The Silent Avatar Speaks

Many times I have read that in order to progress in business (no matter what the business) you need to outsource work which someone else can do better and quicker.

I’ve been reluctant to do this being time rich and money poor (just like most who are just starting out), but I bit the bullet recently and decided I needed to outsource a job to do a background pic for Rocket Themes Replicant for one of my clients.

Replicant theme is unique in that the site takes on the look of the background pic. Sounds great, but lots of considerations come into play when you stick a pic in the background and you find the picture can obscure important information making it difficult to read.

So after playing around for way too long I decided to outsource to Joomlancers to get an expert to come to my rescue.

I’ve looked at a number of sites previously like eLance and Guru.com, so I knew how the process worked:

Register - Post your Project and wait for bids to come in.

But is it as simple as that?

Well.. yes and no. If you want to get the best mileage out of using a freelancer to assist with building a website you need to be very clear on what you are asking them to do (and that takes time)

This means sitting down and nutting out all of what you require in your project brief.

By doing this the freelancer has all of the necessary information they require to accurately bid and successfully complete the project.

It doesn’t take long before bids come in and prices vary widely. It pays to check out who is bidding and see what their feedback score is and take this into consideration with what they are charging.

There are fees from Joomlancers on top of the bid, so factor this in also.

Joomlancers uses an escrow service to hold your funds until the project is completed so you know it’s safe.

Using freelancers from another country can pose language problems in describing what you want through text. I ended up having to do an “almost what I wanted” mock up PSD to get him on track with what I did want him to do. (He still did a way better job than I could have)

From the feedback I have read from others the freelancer I used only confirmed what most had said. He was professional, patient, and very accommodating with the goal of giving a good result.

Despite some of the difficulties with language I would still say this is an excellent resource to assist those who are starting a business to get the kind of expertise they need at a very reasonable cost.

Two thumbs up.

Tags: Web Design by the silent avatar
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Let’s face it… Time sensitive offers suck.

Lets take it even further.. they are immoral.

Now don’t get me wrong… I’m not here to bash Internet marketers. I just feel there are some practices which need the light shone on them to show them for what they really are.

Is it really appropriate to slam down a time sensitive offer on something that is hundreds, and maybe even thousands of dollars?

To a lot of people this would be considered a major purchase, and maybe even required a bit of a round table discussion with the family to purchase it. Finances might be tight, the wife’s birthday could be coming up (or maybe even the anniversary), so this offer might require some further consideration.

Whether you agree or disagree here’s the facts:

The time sensitive offer relies on impulse buying
The time sensitive offer doesn’t give the consumer time to investigate the offer further.
The time sensitive offers preys on consumers.
The time sensitive offer particularly for digital products is ridiculous.

There’s something called “buyer beware”, and given the prices these guru’s are asking for some of their products (to sustain their lifestyles no doubt), wouldn’t you feel it in your best interest to have the time to check out the person offering the product?

Wouldn’t you like to be able to investigate if someone else is offering a similar product at a lesser cost?

Wouldn’t you like to have the opportunity to check out forums and see if the seller’s credibility stacks up?

Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to talk to someone about what you are considering buying?

To me Time Sensitive Offers are akin to buying off the back of a truck. Roll up. Roll Up. Get your XYZ at an unbelievable saving without compromising on the value of what  you get, but only if you buy within the next 10 minutes. After 10 minutes even if they are not all gone you won’t be able to get your hands on our unbelieveble offer for love or money - ’cause this trucks outta here!

I’m convinced that creating Time Sensitive Offers is a marketers addiction. Why? Because of the ‘rush’ of sales coming into their account. No doubt about it. They feed off the adrenalin as the clock ticks down watching the sales come in.

I see the time sensitive offer being a marketers cocaine, it relies on consumers being impulsive, having been “hooked” by the evocative sales copy right down to the “you snooze, you loose” tag (and who wants to be a loser?)

For Pete’s sake. If you have a good product why the urgency? Why limit the people who can purchase? It’s absurd. Why put the stress on your server? Crazy.

The sooner marketers wake up and see a sale is a sale no matter when you get it the sooner these time sensitive offers can be dumped, and the sooner the consumers stay way clear of these time sensitive offers the quicker marketers will “get it”. That consumers aren’t stupid. Gullible maybe. But not stupid.

Now if I’ve missed something here that benefits the consumer let me know because I truly have missed it. The time sensitive offer is not there for the consumer. It’s for the marketer - and it needs to change.

Can I offer you advice? Don’t buy time sensitive offers. If the offers good it will still be there when you are ready to buy. Reckon they won’t sell you? Baloney. No one is going to knock back a sale no matter what time the day or night.

The only problem you might have is finding how to contact them to let them know you want to buy.  That’s when you find your grateful you didn’t purchase on a time sensitive offer because you can;’t even find a way to contact them.

Comments? Feel free to post.

Tags: Internet Marketing by the silent avatar
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If you’re just starting out in business and don’t have the cash to splash around on a copywriter and struggling to write your own, here’s the formula for creating great sales copy for your product. Whilst the steps are simple, refining the copy can take quite some time.

I good idea is to brainstorm all of the steps on paper first so you can build your sales copy from all of the ideas you have gathered.

Here are the steps:

1. State the problem
2. Agitate the problem
3. Propose the solution (sell the benefits)
   
4. Prevent and invalidate very solution but yours.

Remember: Sell the benefits not the features. That is sell what the product can do for them. (Remember ‘What’s in it for me?’)

For example:
A feature of of an e-book is it can be downloaded instantly.
A benefit is they can be reading it within minutes

A feature could be a 30 day money back guarantee.
A benefit is no financial risk to the purchaser.

It also pays to know what words “hook” your site visitors, and use those words through your sales copy. A resource I use constantly is one put out by by Strategic Profits called “Phrases that Keep Attention”. You can download the PDF here

Another worthwhile resource to help with copywriting is “Copywriting For The Web” Download the PDF here

Oh yeah… one more thing. If you would like a critique of your sales copy just post a comment with a link to the URL.

Tags: Copywriting by the silent avatar
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