Disconnect

I hung up the phone thinking that I’d just met an insightful, skillful consultant. He knew his area of expertise from every angle and had that rare ability to make the complex easy to understand. I was impressed.

Curious, I clicked over to that consultant’s web site. At first, I thought I’d gone to the wrong address. What I saw was an amateurish design, insipid writing, and an out-of-date description of the consultant’s services, track record, and client list. I checked the address twice, and I was at the right site. What a waste.

In the past, we did a survey to find out how satisfied consultants were with the marketing and sales effectiveness of their web sites. We found that most weren’t satisfied at all.

Part of the reason for that dissatisfaction is the yawning gap between what consultants know and can do and how they express those capabilities on a web site. Too often, consultants’ sites look like an afterthought instead of an important part of the business.

If you’ve got all the clients you can handle and they already know everything about you, maybe you can get away with a second-rate web presence. But most of us find that prospective clients go to our sites before we hear from them. So if what they find is not compelling, the chances are good they’ll never contact you.

When was the last time you took a good look at your web site? If you need a place to start, try these articles: Eleven Principles for Great Consulting Web Sites and Fire Up Your About Page.