
Ask HN: Getting Clients That Are Clients of Another Agency - hanniabu
I constantly see websites that are horrendously out of date that I&#x27;d love to approach to acquire them as a client. However, I notice that they are clients of another agency via tag at the bottom of the page.<p>Has anybody ever dealt with this situation and how did you approach them to try and get their business?<p>Second case: how does this change when the agency is extremely out of date with design?  (Sites that were barely passable in the 90&#x27;s)
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ryduh
Just because a site was built by an agency doesn't mean that the client still
has a relationship with them. Reach out to the website owners and see if they
would be interested in talking about a redesign.

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hanniabu
Follow up....how do you go about finding the proper person to talk to? Do you
ask for the owner? Ask for who's responsible for their marketing? What's the
process usually look like?

Sorry if this should be obvious. I know there's people on here with a lot of
experience and would know the ways that are best received by the potential
clients.

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eswat
Given a website as an example, ask for the person that hired the last
team/person that worked on it. This could be anyone – the owner, marketing
department, IT, etc. – so just cut to the chase and ask for whoever is
currently responsible for it.

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hanniabu
Ahhh okay, that's a good blanket statement, thanks eswat

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Mz
Consider the possibility that it sucks because there is no money for an update
and/or it isn't a priority. Try to verify that this is a viable business and
that an update would at least pay for itself, preferably more than pay for
itself.

Consider the possibility that obvious need of an overhaul (in your eyes) is
not very good evidence that these are good prospective clients. If you are
offering charity, obvious need is a good metric for whom to target. But if you
want a healthy business relationship, that is insufficient. A healthy
relationship is symbiotic. It is one where both sides benefit. If they can't
afford to pay you or just do not care, the suckiness of their site is not a
good argument for viewing them as good people to target as future clients.

Don't hesitate to email them and pitch them. But don't be shocked if the
success rate is low. You may need to come up with additional metrics to define
"good prospective clients."

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hanniabu
All valid points, thanks for the insight Mz

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brudgers
An out of date website is a _poor_ lead because the likelihood that the
company does not see value in their website is _higher_ than if the company
has a great up to date one. A low quality out of date website can be
symptomatic of not spending money on web design/development.

On top of that, telling a company that their website sucks is a low closing
strategy whenever the company values their website. First because it is often
contrary to their opinion, and second because the website may in fact work for
their business and that what horrifies a designer is orthogonal to the
business’s bottom line.

Good luck.

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JSeymourATL
> how did you approach them to try and get their business?

There is an art & science to prospecting and pitching new clients. It's a
learned and practiced skill. If you can master this, it will change your
business and life.

On this subject, Mike Weinberg's advice is huge >
[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-
simpli...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15863998-new-sales-simplified)

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dilipray
But, the main thing would be knowing the pricing what the client is willing to
pay and negotiating with them.

