Learn some basic salesmanship.  Do you realize that business owners are getting 3-4 phone calls and emails a day from other SEOs claiming to be the best?  Be polite, ask questions, and don't insult me or yourself through ignorance.  Ask questions.  You might just discover that we could work together. When you tell me that I'm not ranking for "competitive keywords" it tells me that you don't know what I'm trying to rank for.  When you tell me you can get me to the top of Google in 3 months or less, you're still telling me that you don't know my business and what I want from my website.  Who said I wanted national ranking anyway?  Oh right, not me because you never asked. And if I answer the question "Do you want more business/leads?" with "No." Then politely end the conversation and move on. The rare time that I do get asked about my current efforts, don't insult me by calling me an amateur.  I may be one, but talking down to me, or trying to make SEO sound like you're turning lead into gold will get a quick hang up from me. If you want a contract with me, learn to negotiate based on my needs, not your process that you feel married to.  There are a lot of business owners out there that would be willing to work with you if you treated you leads with respect rather than iteration 23 of your cold call script. And in response to the person this morning that sent a "free report" of basic SEO fixes for my website, make sure you put that report together using **my website. ** I know you're working from a template, so it should be really easy to remove the info from the wedding company and the lawyer's webpages before you email it to me.