Great technical marketing is all about making compromises and finding the happy middle ground between two worlds (e.g., cutting-edge web design and search engine crawler behavior or SEO and branding). However, there are a few points that UpBuild is unable to compromise on. We offer these up publicly in the spirit of transparency and as a show of respect for your time (and ours).
We Don’t Compete on Price
We know that UpBuild is more expensive than many other SEO agencies. Our price point allows us to spend the in-depth effort to deliver real technical SEO value to our clients and reflects the time and care we’ve spent building a world-class team of technical marketers. We wouldn’t charge what we do if we weren’t confident that our clients will see a return on that investment. In light of that, it’s worth making it clear that UpBuild does not compete on price (meaning that we’re not able to adjust our pricing to be more in line with what another agency may have quoted for the same work).
However, if we meet a client we really want to work with, we’ll do our best to make it work. There are a few levers that we commonly pull to work within limited budgets that we might otherwise exceed; for more on UpBuild’s typical engagement pricing and common discounts we may be able to employ, check out our Pricing page.
No Performance-Based Compensation
We’ve explained this in more depth on our blog, but we don’t enter into engagements with performance-based compensation (such as being paid only if we’re able to hit certain agreed-upon goals, being paid on a sliding scale based on results, or getting a “bonus” payment for achieving certain goals) for any reason. While it might seem like a great and safe way to approach working with a prospective consultant, we’ve found that moving forward with performance-based compensation starts a relationship from a place of distrust, which actually makes it harder for us to get results.
We realize that entering into a consulting relationship carries a lot of unknowns with it. That’s why UpBuild includes a 45-day Opt-Out clause in all of our ongoing contracts. If working with the UpBuild team isn’t everything you’d hoped it would be, you can just let us know within the first 45 days and you’ll only be responsible for those 45 days of consulting. After that, change orders can be submitted in writing with at least 30 days’ notice — if you’re ready to go our separate ways, let us know and we’ll get things wrapped up and handed off over the next 30 days.
Be Awesome to Each Other
As an UpBuild client, you can expect that all our interactions with you will come from a place of respect and empathy — even when we need to sit you down for some “real talk” about the state of your website, we’ll do so in a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect. We will expect the same in return.
Our team is our most important asset, and part of what makes UpBuild great is how hard we work to support the team in doing work they’re proud to be doing. Client relationships are a huge part of our work, as well. If a client relationship starts to sour — especially if a team member feels abused, threatened, belittled, or otherwise degraded while working on your account — UpBuild’s Leadership Team will:
- sit down with the involved team member(s) to review the situation,
- objectively review what data we have on the interaction (e.g., emails, chat interaction, call notes), and then
- get in touch with you to outline recommendations for both sides to promote mutual respect and collaboration moving forward.
If we can’t come to a new foundation of mutual respect and empathy for the relationship (particularly if there are any repeated incidents of abusive behavior toward our team), we will exercise the 30-Day Change Order clause (included in all our contracts) to wind down the engagement.
