Forum Moderators: phranque
At present, my opening times are 8am - 8pm 7 days a week - I do this as none of my competitors are available outside normal working hours.
However, I am wondering if this makes it obvious that I am a one-man-band? Would it be more beneficial to change the times so that it's, say 8am-8pm mon - friday with shorter hours at the weekend?
Would love to hear people's views on this!
I am wondering if this makes it obvious that I am a one-man-band?
Yes.
Depending upon the specifics of your situation, I might shorten the hours to more common business hours; 9:00am - 5pm, and identifying your time zone. For example, we are EST, so at 5:00pm here, it is only 2:00pm on the west coast. Therefore, you will need to encourage email inquiries, 'quick form inquiries', a professional answering machine message. (Poor answering machine messages are common and a definite giveaway.)
For most businesses, the offering of that number of business hours, seven days a week, is a flag that you are the entire business, and always available. (That's not necessarily bad, but you've also got to budget against burnout and be available to make other time commitments. If it is just you, that level of availability is quite possibly not sustainable, and a heart attack may be in your future, especially if you are good and gain a loyal clientèle.)
Multiple email options can influence perception. Offering only jack@example.com suggests that maybe it's just Jack. Multiple options creates the illusion that the email may go to different people or departments; sales@, suzy@, quotes@, bill@. Don't go crazy, but increase your contact options beyond one email and one phone number. Add a fax number, regardless of whether you need it right now. A lot of businesses can get by without, but many (most?) certainly cannot. For many businesses the lack of a dedicated fax number is a flag. Look into the cost effectiveness of a toll-free number. They are way less important than they used to be, but one-man-bands aren't associated with having toll-free numbers. (Many people don't pay long distance charges anymore - all calls are bundled into their plan, so the practical importance of having a toll-free number will continue to decline swiftly, but a shift in the perception of professionalism will decline much more slowly.)
The quality of the website will be the biggest issue. If it looks like a budget site, if it's just a few template pages - it's just one guy. Regardless of setting more realistic 'professional' hours of operation, manipulating contact methods - if the website says amateur, then it's probably obvious that you are just trying to look like something more. And that is a bad thing IMO. If you get caught out putting more effort into 'looking' professional than 'being' professional, that will be a problem.
Anyone that you have even semi-regular contact with will figure it out pretty quickly. Be prepared for that.
It's a lot of work to see a sham through. Kind of like telling one lie, and then having to tell 100 more to keep the first one intact. And then you have to keep the other 100 intact.
That said - given the nature of the business mentioned, you might be better off playing the one-man-band to your advantage. You're hungry, you're good, you're accessible, you're personally accountable (not dumping my questions or projects off to somebody that then dumps them off to somebody else). Personally, that would be a selling point to getting my business. For the most part it's the quality of the product that counts. Image is important, reflecting upon quality, but secondary. If you are good - then I want you, not your intern or your intern's assistant. Either way, cut back the hours unless you've got a way to support those guaranteed hours without going loopy.
That said - given the nature of the business mentioned, you might be better off playing the one-man-band to your advantage. You're hungry, you're good, you're accessible, you're personally accountable (not dumping my questions or projects off to somebody that then dumps them off to somebody else). Personally, that would be a selling point to getting my business. For the most part it's the quality of the product that counts. Image is important, reflecting upon quality, but secondary. If you are good - then I want you, not your intern or your intern's assistant.
I agree 110%.
My question is why advertise "open" times at all for providing web writing services online?
I've been self-employed providing a service for almost two decades and I've never advertised "open" hours.
FarmBoy
