You're in business for yourself. Now what?

Submitted by Dave Harkins on Sun, 02/16/2003 - 7:01pm.

The other day someone asked me how to build a website that will encourage visitors to call. Since this seems to be a common question, I thought others of you might be interested in the answer:

Let me be perfectly straight with you on this: You can't.

People won't go to your website and call you. You can't just sit around and wait for the phone to ring. In this economy, especially, there are thousands of people out of work, all of whom are trying to make a living consulting or contracting. Like it or not the competition for services that you and I provide is unbelievable.

Now, if I haven't burst your bubble I'll give you some things to think about:

Use your website as a place to build credibility for yourself and what you offer: I think you know that a website the first place people go when they want information about an company or product/service. However, for those of us in the services business, particularly in a niche service like you or I offer, it's very rare that someone will go to the website, pick up the phone and call. The reality is, there's just to much clutter out there and it's hard for businesses to distinguish between who's a "real, valuable business" and who's a hack. For folks like us, a website is an inexpensive way to build credibility for our capabilities.

Provide information about what you do, sure, but also play up your experience and successes.

Identify your target audience:You said your target was technology firms, but what size? What sector? Who would best benefit and why? There's a lot of competition to get into the big firms, but smaller firms (say, $10mm - $50mm in revenue--and yes, I those are big numbers to folks like us), may be a better opportunity for you.

Ok, now you have a target company. Who within the company will be most interested AND have the decision-making capability? This is your target buyer.

Develop your value proposition and 3-minute elevator speech: What do you have to offer that's going to rock your prospect's world? Why are you different? Why should they buy? Why should anyone buy? Now, write this down and rework it until you use the fewest possible words that concretely explain what you do and the benefit (not features) it provides. Practice, until you can recite it without it sounding memorized.

Find prospects:Once you've identified the type of business that's a good fit for you, find them. On the internet, your local area, internet newsletters (try justsell.com, too. They provide 50 leads a week for free and many are tech firms).

Pick up the phone and call your target buyer:You probably won't get him/her, but deliver that elevator speech with passion to the voice mail. Add something to it that will entice them to call you back--"I can help you get your product to market faster, and with less headaches. Let me show you how." You can also refer them to you website.

Then keep calling and till you get someone on the phone live.

You probably know this, but businesses are built based on the ability of the entrepreneur to sell his or her services/products with conviction. A website just doesn't do it as well as you can in person.

There are thousands of websites out there built by people with good ideas, and no interest or passion in "selling" what they do. My advice: Sell, Sell, Sell. You really don't even need a website for that.