You know the pattern. You call your web company to change a phone number or swap out a photo — something that takes two minutes — and before you hang up, there’s a pitch. Oh, we have this new product. It would be really good for your business. You didn’t ask. You weren’t shopping. You called about a phone number.
But they make it sound important. And you’re not in the web industry, so when someone who supposedly is says something that sounds like it matters, it is super easy to cave. Yeah, do it. It’s just 50 bucks a month. Or 80. Or whatever. Because saying yes is the only way to get them to stop.
That’s not a sales conversation. That’s a surrender.
The Roofer Who Finally Said Screw This
A roofer came to us recently. He’d been paying thousands a month to his old web company — the website, the SEO, the AdWords, the whole stack. Every service they offered, he was on it.
Then came one more add-on. Five hundred dollars.
That was the straw. Not because five hundred dollars is a lot of money on top of what he was already paying — though it is — but because of what it meant. He’s already giving them everything, and they’re still asking for more. His words when he came to us: You know what? Screw this. This is too much. Like you’re not happy with all I’m doing.
He didn’t say that to the old company. He said it to us. And then he said something quieter: It just didn’t feel right.
When we looked at what he was being charged for, he was right. It wasn’t right. It was unnecessary. The thing they were trying to add was something he didn’t need, stacked on top of services he was already overpaying for. He literally said, Hey, look at this. This is what they’re trying to sell me. And once we saw it, the conversation was simple. You don’t need this. You never did.
That roofer isn’t unusual. We see this from roofers to painters to electricians — across every vertical we work with. They’re all getting upsold. All of them, all the time. And the worst part isn’t the money. It’s the moment you realize your trust was taken advantage of.
The Limo Driver Who Didn’t Get Pitched
One of our clients runs a limo service. We built his website. During a review, we noticed his Google Business Profile didn’t even have a photo. We dug in deeper, asked for manager access, and the whole thing needed work.
Now — here’s where another company would have said, We can handle that for you. Here’s the price.
We knew money was tight. So we wrote him a bullet-point list of everything that needed to be done. Took about two minutes. And we told him: You can do this. I believe in you. You’re a smart guy and it’ll be in your words. It’ll be great.
Could we have taken the money and done it ourselves? Sure. And it would have been a legitimately better job. But him changing something — even without the expertise — is better than leaving it the way it is because he couldn’t afford to pay us.
He did it. Turned out just fine. Problem solved. Win win.
That’s what it looks like when someone isn’t trying to sell you something every time you talk.
How to Tell the Difference
The gap between a real recommendation and a manufactured upsell is hard to spot when you’ve been burned. But there’s one clean signal.
We lead with evidence versus leading with a product.
The upsell version sounds like this: This new product came down my pipeline and I think it’s perfect for you. No specifics. No analysis. Just a product and a price.
The real version sounds like this: I was analyzing your site. I found some areas that can be improved in your marketing. It just so happens there’s a tool that fits, but I didn’t want to just sell it to you — I wanted to make sure it was right for you. So this is what I did on your analysis. Found some gaps. What do you think?
Totally different.
One of those conversations starts with a product the company wants to sell. The other starts with your situation. If your web company leads with what they found in your data and asks what you think before quoting a price — that’s a recommendation. If they lead with a product name and a monthly fee — that’s a pitch. And you’ve heard enough of those.
Yeetish Questions
How do I know if my web company is upselling me things I don’t need?
Ask them to show you the data. A real recommendation comes with specifics — what they found, where the gap is, why this particular solution fits your situation. If all you’re getting is a product name and a price, that’s not a recommendation. That’s inventory they need to move.
What does Yeet do when there’s something a client could benefit from but money is tight?
We tell them. And then we figure out whether they can do it themselves. If the answer is yes, we hand them the instructions and cheer them on. Something done imperfectly beats something not done at all because the budget wasn’t there.