How would you word this

[Christine Hough]

I have had a look at your website. It looks very professional.
But on your contact page your headline
"Contact us for a free chat or consultation"
Might be better worded.
"Contact us to keep complex computations running smoothly"

If you do something for free, I agree with putting some check lists, or free guides on how to do simple things. They may drive the bigger jobs, and yet fully satisfy the trivial. Meanwhile you build your image as an expert. (Mybe an FAQ page)

Alos perhaps disable the phone details until they have taken the trouble to write down what they want.

Or you could offer a fixed consltation fee which is discounted off the full price if they go ahead.

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

The template idea is quite good - but to link to fiverr.com probably not the best thing to do... personally, I've never used it - but lets say for instance something that you do for £500 because of what/how you do it - goes to some chap on fiverr for... a fiver who does it a different way (probably a worse way?... I dunno! - A couple of questions to ask yourself...

Do you really want to associate with such a service?
Would you be prepared for the come back for linking yourself with such a service?

Just a thought - and my personal opinion

I didnt actually mean to link to Fiverr.com its self, I meant to connect to sites that sell ready made templates for fiverr type costs i.e. between £2 and £10. Sorry, I put that badly in the post.

I'm not worried about fiverr to be honest. Every now and again people will go to PeoplePerHour type websites but that is very rare. In fact we get more people going the other way i.e. they went to PeoplePerHour, got a rubbish service and then looked for a professional.

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

I have had a look at your website and it looks professional and it seems to have all the things that you would expect, such as testimonials, list of clients and a clear description of your services. I suspect that the problem that you mention is mostly with regard to the prospective customers who first contact you by email. Can you just not answer emails from suspected time wasters immediately or ask the email sender to contact you by telephone or skype.

Most of my prospective clients contact me by telephone and usually it will become clear within seconds whether someone is a time waster or not and if they are they can be put off usually fairly easily, usually by focusing the conversation of costs.

Thanks for the kind comments re the website.

I do tend to ignore those emails, but I still have to go through them all to see which ones I ignore. Most weeks that is manageable because it is just a couple of dozen emails, but it can get in to the hundreds at times. The ones that have Hotmail and GMail accounts are easy to filter out, but these emails come from around the world and from all sorts of ISP issued email addresses - they have to all be processed manually.

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

I have had a look at your website. It looks very professional.
But on your contact page your headline
"Contact us for a free chat or consultation"
Might be better worded.
"Contact us to keep complex computations running smoothly"

If you do something for free, I agree with putting some check lists, or free guides on how to do simple things. They may drive the bigger jobs, and yet fully satisfy the trivial. Meanwhile you build your image as an expert. (Mybe an FAQ page)

Alos perhaps disable the phone details until they have taken the trouble to write down what they want.

Or you could offer a fixed consltation fee which is discounted off the full price if they go ahead.

Hi Christine - long time no chat.

Thanks for the kind words

All of the sales side is currently being rewritten (contact me page, the front page, calls to action etc) as there is nothing in that is really punchy in the sales department. I put the site up for review in the members section and I got some great feedback, which I'm working through now.

Building my image as an expert is also something I'm working on. I have been experimenting with daily blogs and daily LinkedIn posting of tips and tricks. I just cant get the format right (yet). So the current blog is about to get wiped and started again. Watch this space as they say

 

[Christine Hough]

Hi Carl, I've not been around much as the seemingly never ending issues with my mother's care in a home are draining me!

Focussing on presenting as the expert you are, should be a move in the right direction.

Best with it all.

 

[Carl "Excel-Expert" Nixon]

Sorry to hear that Christine - from my own personal experience, snatching the odd hour or two a week to looking after yourself is the key to unlocking the stress. For me it was going for a long walks to get fresh air and to clear my head that worked the best.

 

[Christine Hough]

Thanks that is good advice and confirms what a friend told me yesterday that it is essential to give yourself time each day for yourself.