If it’s clear that they feel like SEO is a minefield of complexity, you can explain how the playing field has changed over time, to the point that Google has made SEO easier to grasp, with Google My Business, Google websites and its own Google marketing kit. This will tell them that agencies are now competing on performance rather than access to some ‘secret sauce’ of SEO.

Above all else, treat them like a person rather than a project. They’ll notice in your behaviour and mannerisms that you’re to be more trusted than those they’ve dealt with in the past.

If you’ve managed to get through that difficult first conversation, and your potential client is willing to hear you out on your proposed strategy, congratulate yourselves on the fact that the first, and hardest, hurdle is well and truly jumped.