Frequently Asked Questions About Working with Ed Consultant Marketing
OK, you’ve landed on our Frequently Asked Questions page, so we’ll assume you’re interested in possibly hiring us to help you grow your educational consulting business, but you have a few lingering questions. That’s great, because that’s what a FAQ page is for! : )
Let’s pretend we’re sitting down face to face to clear up any doubts you have about us being the right people for you to work with. The following questions are some of the ones we imagine you might ask:
What can I expect from working with you?
First, you can expect someone who both understands your challenges and knows what to do about them—because we’ve been where you are now. That should give you some peace of mind.
Second, you can expect someone who wants you to succeed and will stay with you until you’ve achieved your goals.
Finally, you can expect someone who’s easy to work with, who will stay in communication with you throughout your project, and who will do what they say they’ll do—in the timeframe and within the budget agreed upon.
What kind of services do you offer?
We provide a wide range of services that help you get found by your ideal clients, make an impression on them when they find you, and then expand upon that first impression by building relationships with these clients, creating a powerful network that you can tap into time and again for steady consulting work.
If you somehow missed our Custom Content Solutions page, you can go back and check that out for a big picture overview.
But here’s just a quick list of some of the kinds of work we can do for you:
- Website audits
- Website writing (complete, from scratch, including SEO optimization)
- Lead magnets (email courses, PDFs, ebooks, etc.)
- Website revisions (individual pages or the entire site)
- Email welcome sequences for new opt-ins
- Email sales sequences to sell opt-ins on your products or services
- Newsletters
- Case studies
- Social media marketing
- Ghostwriting of blog posts
- Ghostwriting of ebooks
- Ghostwriting of full-length books
This is just a partial list. If you have some content you need created, but don’t want to do it yourself, reach out to us through the form on the Contact page and tell us what you need. There’s a good chance we can do it for you.
Why don’t you post prices on your website?
We do have a standard list of rates for different jobs, but it’s kind of like the “secret menu” at Starbucks. It exists, but we don’t publicize it.
And when it comes to our Custom Content Solutions, there’s a good reason we don’t publicize that standard list—because they really are just a starting point and will vary based on your needs.
You see, we work with consultants who are just starting out—who need branding, need a complete website designed from scratch, need to learn how to start an e-mail list and what to do with it, etc. And we work with experienced consultants who are published authors and are already recognized “names” in their fields, who only need “tweaks” to their website copy or a one-off promotion for a new book, etc.—and everything in between. People’s needs differ, and therefore, so do our prices.
When we have our initial consultation (it’s free), we’ll talk through your needs, and once we’ve nailed down the scope of the project, we’ll have the necessary context within which to talk price. At that point, you may decide to hire us for the complete job, or, if your funds are limited, we could tackle one piece of the overall project at a time, starting with the piece that would make the biggest difference for you first.
As far as prices for our 1-to-1 Coaching services go, we don’t post them on the website because we don’t take on every person who’s looking for coaching. We prefer to talk with you first in order to determine if we’re a good fit for each other. If we decide you’re a good fit to be our client, we’ll quote our coaching rates on that call.
To learn more about our rates, just click the button and sign up for a time to chat.
Our fees include whatever we negotiate in advance to cover the scope of work. For all content writing and copywriting work, a set number of revisions within a certain time frame is also included. We want you to be 100% satisfied with the work we do for you.
If I have a tight deadline, can you start my project right away?
The short answer? It depends.
If your project comes at the right time when we’re not in the middle of another project, we would certainly start on yours right away. But to be honest, the chances aren’t great that that will happen. It’s more likely that we will have one or more projects going, and to honor the timelines we’ve established with those clients, we probably wouldn’t be able to jump your project ahead of theirs.
That said, we would certainly schedule you in to get started as quickly as possible without disrupting other projects, and hopefully we can work out a timeline that works for you.
How long will it take for you to complete my project?
Again, it depends (sensing a theme here?). The typical project will take 2-4 weeks, but some projects are bigger than others. We’ll certainly establish the right length of time for your project early on in our discussions.
We know you want your project done quickly (everyone does), but we need to balance your need for speed (spoiler alert: Top Gun reference!) with our desire to do quality work. We’ll work to find that balance together and then establish our deadlines.
What if I want you to revise the copy you write for me? Do you guarantee your work?
We absolutely guarantee our work. We want you to be ecstatic with the copy we produce for you. We can talk about the details (some of this depends on your particular project), but in general, we include two rounds of revisions, if necessary, within four weeks of our delivery of the first draft.
Do you do design, too?
Well, we do, and we don’t. That is, we know quite a bit about the elements of design necessary for a well-performing consulting website, in addition to what the copy needs to do to deliver results. We believe that we have a good eye for aesthetic design elements such as color, balance, etc. So, we definitely can give you good advice about designing your website, content, products, etc. But we do not do the actual design work. We leave that up to the professional graphic designers.
In our experience, the most effective way to go about things (from your perspective) is to hire a marketer/copywriter like us first to design the layout and content from a marketing perspective, then hire a website/graphic designer to make that vision a reality.
We’ve seen too many people have a graphic designer create something first, and it might be very pretty, but it doesn’t market your business effectively—and then you have to come in later and revamp everything to make it work. With that approach, you end up paying for graphic design work twice.
So please, take our advice and get the words right first, then hire a designer. You’ll save a lot of time, money, and hassle.
How do I go about hiring you? Do I have to sign a contract? Do I have to pay any money up front?
You can get in touch by e-mail (willy@edconsultantmarketing.com), phone (573-356-1572), or by using the form on the Contact page.
If you contact us through e-mail or the contact form, we’ll probably set up a Zoom call so we can talk through what you’re looking for (you can call us “old school” if you want, but we just prefer actually talking to people, at least for that initial consultation). Or you can go ahead and schedule a Zoom call and eliminate the extra step…
If we agree to take on your project and we agree on the scope, time frame, and cost, we can continue to communicate in whatever way works best for you.
Yes, we do generally write up a formal proposal/contract stating all the agreed-upon particulars and have both parties sign it. Once that’s in place, for most jobs we require a deposit of 50% in advance of starting the project, and then we invoice you for the remaining 50% once the project is completed to your satisfaction.
There are exceptions for on-going projects like ghostwriting a series of blog posts for you or writing your newsletters and for projects with extra-long timeframes (like a full-length book). For ongoing projects, we bill monthly. For one-off, but long-timeframe projects, we sometimes agree to break the payment up into three or four installments.
But really, we’re flexible on all of this and can almost always work out an agreement that satisfies both sides.
What if I have other questions?
We would be surprised if you didn’t. Just reach out. E-mail us, call us, use the contact form, or click to schedule a Zoom call.
We’d be happy to answer any questions you have, and you’re under no obligation to hire us. We promise to keep your contact information and anything you discuss with us confidential.
Thanks for stopping by!
