are going to be in front of potential clients that are trying to wrap their head around why they need to do this, and why it costs money.

First Things First. It's about establishing your credibility.  They are only going to buy your ideas if they buy you first.  Your prospect doesn’t know a thing about what you know.  It all sounds just a little suspicious to them.  Are you a snake oil salesman or the real deal?  They really want to have confidence in you.  They aren’t deciding on what you say you can do, they’re deciding if they believe you.   What you do and what you know is worth money, a lot of money.  But the reason we get out of our comfy offices and go to make the contact is to let them know you’re a real person that can really help.

The Intro Sets the Game in Play.  Make it short, impressive, but reassuring.  I use what I call the Star Wars Intro.  I start in the middle of my story and talk about how I got interested in SEO.  In my case it was a desperate, suspense-filled existence, paying more and more for Pay Per Click ads and trying everything I could think of to get better natural search results before I went bankrupt.  I stop with how much I was spending per month and then the economy began to turn...

It’s a Show, People.  Be the showman.  Use your showmanship.  In SEO nobody really knows what an SEO looks like.  Let’s face it, if this is the land of OZ, you’re the guy behind the curtain.  

You Control the Room.  You don’t have to be James Bond or Cary Grant (thank God), but you do have to look like a professional and know what you’re talking about.  Remember, you’re the authority in the room.  Stand up straight.  Speak confidently.  Be proud of what you know and what you know you can do.  I ride a Harley to every meeting.  I just like to have some time to clear my head before I go in.  But in the Northwest, what keeps everything green also gets us wet. If you wear chaps the only part of you that gets cold and wet is your crotch.  I have done presentations looking like I just peed myself.  Next time you need a good chuckle, think of me standing in front of a bunch of suits with my crotch all wet.  I’m not pretty but I do know my stuff.

Make Them Laugh.  I don’t tell jokes, I tell stories.  I try to tell something funny about myself.  Not to make myself out to be an idiot (they’ll figure that out soon enough), but to show that life has happened to me too.  I have raised two children to adults and done enough different jobs that I can tell a million stories.  To me, humor is life and life happens.

Should You Use Notes?  I like to take notes while I talk because I ask questions and I want to be able to answer some of their concerns in my presentation.  But as for using notes, use an outline so you hit all your points in some kind of order but don’t ever just read a speech. It sucks.

Do I Have to Wear a Suit?  No.  But you do get extra points for looking professional.  These days you can look clean pressed and ready for action in jeans and a nice Harley shirt.  Make sure your breath doesn’t stink and you don’t have anything in your teeth.  That being said, if everyone in the room is wearing a suit and tie, your presentation better be a jaw dropper.  If I know the room is going to be filled with suits, I shine my boots and polish my head.  

Ask Engaging Questions, Then Listen.  Ask how having a website has affected their business and then listen to their answer.  Ask them what they like about their website and what they would like to change about it. Take notes. It lets them know you value their input, and writing things down helps you emphasize them as you go through your talk.

SEO=Value.  Try to get them to share how much an account or sale brings in.  For a service like yard maintenance, security guards, office maintenance, garbage hauling (getting the idea?), or other man-powered type agencies, a good account could be $600 to $1000 per month.   If you can break down how much one more customer can mean to them it makes the next step a lot easier.

For the sake of demonstration, let's use a nice round $500 per month more by one contract, and we are going to focus on businesses that might set up ongoing contracts. Now let's go over how much one customer means over a year's time.  $500 the first month times twelve equals $6000 more dollars per year.  But SEO puts your business in front of eyeballs 24/7/365.  So would it be too much to consider that maybe more than one prospect would be looking at their website?  If they really do have something to offer and they take customer service seriously, would it be reasonable to consider that you may find at least one more person to market your service to per month? Maybe one more per week?  Really, would one more customer per week be too much to handle? 

So for the first week it would be $500 dollars, the second week you’d add another $500, and then the next week another $500.  That first month they would make $2000 dollars more.  But if that happens again the next month the income jumps to $4,000.   At the end of the year they are bringing in about $24,000 per month for a total of $162,000 more for the year.  Is that outrageous? Would it be inconceivable to take on four new clients per month?  That’s 96 clients to handle every month. 

My lawn care guys send a two man crew once a week and it takes them about an hour to do my yard. With travel between jobs we’ll say they average 8-10 jobs per day.  That’s 40-50 per week or 160-200 per month for just one crew.  What kind of changes would it make in their business?  Would they need more employees?  More equipment?  But let’s just say that there are more than 100 people in your area that need your service.  Just for the fun of it, let’s say that maybe twenty people per day in your area were shopping for what you have to offer, found your website, and only two of them signed up for your service.  That’s 730 more customers per year, which means for my lawn guys they would have about four total crews.  That would be a monthly income of $365 thousand, or about 4.38 million annually.  Not bad for mowing lawns. 

But maybe you don’t want to make that much.  Eight men at $15 per hour would be about $230,000 in wages plus $60,000 to your SEO (whom you love and name your children after). With gas and equipment you’d only get to keep 4 million for yourself and you did all the work.

