Dave, I just wanted to thank you for the time you spent writing all of this info down for us! I have read and re-read every message!
Our business is a 2-person team as well, and we have been getting nothing but those clients that you speak of ... you know ... the cheap ones :) My brother does all of our flash design, action scripting and custom drawn art and I do ... well I do everything else :) I have all of my prices on my site and they are rock bottom low. I have been considering removing them for some time as I have heard that just that can improve the quality of my client base. I now have so many ideas that I am going to have to take a "vacation" in order to implement some of them into my site and my business strategies!! I don't have too many suggestions to those out there that would top what you have written, but I will add these two small things. 1. I noticed an 80% increase in my sales when I placed my IWA/HWG, GAG, and Square Trade logos right on my home page. 2. Elance.com has kept me alive. I get TONS of cheapskates and have to deal with low-ball bidders but I have also found a few ongoing/long-term clients that have basically been supporting my business. The ROI is outstanding with them and I highly recommend their services. Well, going to run...thanks again for all of your advice and I will let you know how things go after I try some of your suggestions. Jenni --- Dave Navarro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Another thing that took our business to the next level > was when we hired > our first sales person. I am pretty good at sales, but > my expertise is in > programming. And the more time I spent working on sales, > the less time I > had to earn money by writing code. And the more time I > spent programming, > the less time I had to get new business. > > We didn't have enough money to provide any kind of salary > for a sales > person, so I found a retired salesman who was looking for > part time work > and set them up on a commission. We offered him 20% of > every contract he > brought to us and he could work from home. > > You really have to find the RIGHT person for this to work > and the first > couple of people we tried didn't work out, but we did > find someone who was > able to make it work and he brought in quite a bit of new > business for > us. Eventually this turned into a full-time salaried > position with a lower > commission. > > We needed someone who had the time and was willing to > follow up on all the > mailings. And what a difference that makes. We pay a > low hourly wage as a > base and our sales guy makes his money on selling our > services. > > Our original guy who worked for us was a retired car > salesman from New > York. So he was used to the pressure of living off of > commission > sales. The key was the first two weeks he and I spent > together creating > marketing material together and going over each and every > web site we had > created to discuss technical terms and what could and > couldn't be done. > > We also offer incentives to our customers for referring > new business to > us. Since we host all of our own web sites in-house, we > give away hosting > when we get referrals. If it's a "big" contract, I'll > buy some movie > tickets and send them to the client along with a thank > you letter. On one > occasion where we got a really big contract referral, I > bought a $99 > digital camera and sent that as a thank-you gift. > > Suffice to say that we get a LOT of business from > referrals. > > --Dave > > > ____ � The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM � ____ > To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Send Your Posts To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To set a personal password send an email to > [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words: "set WDVLTALK > pw=yourpassword" in the body of the email. > To change subscription settings to the wdvltalk digest > version: > http://wdvl.internet.com/WDVL/Forum/#sub > > ________________ http://www.wdvl.com > _______________________ > > You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%% ____ � The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM � ____ To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Send Your Posts To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To set a personal password send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words: "set WDVLTALK pw=yourpassword" in the body of the email. To change subscription settings to the wdvltalk digest version: http://wdvl.internet.com/WDVL/Forum/#sub ________________ http://www.wdvl.com _______________________ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
