I am often asked how can a website owner get top placement in Google Maps. I have done some research on this topic and wanted to share the information with you. Many of the suggestions to improve your position you can implement yourself. I think that you will find my own personal business case study interesting and can offer insight into your own situation.
Don’t Give Away Your Trade Secrets
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.
Cleaning Up Your Blog
Periodically I clean up my blog. Although I have been blogging for over three years, many of the old posts just seem dated and so I routinely purge my blog of old stuff. This is why you’ll see my archive now only dates back to November 2006.
The information on the Web changes so quickly reader’s don’t want to see old new on blogs or dated postings. So clean it up and delete the old stuff now.
Do You Work on a Smile and a Handshake?
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.