Small Business SEM has an excellent post about the SEO Success Pyramid.

“…the best SEOs don’t talk to their clients about rankings; they talk about the process of making great web sites that earn traffic and convert visitors into customers. They talk about the process of creating great content that attracts links like bees to honey…”

I agree with that, it is sometimes hard to make people look at the whole picture, but once they do, they like much better what they see.

This image (from that post) makes it very clear: