Why You Don’t Make Money Online — Part 3

Posted by RP

June 6, 2008

Connect with Prospects — Fast!

Google launched a new service called Google Merchant Search (a way to compare service and product providers). And I noticed this in the FAQs:

Q. I submitted my contact details to a provider. When will I receive more information?

A. Based on your requested contact time, most service providers respond within two business days.

That right there is the reason why so many web sites fail. A 2-day turnaround to connect with a prospect is simply not good enough. Two hours is about 1 hour and 59 minutes too long!

Regardless of what your business model is, the faster you respond personally to prospects, the more sales you’ll make. One of our clients makes 100% more sales from her site than a competitor because of her super-fast response time.

Just because everyone else takes 2 days doesn’t make it right! Remember: the vast majority of businesses fail. We all need every advantage we can get, and this is a simple but important one.

I’ve reprinted this item in full from my friend Brendon Sinclair’s excellent monthly Sitepoint Tribune column. If you’re not a subscriber, you should be one. Brendon has been making money on and off line for years with the Internet and is the author of the absolute best book, bar none, on how to get an Internet business up and running and succeeding.

The problem he has noted here, which no less than Google documents is one of the most pervasive … and one of the easiest ones to fix.

If you are trying to make money on line … or trying to build a base operation that will let you make money on line, then for goodness sake, build it. Contact from people, especially prospective customers, is your life blood. Make it easy for people to contact you: At a minimum:

a contact page on your site If you use WordPress I highly recommend this plug-in: Secure Form Mailer Plugin For Wordpress
A phone number they can call: learn about Internet phone providers here … some are even completely free.
An email address that you check and answer daily if not hourly: i highly recommend www.gmail.com
And yes, even in 2008, a snail mail address. Some people won’t deal with businesses that don’t have one.

Too much trouble, you say? Well, you had best decide what you want to do with your business then. Business is not some lifeless entity selling itself automatically to some other lifeless entity, like a science fiction movie. Business is people (people who feel good about the people at the other end of the transaction) getting to know the person they are doing business with and coming to a "meeting of the minds" over what is best for both sides.

If you don’t make yourself available … and you don’t keep up with the media you have made available, don’t bother.

I’ll second Brendon’s comment, with bells on, two days is way, way too long. Contact from other people is your lifeblood … don’t let it drip away!

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