3. Little website content that demonstrates your expertise. I often visit websites in which the company boasts how proficient they are at solving my problem, but when I look for proof of what they know (articles, resources, recorded content), I come up empty-handed, as the website is simply an online brochure describing the company's products and services. If you've been in business for awhile, you've got a good idea of the problems that your customers face.

Don't look upon providing information on your website as giving away your solutions for free -- think of it as developing a better-educated consumer for your services and products. Will you lose customers because they read your information and implemented the solution without hiring you? That's possible, but most prospective customers are unable to do it on their own and will need your expert assistance to help them solve their problem.

4. Inability to "test" your service at less expensive price points. Many service companies expect that their website visitors will part with a large sum of money to hire them just after meeting them. This rarely happens, unless your prospective customer is in an emergency situation. For example, if you're an exterminator and someone has just discovered his home is infested with termites, he may part with $1200 upon meeting you if he's confident that you can quickly and reliably solve his termite problem.

However, this scenario isn't realistic for those of use providing optional purchase-type services, like coaching, training, consulting, website design, printing, etc. Potential clients like to "buy in" at lower price points to "test" your expertise and reliability before handing over $5000 for a year-long consulting contract, for example. Andrea Lee, in her book, Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, http://www.msoci.com, suggests several price points in the creation of your marketing funnel:

a. free/complimentary/gift (like the free report you give away on the home page of your website)

b. $4.95 -$50

c. $50 - $200

d. $200 - $500

e. $500 and greater

Creating services and/or products at these various levels will help prospective clients "sample" your expertise at a price point that's comfortable for them, and you, as the business owner, can "move" them through your marketing funnel until they buy your top-level service. By creating different price levels, you've increased the number of prospective customers that have benefit of your expertise.

5. Missing or hidden contact information. You've visited a website several times and think that the site offers the ideal solution to your problem. However, you've got one question to ask before making your purchasing decision. You seek the location of the company, the phone number, or an email address, and all you find is a contact form to send your question. Website owners are often reluctant to have their contact info readily available on the website, as they fear having their email address harvested by spammers, or having their phone number added to a telemarketer list.

There are ways to lessen the likelihood of either issue, like by using an email address encoder like NATATA Anti-Spam Encoder, http://natata.hn3.net/, or the National Do Not Call Registry, https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx (applies to residential numbers only), or a live online chat help system, like LivePerson.com. Make it as easy as possible for potential clients to contact you.

Part 2 of the article focuses on mistakes small business owners make in not demonstrating their uniqueness and how they understand the problems faced by their clients.

Page 2 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next