The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has easily become one of my every day MUST READ blogs. If you haven't read it, you should head on over and subscribe (trust me, it's good and Mike is damn funny). You can even follow him on Twitter. But anyway, now that we're done with intro's and me telling you all about Mike, here's some solid advice from him on: How to Determine Prices.
(Great advice for anyone in a service-based industry.)
I don’t like to tell people “you’re doing it wrong” because you know what, we all do it our own way. And that’s ok. But there is one thing that has to be said because I see people new to social media do it all the time!
STOP BROADCASTING!
Blatant self-promotion and the hard sell really doesn’t work around here. Do you know why? It’s because people really only care about two things:
If you’re not offering one or the other, you’re not providing much value. Period.
Deliver Edutainment:
A friend of mine used to always say that you have to strive to deliver “Edutainment” (the art of educating and entertaining). Here’s a few things to keep in mind:
What do you think? Do you think people broadcast a little too much online? How do you find a good balance between engaging for fun, and broadcasting to make a sale?
I read a recent post from Sarah Worsham and it was dead on in it's advice. The post was about contact forms on blogs/websites and how you go about letting prospective customers reach you. See, a lot of sites (too many in my opinion), hide their contact information in an effort to prevent spam and to keep away from solicitors. This is understandable, but at the same time, if you're making people put work in just to reach you, isn't that effectively just saying…
I Get It.
You're trying to prevent spam and stay away from tele-marketers so you slap a contact form up there and presto, problem solved. I know A LOT of real estate agents who do this on their blogs/websites.
BUT, on the other hand…
I think that qualifying prospects is part of your job. This means dealing with and weeding through the spam and solicitations from tele-marketers. Making your contact information as visible as possible on your website and on every page so that when a prospect who's fumbling through your content suddenly has the urge to contact you, they know where to do so rather than having to put work in to find you.
What do you think? Am I wrong here?
I've been attending a lot of events lately. I get telemarketing calls almost daily (not to mention those bad spam email pitches). You get those too don't you?
Well, today I just wanted to drop by and say just one thing:
Don't be that guy!
What does your perfect customer look like? How old is he or she? What kind of car does he/she drive? Income bracket? Family man or bachelor?