He wanted Facebook ads but didn’t have any landing pages, videos, tracking,  or even a strategy.

It took me 3 months to build these components– but he expected leads the next day.

Moral of the story: Building something from scratch costs way more than maintaining it.

I pay the maid $50 for housekeeping every week. 

Would you like to live in a 3-story, 6-bedroom house for only $50 per week?
You must get the house first.

If you’re an agency, make sure to properly charge for the building phase, which is 50X more effort than monthly maintenance.

You need to have plumbing first, to track your performance and disqualify nightmare clients.

Then ensure they have a strategy, meaning their GCT (goals, content, targeting).

If they don’t have a clear strategy, then you’ve got a risky, expensive build phase.  Set expectations and charge appropriately, or walk away.

And only then can you build your campaigns.

After these 5 stages come “optimization”, which is the ongoing maintenance and tuning. 

Clients want to skip this out of ignorance and impatience. 

Your job is to qualify and educate first– then charge appropriately.

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations. He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications. Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He's coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries. Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.

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