Author: Nancy McCord

How often have you allowed a prospect to pick your brain on what you might call proprietary information? It happens more often than not and typically I have found the prospect that wants to chat for hours on what ifs typically never moves into the paying customer arena. Why should they, they have all the information that they need to do it themselves.

How do you handle this kind of situation? For me, I am not afraid to share information and chat, but I am also not afraid after about 10 to 15 minutes to say “I need to move you into the paying customer category now.” Additionally I now consider some information about how I do business proprietary and not to be shared every! Regardless of the amount of money offered.

It is important that as a business person you assess what you do, what your value is to others, and then guard your trade secrets. Don’t treat this information casually. Sometimes it has taken years to understand or be versed in a topic so that you become an expert. Don’t give it away for a relatively cheap consulting fee or for free when chatting to impress a prospect with your knowledge. Now I do not advocate turning the clock on and charging everyone at the beginning, but in some situations it is better to get a retainer and contract first before getting into the details and a strategy.

You know I used to do that – work on a smile and a handshake. Then I got burned a few times. Now I use a letter of agreement aka contract based on one from the American Institute of Graphic Artists for creative professionals. I was worried that when I instituted the change that I would scare customers off with the legal jargon. By the way the agreement is over seven pages long, but it did not.

In my agreement I try to be as transparent as possible, covering what happens when you don’t pay, what interest is assigned, when we consider a payment late, who owns the creative rights to all we do, and when we will assign additional charges and fees. I consider my agreement professional protection for both myself and for my clients.

Did I lose any clients by moving from a handshake to sign on the dotted line? No, what I did do was weed out the people who wanted to abuse me or take advantage of me. In fact I have experienced very strong growth since instituting the agreement.

It is unfortunate that designers and consultants simply must have a contract when they work professionally as there are definitely some people who intend at the very beginning to take advantage of you either in time or in not paying what they owe.

So if you have been operating on a smile and a handshake, I am here to tell you that the biggest hurdle is not getting customer to sign on the dotted line but rather changing your own mindset to require a signature and deposit before you lift a finger on a project.

Finally, Google has decided to offer a little bit of help on the Quality Score in Google AdWords. Search Engine Land has a nice article that you can read and even a screen shot. Just click our post title to read more on that and see the image.

Now when you want more information on the Quality Score click your mouse on the magnifying glass next to the keyword in the Ad Group View. You will see a screen that shows a synopsis, then click the link on the screen on the Quality Score for even more information about your keyword relevance and about your landing page. I consider this increased transparency welcome and needed for effective management of Google AdWords.

Why should you care what your Quality Score is on Google AdWords? The higher your Quality Score, the lower your cost per click will be as Google will consider your ad, keywords, and landing page more relevant to readers. You may even find with a higher Quality Score that your ads will be shown more frequently as typically your click through rate will be higher. Your Quality Score is simply a health score of your program. Google rewards healthy programs with more activity, lower click costs, and potential placement in the top spots above organic listings.

Your Quality Score is all about a tight match between your keyword trigger list, your ad text, and the keywords and density on your landing page. Now with Google’s new transparency you can finally clearly target where your problem is so you can take action and improve your performance on Google AdWords.