It often seems that when a company grows past a certain point, the focus inevitably changes from client based to profit based. The client becomes the sheep for the wolves’s tinder. The company focuses on figuring out ways to use double speak, legalese and “propriety” gimmicks to ensnare the client. Ethical? No… A business model that works? Unfortunately too often.
I recently faced such a company on my clients behalf. After 6 months of “marketing services” my client saw zero results. The primary focus of these marketing efforts being a website (clearly hacked together from a non-responsive template) with SEO and Google Adwords based marketing behind it. 1 report was given in the 6 months describing 3 clicks that their “well developed” Adwords campaign garnered. This company took verbatim what my, all ready too-busy, client said and turned it into minimal blog posts of which there was far too few created to see any relevant gains in organic traffic. Business directories were ignored and existing listing (which listed my client incorrectly) were left unamended. Qualified authority-based back links failed to be created as well. Their experience with this large seemingly reputable company (listing many accolades and awards) was enough to leave them distrustful of any and all web related marketing efforts.
Okay, so my Client had enough and wants out. Their 6-month contract (at $1,060 a month) is up so this should be an easy transition. Unfortunately, this is where the snare is pulled and my client is caught for the slaughter. The website they “purchased” was never actually bought by my client. The website was considered a component under the guise of the companies marketing efforts. What my client was paying for was the service and not the product. This company held all rights to the design. Fortunately my client purchased the domain on their own, so that was safe. The website design in question would have to be purchased for an additional $750. There is another barb in our metaphorical snare, the company built what they claim is a proprietary coding system that is more or less (upon inspection) a re-skinning of the WordPress admin panel (horribly done mind you, at least graphically) and a coding system that calls upon server based coding to run WordPress’s PHP code properly. I.E. moving the site to another server would necessitate rebuilding the site completely as the site design they were going to sell for the $750 would still be built upon their code that would only run on their servers. This revealed after being told by a company representative that the site would be packaged to run on any server for a ball parked $500.
Ohh but there is more… Of the $6,000 plus dollars my clients paid to this company that included the Google Adwords marketing there was some money left over… How much do you suppose 3 clicks costs? That’s right, not enough to account for the full budget. Here comes the rotten carrot dangling above the snare. “We have $2,500 dollars left over for your marketing campaign that we haven’t spent… you’ll lose that if you leave. It’s a use it or lose it situation.” The rotten part of the carrot? You’ll never see that $2,500 as you’ll continually be paying in for their month to month charges to maintain their horrible marketing efforts which will never garner you true results.
Any other options? Why, yes you can maintain hosting with us for a low 14 dollars a month (Inflated, as most people know you can buy better hosting for around 5 to 7 dollars a month for a one year contract.) Okay, so no down time, use the existing design and just pay the hosting fee. I on my clients behalf will take over management and marketing and we’ll make lemons from lemonade because this is my clients crucial time of year. Another barb in the snare?? What?!
So in order to make the additions necessary I need admin access to the website they are hosting. Surely this shouldn’t be even a question since we are merely paying for their hosting. No, this company refused to grant that access to it’s clients giving them only what they term the “Client” user roll which is equivalent to the editor roll on WordPress, which as you may know keeps your happy fingers off the code. Cue the snare!
Fortunately for my clients I am there to clip the metallic braided line of the snare and nurse their wounds till I can get them back on their feet. Take a hit on my usual web design fee? A bit, but I can’t stand big companies like this and earning my clients trust is paramount in my small business.
This is why small business’s that choose to stay small often thrive and are better for business. We never grow too large to forget who got us there and our clients benefit greatly from our diligent focus on mutual success.
I’ve attached an image of the redacted version of the “Website Release Form” the company sent my client. If you ever wanted to create a form that openly admitted to your shady tactics and lack luster services, this might be the form you would create. I’d imagine if you are like me you might get a good laugh out of this “contract.”