Rant: Agencies acting like clients don't remember 5 years ago

Had a meeting last week with a guy pitching social media management. He's telling this restaurant owner he can get them 50k followers in 6 months. Owner just stared at him and said "my last agency said the same thing, then I paid 3 grand a month and got 200 bots." That's the problem now. Too many new agency owners think clients are goldfish. They forget everything that came before. I see it on proposals I get forwarded. Same promises, same buzzwords. Clients have been burned. They remember the last guy who overpromised and underdelivered. How do you handle that trust gap when you're pitching someone who's been through the ringer?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna_wells578d ago

Is it really a bad thing if agencies recycle old pitches when the tactics still work on new customers every day? The clients who got burned already learned their lesson, so maybe the "goldfish" are the ones still paying attention to the same tired promises.

blaker758d ago

Man, that restaurant owner's response was perfect. Those agencies just recycle the same sales pitch from five years ago and hope nobody notices. It's brutal out there for business owners who have been burned. The trust gap is real and it only gets wider every time some new kid with a podcast promises the moon. Being honest about what you can actually do goes a long way, especially admitting what you can't guarantee. Have you found that being upfront about past failures helps open that door again?