SupportSpace – Work full time or part time and maximize your potential

h mBy Don Brown, SupportSpace expert.

First, welcome and congrats on getting started! Be sure to ask for help if needed as this is great community and everyone is helpful.

To give a general answer about income potential, I'll repeat some of what has been mentioned before: A lot really depends on how dedicated and creative you are in terms of marketing yourself and the SupportSpace concept.

Looking at other expert case numbers you can see that some experts get terrific traffic and probably many repeat customers. I guarantee that they are not just "passively" waiting for customers to connect. They are proactively seeking new business. It’s hard to know if anyone is doing this as true FULL TIME or not. I suspect most do it on the side for the experience and / or for supplemental income.

Marketing yourself takes all shapes and forms and getting started can be quite easy.... You might be very surprised how well social networking can work for you. Be sure to tell ALL of your family and ALL of your friends about SupportSpace. Repeat the SupportSpace brand name to them. Make sure they get the concept and show your enthusiasm. Go to your local print shop and have some business cards created with YOUR SupportSpace URL.

So when you are at your next dinner party, etc. - now you've got something cool to talk about. Be sure to reinforce the "brand" of SupportSpace. Don't just say that you've got this "online support thing" going on... talk specifically about SupportSpace and how it works. In my experience, there is almost always immediate interest. Some will be interested enough to ask for more information (hand out those cards!) and SOME of those will become your first "direct marketing" customers! Ask about specific issues they may have had recently. How did it affect them? Was it resolved? What did they do to resolve it? How long did it take? What did it cost? Now let them know how SupportSpace can work for them. Tell them how you could have solved it online for them. Discuss your service guarantee, and your ability to consult with other experts. Make sure you discuss the widget features available to experts and how they can help you resolve issues. Discuss the overall VALUE of what that SupportSpace service would be for them. Let them know what your current rate is. I think this does a couple things:

1) It lets people know that you are part of something new, part of something potentially very big. It also helps people better understand how SupportSpace works.

2) The majority of your potential customers will also feel some excitement at being part of something new and interesting. They WANT better support and they truly need people like you to better solve problems and they will want to be a part of this.

Important: Welcome every customer to the SupportSpace experience and thank EVERY customer as you finish up your sessions. Thank them for choosing SupportSpace and remind them to tell everyone that THEY know about SupportSpace. Have them bookmark your page. Your 1st level "direct marketing" customers will soon expand into an "indirect" 2nd level and so on. Now you have some real momentum going and your customer list will build. Best part? Your "cost" was some biz cards and some interesting conversation you probably wanted to have any way! Of course, you can then expand your marketing with free and paid ads, a web site, promotions at school or work, flyers at local business parks (with permission of course), join (and speak or present at) local small business events and chamber of commerce, and so on.

Back to your initial question: I think that if you are effective with your social marketing campaign(s), you will be pretty pleased at the income you can generate. Personally, I still own and operate a conventional consulting company but have the occasional slow day or a string of slow days... These are the times I like to put in as much SupportSpace time as possible. I also use this time to do general office work, marketing work, invoicing, emails, etc. in between support sessions.

Of course nothing comes free, and your real cost is your TIME. You will spend time at your desk waiting for, and helping customers. (You should only sign on when you truly can commit to taking customer calls of course) Be prepared to stay at or near your computer. Take breaks of course (important) but treat the time seriously.

Also realize that most customers come to you only if / when they have an issue. Be patient. If you have done your job letting them know what SupportSpace is about and that you will be there for them, they will contact you when you are most needed. You want your SupportSpace page to be the first thing they think of when they have a question. As an alternative, try promoting yourself as a distance instructor! You can give remote lessons on an application, file management, basic tutorials and the like. You might be able to win over some first time customers this way and they will return to you when they have a real problem.

By the way and in case you're wondering - I need to take my own advice as well! For many years if someone asked what I was up to, I would pretty much gloss over it - feeling I could not specifically relate what I do in my consulting to a non-technical group. This is different. I (we all) need to remember that the SupportSpace concept of support is something that just about everyone can relate to! So talk it up! Get people excited!

Best of luck!
Don

Comments

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