The staff at McCord Web Services wishes you a Merry Christmas today.
May you day be filled with laughter, good food, great company, and good friends.
We are closed today, but will be open tomorrow.
How to Get Clients to Value Your Time
Can you teach others to value your time? Yes, you sure can. I have been in business since 2001 and over time my business and client load and demand for my services have grown significantly.
As a business professional who makes a living off of time billing, I have learned a few things about helping clients learn to value my time.
Use Calendly
I use an appointment calendaring app called Calendly. I started out with the free version of Calendly but now use the premium paid version. This app moved me from one to six emails (for each client) to schedule a mutually available time for client strategy calls to now one email with a link and the client self-selects a time and even gets automated reminders.
I even use Calendly for pre-paid consulting appointments, linking the notifications in the app to my billing page to get payment before I even get in the car.
Rarely Talk on the Phone Except by Appointment
Most of my correspondence is done by email. I have voice mail messages letting clients and prospects know the best and fastest way to get me is by email. I typically send all my phone calls to voice mail. This puts me in charge of my day and time allowing me to be highly productive.
Set Email Auto Responder Messages
If I am super busy and not available to react immediately to an email, I set up a “vacation” notice that I am super busy that day and list the times I will be checking email. I will always respond that same day, but sometimes am tied up on a code issue, SEO problem, or AdWords program set up. Interruptions on some of these projects kill the thought continuum and are serious distractions. When I am working on a project I have a laser-beam focus and operate at a high level of efficiency and competency. Calls distract from that focus.
By communicating when I will respond, I assure clients that I will touch base back. I do however perform triage. If there is a disaster happening – I will stop my project to help. I do have a strong sense of urgency when it comes to assuring that your site is up and fully functional or that a real time sensitive problem is addressed quickly.
Set Limits on Free Services
Although I am willing to freely share my thoughts and time with prospects, I do limit the time I will spend without moving into a paid client category. I do clock all my time chatting with a prospect. Typically at the end of 30 minutes I will go and then followup by email with a request to move to a paying client category. I have been burned a number of times and now I do value my own time. The most important thing I have found is if you do not value your own time, clients will not value it either.
That being said, you do not have to be rude, pretentious, or full of yourself by setting limits and guiding customers on how best to use your services effectively. I always try to be helpful yet focused.
In all I do, I work hard to provide value for clients and work to save them time and money. If you are looking for an expert to help with your SEO, content strategy, or Internet Marketing Program using Google AdWords, contact my by email at nancy@mccordweb.com.
Twitter Expands Tweets to 280 Characters
Finally, Twitter expands tweet length from 140 to 280 characters – just this last week! And HootSuite finally allowed our writers to start using the longer word count.
We do a nice job with writing for Twitter for our clients, but 140 characters simply did not make the cost valuable to enough clients. Now with new expanded tweet length up from 140 to 280 characters, Twitter is looking very attractive for many businesses.
I have always like Twitter. I like the medium, interaction and ability to get a businesses customer service reps attention fast. Plus there’s simply no better way to know what is happening then to ask on Twitter. Donald Trump has made Twitter popular with business owners although I never recommend tweeting in the same fashion that he does.
We’ve been waiting for our Pro HootSuite version to allow us to write at the longer character count and just this week, we were able to make the shift.
With a longer tweet, look for the use of more images in profiles that typically did not work to create an nice looking interactive page.
If you need help with Twitter writing, now’s the time to take a look at our services just for Twitter.
Whopping Big Email Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make
Email mistakes, we all make them, but whopping big mistakes shouldn’t be made too often.
I’ll never forget a frantic phone call I got from a client who asked how to get back an email she just sent to a customer, but had meant to only send to her sister. In the email she she trashed a customer and really got personal in a very mean way. The now past-customer was insulted and very angry as she should have been.
The best way to prevent big email whoppers is to set a delay send in your Gmail account (if you use it) and smartphone email accounts. I set my delay to 8 to 10 seconds giving me time to undo something if I need to with one click.
I’ll bet my client who got lambasted for being catty and sending the email to the customer and not her sister, wished she’d had that enabled.
Other big whopping email mistakes include, but are not limited to, asking employees, paid far less than you to pay, to pay for spilling something on your clothes; mentioning to others that you are intimate with a person they know too (but maybe did not know you were hooked up); clicking reply all when you really should just be talking personal to one in the chain not everyone (especially if you are venting or are angry); and mocking of others or employees in an email.
You can never take back something you sent too quickly, so take a moment to see if your own email application allows for delayed sending, just to keep you from making your own whopping big email mistake.