Browsing Posts in In the Biz
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Just because you can drive a car, doesn’t mean you should race at Talladega.
Just because you have a Waterpik®, doesn’t mean you can pull your own teeth.
Just because you can use a sewing machine, doesn’t mean you should make every item in your wardrobe.
Just because you have a computer and a free website design program doesn’t mean you should create your own website.
Unless you actually create websites for a living, you should leave web design to the professionals. Web design isn’t one of those things that you can teach yourself to save some money. If you’re not a professional designer, your self-designed site looks exactly like what it is – unprofessional and homemade. If you think your potential clients won’t know the difference, you’re dead wrong. Potential clients do notice the quality of your website; if your looks unprofessional, they’ll think your services are unprofessional too.
A website has to be more than pretty pictures and a bunch of links and text. When designing a site, especially one that is supposed to make you money, keep in mind that the site should use properly sized fonts and optimized images; it should be easy to read and fast to load. A well-designed website is viewable in all current major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome).
Like your photographs and your wardrobe, your website distinguishes you from your competition. If your site is a clone of thousands of others or if it looks self-done, don’t fool yourself, you are likely out of the running. The providers who spend hundreds of dollars on luxurious lingerie and professional photography do so because they can’t make LaPerla® panties and no matter how nice their camera is, they will never be Santillo.
Photography, lingerie design and web design are things best left to the professionals; they have the skills and the experience to represent you in your best light and make you look your best.
Ladies, if/when you register a domain name through r-e please keep in mind that you DO NOT own that domain name!
r-e owns it
If you ever decide to upgrade to a professional site, it will be like pulling chicken’s teeth trying to get control of what you THOUGHT was yours.
This has been a public service announcement from HHD/YourGFE.
Carry on …
It’s no secret that I hate rare-escort sites with a white hot burning passion I usually reserved for flies, ex-husbands and idiot drivers. I’ve spent a lot of time giving my opinion as to why they are inferior.
At some time you’ve lost a potential client because of R-E. Somebody, somewhere has found you interesting, clicked your website link, got an eye-full of “F*CK A LOCAL GIRL” and promptly clicked the little “x” in the corner because those banners don’t fit with the description “classy and sophisticated“. If you spent a nice little chunk of ching on your photos, your photographer is wondering why his work of art has been reduced to those little tiny, grainy thumbnails and is plastered over with that god-awful, tacky “watermark.”
Additionally, r-e doesn’t (and CAN’T) offer the peace of mind working with a real, caring individual does. I’ve been in the web-design business for nearly ten years and I intend to be doing this long after some design “companies” have moved on to their next big money making venture. Designing for SPs isn’t just a “quick” job, for me. I make a point of learning something new in regard to my business every day, and I’ve make an extra effort to learn and educate myself on ways that I can help my SP clients do their job in the safest way possible. It is my goal to present the women who choose this line of work in the most-flattering, least dangerous light possible.
It’s never been my aim to alienate or insult anyone who’s chosen to advertise with r-e, but I’m aware that I probably have done both and for that I apologize. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for free … I REALLY am. I HONESTLY don’t have a problem with free. But NOT if it a) doesn’t help and b) potentially HARMS someone. What is the POINT of having a free website if it alienates your potential clients and puts you and your business in a bad light?
You get what you pay for and “free” isn’t always “free”. In the (paraphrased) words of a hobbyist: “If an established SP who charges a substantial hourly amount is using a FREE website, it makes you wonder.”
I am running a two-tier special, SPs without a site and SPs with r-e sites.
BENEFITS FOR BOTH: One year FREE PRIVATE domain registration and hosting. (That means that you NEVER have to share your personal information with me. You get a beautiful site, I get paid and while I NEVER need to know your true name, you are always welcome to know mine.) Free basic text changes – forever. Your choice of whether or not you want to be found by the search engines. Free basic optimization and uploading of your photos, which are then uploaded in an attractive, very viewable manner. A professional website, done by an experienced professional designer with nearly a decade of experience, at a damn near FREE price.
