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Did you know that the average American eats 23.2 quarts of ice cream each year? Hey, we love our ice cream and boy are there a lot of different flavors. Vanilla (by far the most popular), chocolate, nut flavors, fruit flavors, flavors with candies mixed in and the list goes on and on (statistics from MakeIceCream.com).
What does ice cream have to do with your web business? Well...in the last issue of EZ-NetAdvantage™ I explained that the Industry had shifted, and I encouraged each reseller to shift their business identity to that of an Internet Consultant.
As a consultant, it is important to understand that there is more than one kind of client, just as there is more than one flavor of ice cream. Although each client will have differing needs - even more than the list of ice cream flavors available - they will basically fall under one of three flavors or categories of customers.
Self Serve Customers
Our original "flavor" of EZ-NetTools™ customer was one who wanted to create their own web sites with a solution much more simple than coding it. About 2 1/2 years ago, there were only a handful of solutions that could enable the business to do this and most of them were template based.
We were very successful selling EZ-NetTools™ to the customers who just wanted the solution and with little help, they were on their way. Our FreeForm™ solution was much more flexible and powerful than the template based solutions on the market and since technical support was available to answer questions - they were happy and we were happy. The same is true today, but many more players have begun targeting this "Self Serve" flavor, including the giant Microsoft.
Self Serve Customers are customers who want to have access to EZ-NetTools and they will create their own web sites and do their own monthly maintenance.
Jump Start Customers
As time went on, we started to realize a shocking fact. We realized that not all business owners really wanted to create their own web sites! There are, in fact, more flavors than vanilla! At first this was hard to accept since we were closing sales beyond 80% of the people we were talking to and our business model was based on customers building their own web site. Being perceptive to the changes that were taking place, we took a step back and explored further. We found that some of our Self Serve customers were frustrated and needed more help getting started, and we even received a few cancellations.
As we digested all of the feedback we were getting and while keeping up with what was going on in our industry, we slightly adjusted our approach and uncovered a huge opportunity that still exists today! This opportunity lies within a new "flavor" of customer - the Jump Start Customer.
We found a few of our existing customers and the majority of our new prospects were interested in the Jump Start Program we had developed. They really wanted help getting the web site created and were ecstatic with the idea that they could take over the site with a bit of training and make unlimited changes themselves.
The Jump Start Customer wants the reseller to either build a portion or all of their web site with EZ-NetTools™ and then turn it over to them to do the maintenance and updates.
Full Service Customers
The Full Service customer is the "flavor" of customer who doesn't want anything to do with the Internet or computers but is willing to pay for someone else to do the work for them.
Prior to the development of EZ-NetTools™, our very first customers were customers that we built web sites for the hard way. We coded their sites with HTML and included an occasional CGI script for secure services.
This was a time consuming way to create a web site and is therefore very expensive for the customer. However, there will always be businesses who want web sites created for them with minimal involvement and they are willing to pay an honest fee for services rendered. By the nature of this customer, you can charge more on a monthly basis for your maintenance services and they will expect you to be available when they call. Fortunately, you can serve these kinds of customers much more efficiently with EZ-NetTools™.
Full Service Customers want a Webmaster who will do every part of the web site development for them with minimal involvement themselves.
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Summary
Even though there are many "flavors" of customers, we have identified three main ones. We estimate that about 80% of the businesses are of the Jump Start variety, 15% are Self Serve and 5% are Full Service customers.
Most businesses are simply looking for an affordable way to get their business online and one that will work for them. You can mix and match your services to find the perfect flavor formula for your clients.
It's time to get jazzed about selling EZ-NetTools™!
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