#6 Dumb Things Agencies Do That Get Them Fired

“Good, I’m early.” — I say to myself.

Clearly, I’m nervous.

I had no idea what the person I was about to meet was like, how much they knew about SEO, and what their goals were.

We met, we shook hands, and we got to chatting.

You see, there was a lot of the line. I was representing the agency and was meeting a new point of contact (POC) for one of our prized enterprise clients.

Here’s the thing: whenever you get a new POC in an existing engagement, two things can happen.

They fire you, and bring on their friends, or they continue with the engagement because it’s already been budgeted and paid for and then go to RFP at the conclusion of the contracted engagement to get rid of you.

Within minutes it became apparent this new person had extensive experience in the SEO trenches so the usual agency BS wouldn’t stick.

I knew he would see right through the “link-building” we offered.

I knew I had to switch gears or risk losing them.

So I had a real conversation with him about the account and this was the beginning of an amazing professional relationship between him and I.

Now remember, I was not a senior SEO by any means at the time. I was perhaps only 2.5 years into my career and while I knew a lot, it paled in comparison to what I didn’t know.

But what I was comfortable doing was putting the client first.

You see, this was something I learned back in my speech pathology days where we would design client-focused sessions. This meant no matter what grand plan I had come up with, I would adapt and adjust based on the client’s behaviour on the day. And I adopted this approach in my client interactions.

So instead of talking about results we had achieved, I pivoted my conversation with my new POC to understanding what he needed from me.

I literally threw away the “scope of work” my boss had come up with. Instead, I committed to doing whatever needed to be done as requested by the client.

While I knew this may result in an awkward conversation with my boss, I knew I could defend my position because a happy POC usually leads to a contract renewal which means cashflow for the business for another year.

Plus, if I am to be honest, there is clout to working on an enterprise account. This was as much for my ego as it was for other noble reasons.

Joshua and I developed a professional relationship based on mutual respect. By the time I was ready to leave the agency, he continued to be a personal friend.

It’s funny when I look back because now I’m on the other side of the conversation and I can tell you that there are certain things I look for when working with an external vendor.

When engaged by an enterprise, it’s never about the work or results — this is because you don’t own any of it. But so many of you still have this false mindset.

When you foster a meaningful professional relationship with your enterprise POC and retain them as a client, you’ve created another reason why you deserve a pay rise or promotion within the agency.

Here are 4 things that SEO agencies do that get them fired from enterprise accounts.

#1 Your SEO recommendations cannot be executed

When I look back, I cringe at the recommendations we used to make all the time, such as:

• Client-side rendering is bad, server-side is better
• Create and publish linkable assets
• Remove repetitive keyword from subfolder path
• Publish new content based on keyword gap analysis
• EEAT all the things!

Now, on the surface, all of these recommendations are fine. However, none of them align to any of the business’ success metrics for the quarter/year.

The problem with this mentality is that you will find that many of your well-intentioned recommendations will not even make it to someone’s backlog. And when the question of “Hey, what did our vendor achieve for us?” comes up, when nothing has been done and the wider client-side team hasn’t had any visibility on the value you’ve provided, removing you on the payroll is a much easier ask than keeping you.

But why is it that your recommendations don’t get actioned?

Well, it’s because you don’t understand how large organisations work.

#2 Your agency lacks experience to be empathetic

If there’s one thing SEO agencies are good at it is carrying out technical audits and revealing problems. However, when you work for an agency founder who has never worked in an enterprise before (which tends to be the case), there is a lot your agency doesn’t know.

One of the most ignorant things I heard an agency owner say was why an enterprise would spend millions per year on paid advertising but only low 6 figures on SEO.

He clearly had no clue.

I can tell you my first week working at an enterprise opened my eyes to why most agencies can never ship anything.

It’s not for a lacking of trying, but rather, the people who make decisions aren’t even in the room. Without their buy-in, nothing you do and say will be of any significance.

This is why I say you lack empathy.

You simply don’t know what you don’t know.

Where you lack first hand experience of how activities are budgeted for and planned, you can make up by asking the right questions so that you may invite the right people into your conversations.

For instance, let’s say you believe on-page content is a strategic lever worth pursing. Ask your POC who needs to be involved to produce net new content. They may not even know and this simple question can reveal all the different roles that are part of the supply chain.

#3 You don’t do what you say you’re going to do

One of the quickest ways to erode away any trust and credibility is failing to deliver what you’ve promised.

This is a cardinal sin in my opinion.

When you say you’ll turn something around or email back with an ETA by ancertain timeframe, follow through!

It’s really not that hard and doing what you say you’re going to do is a tenet of business relationships.

#4 Your communication sucks

Communication is one of the most important things in life and it certainly extends into your professional domain. And when the communication between an agency and the client is poor, small things snowball into big avalanches.

Now, subpar communication takes many forms so let me illustrate a few common scenarios for you to avoid:

1. I don’t know what you’re doing for me. The worst situation you can find yourself in is when your client doesn’t know what you’ve been doing for them. Now, I’m not saying they need to know every little detail, however, when you’re communicating with your point-of-contact, your job is to ensure they feel reassured that things are under control and that there is a clear strategy that underpins the work. Remember that your point-of-contact reports into someone who reports into someone. At some point, someone is going to ask how things are going and if you haven’t provided the necessary talking points, guess who is going to look bad and guess who won’t get their contract renewed?
2. You take more than 24-hours to reply to an email. This is definitely a pet-peeve of mine. When I ask a question (e.g., provide me a timeline on when XYZ will be done), I expect to get a response within 1 business day. I don’t think this is unreasonable — even if it is an acknowledgement or that you’ll talk with the team and get back to me later. When I don’t see a response within a day, I start to think perhaps your agency has a capacity problem. So just reply to the damn email and follow up!
3. The only time you contact me is just before invoicing time. Isn’t it funny that the monthly report is quickly followed by an invoice for payment? This is the worst way to nurture a relationship because your interactions become transactional. And when your relationship becomes transactional, there is no emotive reason why your client will want to keep you.

Turning poor communication into great communication is one of the lowest effort yet highest reward things you can do.

Thanks for making it this far!

If you’re a search marketer wanting to transition to an enterprise role, you’re going to want to subscribe to Journal of an Enterprise SEO.

What exactly is Journal of an Enterprise SEO?

A lot of people think in-house SEO is boring.

They’re not wrong, but they’re not exactly right either.

Hello! I’m Daniel K Cheung, the author of this newsletter. In 2022, I made the jump from a $130,000 salary agency-side to a $149,000 one at Australia’s second-largest telecommunication company before landing a role at Adobe.

Ever since then, I’ve come to respect in-house roles, learned to roll with the challenges, and look forward to the incredible potential of B2B enterprise SEO. I want to share my journey because getting hired was a huge milestone in my career.

Every week, I will be sharing tips, including:

• How to get a job as an SEO at an enterprise
• How to increase your sphere of influence
• How to get the most out of your 1:1s with your manager
• Mistakes to avoid in your performance review

So whether you’re at the beginning of your SEO career, about to apply for an enterprise role, or have just started and are finding it really difficult to get things done, I’m writing this for you.

See you next time!