Hi Fellow Networkers, This is the second in the helping Consultants increase their revenue series. How To Make A Website A Paid Consulting Engagement
Frequently consultants don't bother to leverage the Magic Profit Formula in any of their marketing materials. And the worst offender is always seems to be the website. While consultants understand they need a website, they don't rarely consider the website as a paid engagement with the advantage that the work is only done once. Consultants who do not know how to generate revenue from their websites are leaving significant amounts of revenue on the table, revenue that is theirs for the taking. The internet is now the first place a person looks when trying to solve a problem. Including any problem normally solved by a consultant. They have a problem, you can supply the solution, thus they become your prospect. The challenge then becomes converting this prospect into a paying client. If your website can attract these prospects, it means that you can have a stream of prospects coming to your website. This stream of prospects represents revenue for you. This lesson is about getting prospects to your website and being paid by them. I regularly visit websites for consultants and I am embarrassed by what I see. The poorest level is the consultant who thinks of their website as an online resume. There are the qualifications, a few links to some relevant organizations, and a list of companies and logo's of existing clients. To make it worse, there is a copyright which that a year later makes it clear the site is stale and two years later makes prospects wonder if they are still in business. Obviously not all consultants are this bad, but its few and far between that add a report or some press releases. Even the international and sophisticated consulting companies with thousands of employees do no better. They just make their web site a giant brochure, with the most important piece of content, a way to search for an employee. It surprises me that consultants spend thousands of dollars on their clothes and cars to give a good impression, but they do not make an effort to have their website generate revenue for them. What a wasted opportunity. Why Don't Consultants Expect Their Websites To Be Revenue Producing? I am not sure of all the reasons, but I know a few of them. Firstly, I expect it is a matter of time and priorities. A consultant feels that their profits only come from their time, anything that stops them from selling their time is not considered profitable use of business hours. What business hours left after earning revenue is devoted to marketing and since the website is part of marketing, then the website gets a low priority and is only important when the consultant is short of clients. The website is only considered as one element of their marketing plan. Usually it fits in after networking, which is just after playing a game of golf with a potential client. The logic makes sense, when the consultant doesn't think of the work on the website as revenue generating time. Another reason that consultants don't work on their websites is that they think its about giving away their knowledge for free. They feel any knowledge they share on the website means that they are not getting paid for their time. If a potential client can read their website and learn everything, and they can then implement it without the consultant. This logic has a simple flaw, if you are a consultant and you can put all your insights and knowledge onto the web, then you probably don't have too many skills. My personal believe is that the consultant hasn't learned to think about the Magic Profit Formula and their website at the same time. If you take any skill away from this lesson, understand the importance of applying the Magic Profit Formula to your website. This is important, as a consultant, you must stop thinking of your website as a marketing tool, you must think of it as a consulting engagement that you keep getting paid for again and again. The advantage is that is that you only have to do the work once. The last common reason and potentially the most valid reason have a poor website is their lack of knowledge. They don't know or understand some of the details on how to create a website that will earn them revenue. Typically a consultant will say "I'm not computer savy" or "I don't know how to do marketing". I find this axiomatic, because consultants need to say to prospects "I am a consultant and I know how to rapidly learn the details of your business." Consultants can learn, but, probably consider the time learning about generating revenue from their website, non-income generating and make the choice not to spend the time. I get comments from people that my articles are too long. I don't think so, but to strike a balance the rest of the article can be found here: http://www.ZaleTabakman.ca/2008/09/18/how-do-you-make-your-website-a-paid-consulting-engagement Take Care Zale http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/ZaleTabakman http://www.ZaleTabakman.ca To Unsubscribe, please click here : http://www.zaletabakman.ca/emailer/12all/box.php?funcml=unsub2&nl=20&mi=44&email=opensocial-plaxo%40googlegroups.com www.LinkedIn.com/in/ZaleTabakman <- An invite to me adds 1,700,000 people to your LinkedIn network --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Plaxo Discussion" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/opensocial-plaxo?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