1) NEW DESIGNS: Five pages (Home/Bio (with disclaimer), an up to 10-photo Image Gallery, Services/Rates Page, Links Page and Contact Page), your choice of colors, no Flash, one registration form, one animated banner, personalized email. No two sites alike. Once you’ve agreed to the design, layout, color scheme etc, the site is locked in for the VERY low price of $300. Additional pages, updates, services, etc. are always available at my standard prices.
2) R-E SITE OWNERS: As many pages as you currently have on r-e. Seriously. Whether you have five pages or ten pages … same low, rock-bottom price. All copy/text information taken directly from your current r-e site. You get a beautiful, viewable gallery (whether your photos are self taken w/a damn cell-phone or are expensive, professional shots, I can make ‘em look pretty without compromising reality). Your choice of colors. No Flash, one registration form, one animated banner, personalized email. No two sites alike. No tacky tasteless banners. Once you’ve agreed to the design, layout, color scheme etc, the site is locked in for the VERY low, rock-bottom, idiotic price of $250. Additional pages, updates, services, etc. are always available at my standard prices.
The special will run for twenty-four hours and I’m accepting only five new clients.
Ladies, you can’t lose with this. Quality, personal, professional work. A beautiful, tasteful website that’s ALL YOU. All for a ridiculously LOW price. Find out why some of your colleagues refer to me as “awesome”, “incredible” and “a mind reader.”
So that it’s YOURS – NOT someone else’s.
Here is an excerpt from escortsite.com:
As a Registered User, you agree that if you have other websites (not hosted by us) you will display a link to our Website in the form described on the ‘Banners’ page of this website.
Then there’s this:
If you upload, post, e-mail, or otherwise transmit any content, including but not limited to information, messages, software, photos, video, text, graphics, music, sounds, or other material, to us or anyone else via the Website, or if you send us suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, or other information, all such content and information (the ‘Posted Content’) shall be deemed, and shall remain, our property.
This is old news, but its been bugging the hell out of me lately.
WTF.
“The economy is terrible – blah-blah-blah …”
Sure it is, but there are just some luxuries or extras that people will not give up. For me it’s a daily Cappucino and my tabloid mags – gotta have ‘em.
And here’s the thing – cappucino and tabloids haven’t gone down in price because the economy is “tanking”.
So … have your dropped your prices, even “temporarily”? How is that working for you? Are you aware that once you drop your prices, the odds of being successful at returning to your previous price are very low?
In a down economy it is necessary to increase the value of the service you offer without lowering your prices.
Lowering your prices, even for a short time, also means you may have to work harder (more clients) and it MAY mean having to deal with those potential clients that you don’t WANT (the “frugal” client who is always looking for a deal).
Keeping your prices the same (or even RAISING them) and offering added value for that price prevents the possibility of losing your current clients.
Look at your marketing efforts, look at what you’re offering for the value – has it helped or hurt you? Are you working harder and making decisions that you really don’t want to in order to keep your head above water?
Is that what you really want to do?
I’ve been in one area of the service industry or another for over thirty years. I am helpless in that I cast a critical eye on every service provider I come in contact with during my day to day dealings, whether it’s the counter person at the local deli, the young lady who performed my facial last week or the new bartender at my favorite watering hole. I can’t help it – my mother was a bartender and waitress for her entire life and I started waiting table when I was fourteen years old, learning at her knee that the core of customer service is your customer.
I’ve worked in hair salons, restaurants, as a housekeeper in a four-star hotel, nail salons, greenhouses, motorcycle body shops and now as a website designer and have honed my customer service to fine point.
It’s also made me highly critical of other businesses and how they treat their customers. I can’t walk into an establishment where I’m going to be “served” without checking out how they do business. And I learn something new every time, even though their business is DIFFERENT than mine.
One concept applies to every service based business – you MUST care about your customers and make them feel as though they are the ONLY customer you have. Oh, they know you have other customers and if you follow my mother’s rules of customer care, they’ll even send you MORE customers, but in the back of their mind they’ll be thinking “Mom always liked me best.”
Promise them the moon, and then deliver. If you follow that thought, you will never lack for customers (or an income) even in a bad economy.
