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Selling Professional Services and the Web: Establishing Stability and Dependability

Your client-prospect wants to know if you firm can and will deliver on their requirements, and that includes whether you are going to be in business long enough to complete the work. How does a Web site demonstrate stability and dependability?

• Regular, dated updates. If you look, you will find that there are a great number of Web sites still “live” which belong to companies long defunct or at least dormant. The fastest way to spot them is to look at the date of their last announcement. And remember, leaving your announcements undated, or hiding them away in a discreet “news” section will only make it more difficult to tell that your firm is not one of those now defunct.
  
  The first, common barrier to regular updates is the technical difficulty or inconvenience of posting the update or announcement. For this reason, I strongly recommend a modest monthly support and maintenance contract.
  
  Of course, the most common barrier to frequent announcements is actually writing them. If we are not busy with client work, we are busy writing proposals. If you do not have the resources internally – outsource!
  
  I recommend a posted announcement once a month. If you are having trouble coming up with news – talk to a public relations expert.
  
  Your updates schedule should also be co-ordinated with a permission-based email list telling your clients, prospective clients and prespective champions about the updates when they occur.
  
  (I will talk in more detail about the content of these updates and email announcements in a subsequent article.)
  
  
• Reasonably bug-free (and quickly fixed). This can be a problem, depending on your relationship with your Web designer and developer. The fact is that even if you get a call from a client about a bug or typographical error on your Web site, you can't just drop everything to fix it - you have a business to run!
  
  Again, establishing a support contract with a reliable firm will address this problem and free your internal resources for billable work.
  
  
• Testimonials. I have already mentioned that testimonials attest to dependability and client focus!

Each of these tactics involved discipline, a skill in which many professional services firms are weak when it comes to their own marketing. Develop the necessary discipline internally - and if that isn't working. Outsource!

Find out how to establish an impression of empathy online
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