The best time to ask for a referral is when your client is telling you about how your service has helped them. You will get clients who are thrilled with their results. Imagine one of your clients says to you “I just made 3 huge sales totaling $5,500 and they all came from the website [...]

In online marketing we talk a lot about “viral” marketing…where your product gets recommended and read or bought by an steadily increasing list of people who also recommend it and so on. It’s like the doubling penny. If you double a penny every day for a year you end up with about 789 billion dollars [...]

If you’re charging by the hour to consult with clients you may not want to be all that accessible to people who haven’t paid to speak with you. But if you’ve decided it’s vital to answer your phone then set a 1-2 hour call in time every day. Tell your prospects and clients that you [...]

Have you ever played phone tag with someone? You leave a message on their machine, they leave a message on your machine and you just never seem to catch up with one another. With some businessmen this problem can become many times worse. If you’ve ever done any kind of sales you know how it [...]

I want to make one other vital point. Don’t start getting analytical about this. If you’re thinking of doing this go out NOW and talk to some business people. You already know more than enough to get the job done. The strength of the one-on-one approach is: You design a custom website solution for the [...]

Again it’s inappropriate for me to give you merchant banking advice in a blog like this but let me give you an idea of what to expect. Most businesses will pay you by check, credit card, and direct bank transfer or in rare cases cashier’s check. The most likely choices these days are check, credit [...]

Once you have a price you need to put in writing exactly what is expected of you and what you expect of the business owner you’re doing the deal with and how you will be paid. It’s inappropriate for me to give you advice on business agreements or business contracts in a blog like this. [...]

Also even though the focus of this blog is on getting a modest fee like $1,500 and $100 a month for creating a simple website this is a beginner’s suggestion. If you have real skill you’ll want to be charging much more. If your market doesn’t want to pay upfront fees of more than $1,500 [...]

Start by making a list of your family and friends. The business owners on that list may be great prospects for your service. But also keep in mind the “six degrees of separation”. Someone you know will know someone who will know someone who will know someone will know someone who can connect you to [...]

Or you can make a concession in another way: “I tell you what I’ll do. I’m betting that you know a few business owners who could also benefit from a direct response website design of their own. After I’ve done your website and you’re happy if you’d be kind enough to call your business friends [...]