Stop Picking Hard Clients (Unless You Hate Money)

Core message / strategy

• “Stop picking hard clients (unless you hate money).”
• The founder’s position: agencies should target “easy-to-market” businesses to reduce delivery friction and to make it realistic to sell an ongoing marketing retainer (not just one-time website fees).

“Easy vs. Hard” client criteria

Easy clients (naturally supported by marketing)

Look for businesses where marketing is helped by one or more of the following:

• Demand / keywords customers already search for
  • If you can answer: “Would people search for this online?” → that’s a good sign.
• Repeat business / an ongoing customer lifecycle
  • This enables lead nurturing and builds loyalty.
  • Example pattern: customers return repeatedly after a positive experience.
• Abundant marketing assets
  • Photos, before/after results, testimonials, reviews, and shareable content.
• Lower compliance / visibility risk
  • The business can market publicly without heavy restrictions on claims or privacy.

Hard clients (difficult to sell and sustain growth)

Hard clients typically lack one or more of the above, making SEO/content/social and retention much harder—especially for a retainer model.

Concrete examples

Good (“easy”) client example

• Axe-throwing business (local, visual, fun)

Why it works:

• Shareable content: “axes throwing in the dark,” cool pictures, “everybody’s having fun”
• SEO/keywords: easier local discovery for an activity people already search for
• Lead generation + nurturing: prospects can find the business online
• Customer loyalty: repeat visits after an experience
• Social media: naturally engaging visuals

Bad (“hard”) client examples (avoid)

These are cited as cases where marketing is harder due to weak search demand, limited public-facing angles, or harder-to-build proof:

• Architectural drafting (implied low search intent / low public-facing marketing angles)
• Commercial insurance brokers
• Medical device sales
• Fleet management
• Telecommunications (B2B)
• Medical staff training (and similar services)
  • Example rationale: unclear SEO keywords, limited consumer search behavior, weak social proof, fewer “before/after” examples or recurring triggers

Another “avoid at pretty much all costs” category

• Regulated / complex compliance businesses, such as:
  • CBD products
  • Mental health
    • Privacy constraints and limited ability to market and collect reviews

Actionable recommendations (operationalize targeting)

• Narrow your client niche based on marketability—not just your ability to build a website.
• Run a simple demand test:
  • “Would someone search for this online?”
• Prefer businesses with:
  • Recurring needs (supports loyalty + retainer revenue)
  • Visual proof (before/after, reviews)
  • Ongoing marketing-friendly content (fun experiences, repeatable services, etc.)
• Avoid segments where:
  • Marketing is constrained by privacy/compliance
  • There’s no obvious customer search demand
  • Content proof is hard to generate (few visuals, weak testimonials)

Retainer + revenue model (execution focus)

• The founder emphasizes pairing website work with ongoing marketing—positioning the agency to sell growth, not only a build.
• Key metric / implication (“target math”):
  • Selling $2,000–$3,000 websites without adding a marketing retainer may leave roughly $8,000 per year per client on the table.
  • A $2,000 client could become a $10,000 client with proper ongoing marketing.
• Business goal: better client targeting so the agency can successfully run a marketing retainer in the background and increase revenue per client.

Frameworks / playbooks referenced

• Client-market fit filter
  • Online-searchability (demand) + repeatability (LTV/loyalty) + marketing assets (proof content) + compliance ease
• Offer packaging strategy
  • “Website + marketing retainer” instead of one-time low-price website pricing

Presenter / source

• Lee Blue, founder of Double Stack: doublestack.net/call (mentioned)