- 6 Simple Lessons I Learned Selling My SEO Agency - December 12, 2018
- Free SEO Sales Pitch Presentation - November 1, 2018
- 10 Free Keyword Research Tools – 2018 Edition - October 17, 2018
One of my biggest pet peeves, when I was CEO of The Ocean Agency, was not bringing an agenda to web design kickoff meetings. Agendas are really just simple checklists that are ridiculously easy to create and imperative to have in order to run an efficient meeting. Once you create an agenda, they’re very easy to maintain. You may need to occasionally tweak the agenda every once in a while, but nothing much more than that.
Why are agenda’s important?
The human brain isn’t made to remember every detail we need to discuss or do in life. When we go to the grocery store, we don’t forget to buy milk because we’re inept, it’s because our brains aren’t made to remember so many details. We need checklists when going to the grocery store for the same reason we need agendas in meetings.
Agenda notes:
Once you download the agenda, you can review the below notes so we’re on the same page.
- Agency Introductions
The agency’s project manager should lead the meeting by introducing the agency. Then each team member in the agency should introduce themself and briefly discuss what their role is on the project. - Client Introductions
Each person on the client side should introduce him or herself, as well as state their roles at the company. - Company Overview
The client should discuss the company’s history, corporate culture, services, products and anything else the agency should know about the company. - Target Market
The client should describe their target market including: gender, age, location, and profile. - Competitor Review
The client should list and discuss any online and offline competitors, as well as list or show top competitor websites. - Current Site Review
The client should showcase and walk the agency through their current website. - Project Overview and Description
The agency should review the contract, project details, and give a thorough overview of the project. - Project Technology
The agency should review and clarify all technology to be used including: platform, language, DB, CMS, and programming language. This is also the time to discuss any major technology components like ecommerce, logins, database, web apps, etc. - Project Goals
The agency should clearly list and review all goals for this project, such as clearer communication, responsive design, increased conversions, improved SEO, improved scalability, etc. - Content Strategy
This is an extremely important part of the meeting. The agency must clarify who is responsible for the content and when it will be delivered.
Note: Content responsibility should be included in the SEO contract. - SEO Strategy
The agency should discuss local and/or organic SEO including: keyword research, landing page optimization and website optimization best practices.
Note: The Agency should briefly discuss SEO and content marketing as a possible phase two. - Project Timeline
The agency should clearly review and layout milestones, deadlines, and launch dates. The agency can chose to deliver a timeline at kickoff or 2-3 days after. - Project Management Software
The agency should introduce and review the project management software with the client. - Requests from Client
The agency should request a list of items the agency will need to complete the project, as well as the dates those requests are needed.
Note: The agency can also deliver this list of requests 2-3 days after the kickoff meeting. - Maintenance and Updates
The agency should introduce a monthly maintenance and updates option for post project launch. - Questions for Agency
The client should ask the agency any final questions before concluding the kickoff meeting. - Next Steps
The agency should state what the immediate next steps are after the kickoff meeting. - Conclusion
The agency should thank the client and reassure them of the expected success of the project.
In conclusion
Having an agenda at your new website design kickoff meeting is a simple and powerful #workhack that I guarantee will save you time, and inevitably reduce stress.You can easily avoid that dreaded feeling one gets when leaving an important meeting and realizing you forgot to bring up something super important and could have prevented that by bringing an agenda. It also stops those awkward moments of silence at the beginning of meetings. I’ve done all the hard work, you just have to do the easy part and click the download button. Good luck.
Note: You can create unlimited checklist agenda’s for free, at our sister site, https://www.checkli.com.