After you’ve put in the work with technical SEO and made your discoveries, there’s one thing left to do: present your findings to the client and acknowledge next steps. And like a lot of things within our industry, that’s easier said than done. In this week’s episode of Whiteboard Friday, Benjamin Estes from Distilled presents his framework for making technical recommendat

ions to clients and stakeholders to best position you for success

Video Transcription
Hi. My name is Ben. I’m a principal consultant at a business called Distilled. Welcome to Whiteboard Friday. Today I’d prefer to talk for your requirements about something a bit diverse from most Whiteboard Fridays.

I’d like to speak about how to work with clients or bosses in a different way. As opposed to contemplating technical SEO and steps to make technical discoveries or see what problems are, I’d like to speak about how to present your findings to your client after you’ve done that discovery.

Problem
What’s the situation that we’re coping with here? Well, the scenario is that we’ve got a suggestion and we’re presenting it to a customer or perhaps a boss.

Easy enough. But what’s the target of the situation? I’d argue that there’s a very specific goal, and the simplest way to consider it is the target is to alter the action of the individual or the organization. Now, what if that wasn’t the case? You realize, what if you caused a customer and none of the actions changed consequently of the engagement? Well, the thing that was the point?

You realize, should they’ve even trusted you in the initial place in the future in and help them? So if here is the specific goal that we’re wanting to accomplish, what’s the simplest way to do that? Many people jump right to persuasion. They say, “If perhaps I possibly could something, the client would listen to me.” “If perhaps I possibly could present the forecast.”

If perhaps I possibly could justify the ROI, something, some mysterious research that probably hasn’t been done yet and maybe can’t even be achieved at all. My argument listed here is that the idea of persuasion is toxic. Whenever you say, “If perhaps I possibly could this,” really what you mean is, “If perhaps I had the evidence, the client would have to do as I say.” You’re hoping to get control over the client whenever you say these things.

As it happens that human beings basically do whatever they want to do, and regardless of how well you make your case, if it’s created for your reasons and not the client’s, they’re still not likely to might like to do the thing that you recommend. So I’ve introduced a structure at Distilled that helps us get past this, and that’s what I’d like to fairly share with you right now.

Approach
The key to this process is that at each step of the method you enable the client to resolve the situation for themselves. You give them the ability to see the situation from their particular perspective and maybe even develop their particular solution. You will find three steps to this.

1. Suggest
First, you suggest the problem.

When I say “suggest,” I don’t mean suggest a solution. I mean you plant the idea in their mind that this is a problem that requires solving. It’s almost like inception. So you first say, “Some tips about what I see.” Last the mirror to them. Make the observations which they haven’t yet made themselves.

2. Demonstrate
Second step, demonstrate, and what demonstrate means is you’re permitting them to emulate your behavior.

You’re demonstrating what you would do for the reason that situation if you’d to deal with exactly the same problem. So you say, “Here’s what I’d do if I were in your shoes.”

3. Elaborate
Finally, you elaborate. You say, “Here’s why I think this is a reasonable activity.” Now I’ve got to be honest. A lot of the time, in my experience, if you use this framework, there is a constant even make it to elaboration, since the client solves the situation somewhere back here and you can just end the meeting.

The key, again, would be to let the client solve the situation for themselves, for their particular reason, in how that they feel most comfortable.

Example
Let’s look at an example, because that’s, again, kind of abstract. So let’s claim that you’ve made a declaration in Google Search Console. The client has all these pages that Google has discovered, but they shouldn’t really be in the index or indexable or discoverable at all.

Begin by suggesting
So you begin by suggesting. “I see in Search Console that Google has discovered 18 million pages,”when it ought to be, let’s say, 10,000. “This really is from your own faceted navigation.” Now notice there’s no judgment. There’s no hint at what should be achieved relating to this or even the severity of the problem. You’re just presenting the numbers.

Now we’re already sort of at a turning point. Maybe the client hears this and they do a sort of a head slap and they say, “Of course. You realize, I hadn’t seen that problem before. But here’s what I think we ought to do about it.” You reach some sort of agreement, and the thing is solved and the meeting is finished and you receive that hour in your day. But maybe they sort of have some sort of questions about what this implies, what this implies, and they want to hear your solution.