Before we get into this, I want you to know that I have had this type of situation happen to me more times than I can count. So I have to ask you, Do you have client meetings like this? Where you ask all or parts of the bulleted questions and conversations below?

• OK, so lets talk about your business objectives. What are they?
• Tell me what you want to do and how you are currently doing it.
• Who are your customers?
• What are your current marketing initiatives?
• How are they working out for you?
• Do you have a budget that you allocate for all of this?
• What has been the return on those activities for you?
• What has been the most successful for you?
• What didn’t work and why?
• What’s the competition like?
• Do you have any help?
• You worked with another agency? Why did they suck?
• So you got nothing out of it?
• Lets check out the website.
• Let’s see how you are ranking? Who built this? Who manages it?
• So you want to know about social media?
• What do YOU know about social media?

And after you have done that…the client waits for you to finish and then asks…

Can you make us a Facebook page and get us ranked #1 on Google?

Then you blink.

So, would you take the gig?

Have you ever vetted a client? Do they have any idea how difficult social media marketing is? New clients want a piece of that social media pie, but as a consultant or agency it’s up to you make them take a step back, show them that it’s just another spoke on the marketing wheel and temper their expectations into realistic and achievable benchmarks with results. If you don’t do that, you will fail and your clients will be pissed.

So would you take the gig above? What would you say to this client?