Is the Internet the Future?  Ten years ago, because I had a product that I could sell all over the world I had to advertise in as many yellow page books in as many cities as I could afford.  I could never afford to be in every book and most cities have more than one.  According to the information from the phone directory companies, they deliver 540 million directories annually in the US -- nearly two for every man, woman and child in the US.  In southern California each household can get more than ten directories.  That means if you advertise in one directory per city, you have a one in ten chance that the one book your ad is published in is even kept by the household.  Couple that with the average adult consulting that book less and less often; what are the odds your business is the one they are going to find?     

Statistics put out by the directories say the use of phone directories has stayed the same.  Right.  Don’t panic, one little iceberg could not sink a ship the size of the Titanic.  If you work for a directory publishing company and you are reading this, good for you!  Cross training is going to be really important in your future.  Nowadays most people don’t even know where their phone book is.  If they need a doctor, first they go to WebMD.com.  Then if they need to know the doctor's phone number, they check the internet.  If they want to find something on a map, they don’t even think of looking for the phone book, they go to MapQuest.com.  If they need to know what the weather is, they don’t look out the window, they check Accuweather.com (or some other favorite).  So do you think an ad in the Yellow pages is going to be your key to success?     

Twenty years ago or so they came out with the first “portable phone.”  It was about the same size and weight as a concrete brick, hence its nickname.  You probably didn’t think that now every person in your family would have one.  Or that the future of good parenting would involve allowing or withholding the use of one of these tiny little devices.    And I’m not even talking about the movies, music and GPS capabilities of some phones.  Twenty five years ago it was beepers.  Remember beepers?  It was a huge industry.  When I was getting my pilot's license my beeper went off.  When my instructor realized it was my beeper he asked me what it was for. I told him it was  just to remind me that it was time for my medicine.     

The first “portable” video cameras were really a small television production studio.   The camera itself weighed about ten pounds and needed to be hooked by heavy cables to the portable VHS recorder that weighed about fifteen pounds with the battery pack.   Now you can take short videos on your cell phone and video cameras are the size of your fist.      

How about GPS?  I sometimes have to travel across the country, so I get a rental car that has GPS in it. I type in the address I am heading for and the darn thing tells me turn by turn, recalculating when I miss one, until I arrive at the front door.  I liked it so much I got one for my Harley.      

Ten years ago my kids' lives revolved around the local shopping mall.  Now they never go to the mall to shop.  They don’t even try to find clothes there because they got tired of wasting time.  Now they find what they want online, order it, and it arrives at the house sometimes the next day. 

The world as we know it has changed in our lifetime.  I watched man land on the moon with my great grandfather.  The world he knew had gone from horses and buggies to cars and then to rockets.  Phone directories were the technology of our great grandfathers.

Create a Desire for Action.  Be concise and compelling.  I don’t want them to think about it.  I want them afraid not to do something right now!  If they aren’t being seen at the top of the natural search, their potential customers are spending their money with the competition.  And that is going on right now while I’m standing here explaining this to you.  Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week including holidays.  Even while people are supposed to be working they’re shopping online.  I once got a product order from NORAD.  A guy that was supposed to be keeping us safe from attack was shopping online.  My website brings in business while I’m asleep.  If yours doesn’t, your money is flowing to someone else!

Make Eye Contact.  I want people to know I’m talking to them personally.  I’m taking time out of my seventy hour work week to make a personal contact with them.  If I didn’t want to make that personal contact I would have just sent them an email.  The personal touch is important.  They need to feel if we work together they are going to talk directly with me.  They know me. I’m a real guy, not just an avatar or a voice on the phone.

Use a Power Point, Handouts, Props.  Use them to reinforce your credibility.  Putting something in people's hands creates a sensation that engages them personally.  But if your technology fails you need to be able to pull it off without them.  At the SEOmoz Pro seminar the huge information book was all out of sequence so half the pictures weren’t even recognizable.  Was it annoying?  Yes.  Did it hurt any of the presentations?  No, because every person presenting knew their stuff. 

I like to have a picture of what a client's website looks like now, a shot of the front page code and the same for their top five competitors.  I want to circle in red the weak spots I see in their competitors.  I don’t beat up their own page because the person that worked on it is probably in the room.

Attention Spans Are Short.  It’s okay to leave them wanting more.  They’re busy and you are too.

Just Make Sure They Are Afraid Not to Act Now.  I bring up the top five competitors again.  I bring home that these guys know this thing works.  They are cashing the checks to prove it.  They don’t want you to get it.  They don’t want to share with you.  They want you to stay back where nobody will ever find you.  They aren’t going to tell you how they did it.  If you want a piece of their pie you need someone like me on your side.

Tell Your Own Story.  Even if your presentation sucks or blows chunks, your story can save you.  People forget all the statistics and numbers you throw out, anyway.  But they will remember your story and tell it to others.  My story is scary. I spent over half a million dollars per year on PPC just trying to get my business seen.  This is where I tie up the Star Wars Entrance.  I get to tell how I became a Jedi, joined the rebel alliance, beat back the evil powers of the Empire and won freedom from PPC slavery.  And now I use my powers for good and promise never to go to the dark side.  It’s very compelling.  People want to be a part of the fight and break the chains that are holding back their business.  But you can’t tell my story, you have to tell yours. Make it a real story with relatable concepts.

Confidence is Contagious.  You know you can do what they need to have done.  Now go get ‘em.