Make a point to know your customers – their time with you whether, it’s ten minutes or an hour, is all about THEM. Make this effort even with the clients that you may never see again; you never know who THEY know and will sing your praises to.
Even if you deliver a spectacular service at an incredibly low price, if it’s done unemotionally – if your customer doesn’t FEEL it – they won’t be impressed.
And they WILL tell others, good or bad.
This is the age of Facebook, Twitter, blogging and online messaging … can you afford to possibly blemish your name by coming off as impersonal or worse, indifferent, to your clients, their friends and perhaps the entire world?
Choosing Your Client Base
In today’s economy we’re all trying to figure out how to attract more clients, persuade them to purchase our services or products and increase our income. Marketing is the same no matter what you’re trying to sell, whether it’s a personal service or a product.
In this article I’ll address how to know who your targeted client/customer is, know what they want and figure out the best way to catch their eye and convince them to purchase your product or service.
The best way to increase your income, obviously, is to get more customers, and once you’ve got them, to convince them to spend more money. But it’s not just a question of attracting more clients, it’s a question of attracting the right type of client. You wouldn’t advertise a bluegrass festival in the free ad paper of a college town in Seattle, Washington nor would you put up fliers for a free pedicure with the purchase of a manicure in a body shop.
You MUST reach out to and attract the attention of the people who are most interested in your services.
So exactly how does one go about doing that?
- Know the type of client you want to attract and what THEY want
- Make your product or service appealing to them; convince them that they not only WANT your product or service, but that they NEED it
- Price your products and services according to your targeted market
- Deliver above and beyond what the client expects
While the following tips and tricks can be applied to ANY product and service, I’ll be using the nail technician and the services she would offer as an example.
WHO DO YOU WANT TO SELL TO?
Let’s address the first point: What type of client do YOU want and how hard do you want to work?
The nail technician has many choices of targeted clients. The bride-to-be, the businesswoman, the high school girl, the society matron are just a few … the levels of targeted clients can be endless and each one would respond to a different type of marketing strategy and price level.
The bride is a one time client, but she is a big-money client. Every bride want her wedding day to be special and most are ready to spend whatever it takes to achieve that goal. The nail tech would do her research for this client by reading the wedding and engagement announcements of her local paper; she would then create an eye-catching advertisement and place it not ONLY in the service area of her local paper, but in local bridal salons, tanning salons – anywhere that a bride to be might see it. The ad would offer a special bridal package of all of the services the nail tech offers.
If the tech is affiliated with providers who offer similar services, so much the better. Join with those providers – hair salons that don‘t offer nail services, tanning salons, estheticians, etc – to offer a spectacular package deal. They might even be interested in sharing advertising costs for a bigger newspaper ad.
The business woman would respond to a completely different marketing strategy: she’s in a hurry, she has money but not time, she needs to look good, she may or may not have a tight budget depending on her profession. To attract her attention, you might place your appropriate advertisement at the dry cleaners, the gym, etc.
Offer the business woman a quick service that can be fit in on her lunch hour. She would also be a great candidate for a package deal of a different type – purchase nine manicures at a reduced price and receive the tenth one PLUS a paraffin dip for FREE.
Let’s look at the high school student – Prom, Homecoming, Spring break are all events where the student wants to look her best. Unfortunately, the student’s budget can be tight. You’ll have to alter your pricing accordingly and perhaps be willing to do her appointment at odd hours. Word of mouth, however, goes a long way in high school, so you may get a lot of referrals from the student.
Last, meet the society matron. What does she want, what does she expect? The VERY BEST. You will have to perform to her exacting standards and you may even have to kiss up a bit. However she is willing to pay for it and she WILL brag about you to her friends and acquaintances.
One appointment with the matron will likely bring you the same amount of income as five business women or even ten students – in the same amount of time. PLUS, if you go above and beyond what you advertise, she will be a return client.
Now compare the four customers above with the similar customers who you are trying to sell YOUR service/product to, decide how hard you want to work and market accordingly.
A Prostitution Revolution
Trent Lapinkski blogs about escorts and Twitter (and gets taken to task by more than a couple of ladies).
Go girls!!
I don’t tweet, but I am all for anything that gives the industry a positive slant.
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