Telephone Meets Web - A Cleverly Executed Idea

By: Gregg Terry
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:43:09
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I'm sure that there are other companies doing what Ether is doing - it's just that their name keeps popping up.

Their business in a nutshell is to make it as easy as possible for an individual or business to sell advice over the phone.

Here's how it works. You sign up with them (it's free) and give them your phone number. They give you a unique 8 digit extension for their main number. All paid calls to your extension are forwarded to your number.

You have control over everything that is important. You can set the pricing however you wish - per minute, per hour or per call. You can also specify the hours where you wish to take calls.

You market the Ether phone number and your extension however you wish.

When someone calls your extension, Ether does all the billing and forwards the call to you only AFTER someone has paid them.

The cost of this is 15% of whatever you charge.

Positives are the simplicity of the whole system, the fact that you only receive paying calls, and the fact that there are no up front or monthly costs.

Negatives are the relatively large 'bite' that they take - and the fact that you only receive paid calls. :-)

For many types of advice, there will be people perfectly willing to pay you who DO have legitimate pre-sales questions that could be quickly answered by you. "Do you have experience with" - that kind of question. Needless to say, the less sure they are that you have the specific experience and expertise to help them, the less likely it is that they will pay to find that out.

So, if you were going to use this service, it would make a lot of sense to at a minimum promote an email address where people can ask pre-sales questions.

If you are interested in selling personalized advice, this might be a good way of testing the waters.

Ether

http://ether.com

You will find this and other useful (without the hype) online business tips, strategies and resources in Gregg Terry's blog which can be found at: Super Cheap Domain Name Registration

Article source: Expert Articles

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