Consultant Website Concerns

Pull the trigger!

“ I can’t get clients to move as quickly as they should on my recommendations!”

These are the same folks that raise these concerns about their web sites:

• “I want to wait until I have several blogs to put on it.”

• “I’m not sure about the colors used. I want to run them by some colleagues.”

• “Shouldn’t we have more content in the resource center before we launch?”

• “I want to do more of what my designer friend suggested. This template is too restricting.”

• “These calls to action are too pushy for my kind of business.”

• “We need more testimonials, video testimonials, case histories…you name it.”

It pays to publish as quickly as you can.

The process prospects go through before becoming clients is:

1. Realize there is a problem

2. Talk to friends and colleagues about it.

3. Review the solutions proposed (including consultants)

4. Check the consultant out on Linked In, BeBee or other business sites.

5. Look at the consultant’s web site.

6. Talk to your clients.

7. Ask you to meet with them.

The higher they are in the hierarchy of any organization the less time they have. In simple terms the probability of their checking your web site to see if every t is crossed and every i is dotted is somewhere between slim and none. In other words if there are no glaring errors you are good to go.

They want to Trust you

Your reputation is what they are buying. They want you to bring the skills their trusted advisors said you have. They want your on line persona to match up with how you are perceived in the real world. Consistency in how you present yourself in all your appearances is what builds trust. Your profile on every social medium you are involved with needs to be essentially the same: the same resume, the same solutions, the same results, the same believability, the same way of using prospect terms to identify what you do.

Without consistency you will never get the invitation to sit down with them.

You have 3 seconds

When someone clicks the link or inputs the URL for your web site you have just 3 seconds to convince them to look a little deeper.

Worry about that instead of all the concerns you keep mouthing. Worry that the visual people see intimates the service you provide. Use the limited time you have to give them words that make you memorable. Personalize the message to the folks that are your ideal customers. Here are two examples out of my files:

The first incorporates a visual and words to let you know Jim is the Defogger and Accelerator. Without reading any more you have a “hook” to remember him by and you know, without being told he must be an expert because he has written a book. Do you want to know more about Jim?

What’s next?

After that first three seconds, where do they go? That depends on how your site is designed. In the current raft of templates, home pages usually have multiple panels. I recommend no more than 6. The primary suggestions for a consulting web site are:

1. Landing panel

2. Services panel—a succinct recap of the services you offer. Try to keep it to the three key ones you offer. If you don’t know the three primary reasons you get hired, you should!

3. Personalization panel---This is where you let potential clients know that you understand them and the problem they want you to help solve whether you provide advice only or roll your sleeves up and pitch in. Using their words, their objectives and acknowledging their frustrations builds their trust.

4. Testimonial panel—Short comments from happy clients. Pluck them from the longer testimonials deeper in your site. Transcribe video comments if necessary. Be sure to include a smiling photo of each one.

5. Experience panel—A place where you can quickly indicate that you have worked with numerous individuals, groups and organizations. Personally I like providing list of all those I have served (in alphabetic order). Based on tests I’ve done in the past such a listing is more believable and accepted than stacking up corporate logos.

6. Blog sign up—just that simple. However, I’ve used a newsletter sign up with good reaction and tested special publication offers to mixed reactions in the past. The key here is to build your list for later use. This can be particularly useful if you are moving your practice from one-to-one toward one-to-many offerings. Note that such sign-ups are often presented as pop- ups.

Does your consulting website work to build the trust to get you invited to pitch?

Find out how to be sure you get considered.

Call me.

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His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing and Brand development advice that builds businesses, careers and lives of joy.

Consulting: www.JerryFletcher.com
Speaking: www.NetworkingNinja.com
DIY Training: www.ingomu.com