Welcome to my Q&A Page. Here, you’ll find a list of the most frequently asked questions that I receive, immediately followed by the corresponding answers.
If you don’t find the particular answer to the specific question that you have, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and ask, and I’ll be sure to get right back to you with a reply!
*** Q: What is your “Mission Statement” or Company Motto?
A: My personal “Mission Statement” is as follows: Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, patience, honesty grace and dignity at all times. There’s no excuse to ever allow a bad day, a foul mood, a rude experience or lack of sleep to shirk one’s responsibility to treat everyone with the same professional kindness and care that I would want to be treated with. I believe they call this the “Golden Rule!
I make it a dedicated point to always do everything in my power to ensure that my clients are not only satisfied with my work and customer service, but well beyond that, I want them so literally thrilled with it that they will want to rush right out and tell all their friends, family and associates about the great work and treatment that they got here at Word and Web wiz!
This is how long-term, mutually satisfying, business relationships are developed and maintained.
*** Q: Should I wait until I already know pretty much exactly what it is that I want, before contacting you?
A: No, actually most of my clients prefer to put my nearly 3 decades of expertise to work for them as a springboard, as we bounce ideas around and discuss all the possible options available to them. Often what a client originally starts off assuming they need, might, after much in-depth discussion, prove to be a “dead-end” or perhaps choice number 4 out of 5 possible solutions to their particular individual problem.
*** Q: How much do your professional writing / editing / mentoring services cost?
A: Out of fairness to my clients, I choose to charge “by the project,” and never by the hour. My fees directly depend on the precise nature, intensity and depth of the work at hand, including all necessary research, strategizing, foundation building, etc.
My Clients are so much more comfortable and at ease with this arrangement, as it gives them a great sense of fairness and security, as putting a price on a finished project is so much more directly tangible in the mind of the client, compared to a mere dollar per hour estimate.
If someone says, "I charge $45 dollars an hour", what does that really mean to you? Does this person work quickly, or slowly, do they stay steadily on task, or might they tend to get easily distracted, or fool around a bit on your time? What if they get sick, or tired, or a friend suddenly "pops in” for an unexpected visit? Will you get stuck paying for their coffee, meal, and bathroom breaks?
When I tell a client, "O.K., based on what we've discussed; if this is really exactly what you've just described to me, I can perform this service for $120.00 and have it done by next Thursday evening."
Simply contact me with an brief explanation of what it is that you’re looking to accomplish, and I’ll reply right back with some helpful suggestions, perhaps some further clarifying questions, and after we both feel that we have successfully discussed the project and have reached an agreement on the best possible plan, we can then go about moving forward on it.
WOW, isn’t that so much simpler, fairer and easier to get your mind comfortably around? There are never any “surprise charges.” It’s all just laid out in detail and then agreed upon in writing. It's perfectly tangible, practical and just plain, “Makes Sense!” My clients absolutely Love It!
*** Q: How do I pay you?
A: I believe that every single business transaction should be “mutually beneficial,” as well as, and equally important, “mutually comfortable and secure!”
Therefore, unlike most online businesses, I’m trusting enough and willing to simply ask for just the first 50% of the agreed upon fee, to be paid in advance, before I start my work, and then, the second half of the fee is payable immediately upon completion of the project. This “old school” philosophy has proven to be a “BIG” factor in helping me to quickly develop, trusted, long-term, comfortable and secure relationships with numerous happy clients all over the world.
For your ease and convenience, I accept all payments through www.PayPal.com. Over the long years, PayPal has proven consistently to be the most trusted, reliable and widely used “industry standard” payment processing system world wide. If you want thoroughly safe, secure and well documented online exchange of money, and who doesn’t, PayPal is clearly the answer. Not only are most people already quite comfortable and at ease using PayPal.
PayPal utilizes the world's most advanced, state of the art, proprietary fraud prevention systems to create a safe, global, real-time payment solution. That and awesome customer service has quickly positioned PayPal to become a global leader in online payment solutions with over 100 million account members worldwide.
Available in 103 countries and regions around the world, buyers and sellers on eBay, online retailers, online businesses, as well as traditional offline businesses are transacting with PayPal. They’ve already received numerous prestigious awards for technical excellence from the internet industry and the business community! I think they are thoroughly amazing and give them a massive “Thumbs up,” as do my client and associates.
For those of you who haven’t yet tried PayPal before, let me say this. It is absolutely awesome. It offers you options in how you choose to transfer your funds, either simply by way credit card, as you are most commonly used to doing, or for regular users, you can actually have an account created with PayPal that gives you a safe, secure, centralized, password protected, online place to receive and send funds to and fro. PayPal even automatically exchanges all currencies for you, so that you can easily do business with people all over the entire globe.
PayPal is clearly the safest, most secure, world-wide trusted payment system around. That’s why I choose to use it. Because they have always done right by me, my clients, my friends, family and associates and trust and reliability are very important to me, as are my valued clients. If you have any questions about them, please feel free to check them out. www.PayPal.com. It’s simple, sure, safe and secure.
*** Q: How come when getting a “website” built for me, I pay one half of my “Initial and Final” payment to 2 different companies?
A: Simple, we’ve done this to allow ourselves the ability to keep the price of the websites down to the barest, minimum price possible. The split payment situation “ONLY” occurs for clients having a website built for them. Allow me to share and explain the details behind the circumstances that have led to this decision.
You see, our commitment is to give you, our valued client, the very best, most effective, easy to use and manage, profitable website at the very lowest possible price, bottom line!
Since there are 2 separate and distinct entities working as a team to build your website, one of us, (Me) doing all of the content writing and marketing strategies, etc., while the other is the Web Designer / Techno-Guru, who’s expertise makes it all come to fruitful manifestation, we needed to figure out a way for us BOTH to get the funds necessary to put food on the table and pay our family’s bills as we work on your websites, while keeping the price down to the barest, possible minimum.
Since our clients pay their “Initial” and “Final” payments through Paypal, and Paypal charges us (The proprietor of the business, Never “YOU” the client) a percentage of our fee, for the administrative costs to them, transferring funds, and those costs occur each and every time we move funds (payment) back and forth to each other, we needed to make a decision.
Do we: (1) raise our prices on our clients to cover the administrative costs that PayPal charges us for accepting our payments and moving money to one another to do our work together? Or (2) keep the prices down by simply asking the client to put half of the agreed upon payment in my PayPal account, and the other half in the Web Designers account.
After asking a bunch of our regular clients for their opinions and preferences, it proved to be a clear victory for the idea of keeping the prices down to the lowest possible minimum and our client’s assured us that it really was no trouble at all to split their payment on websites into 2 separate Paypal accounts.
*** Q: Do you edit documents, as well?
A: Actually, editing is a large portion of my daily workload. Truth be told, every writer who takes their work seriously and wants to be taken seriously, needs an editor. Even the most skillful writers, when they have finished creating their masterpiece, need a good, strong, well versed “editor / proof reader” to check for consistency, redundancy, typos and any inexplicable changes in tense or voicing, etc.
Remember, a writer it often at a distinct disadvantage in editing their own words, because they already have so much of the material memorized, by heart, because these are their very own thoughts and words. Most writers, when editing their material, already know what’s supposed to be coming up next, so sometimes the eyes and the mind play tricks, and stuff that is actually now missing, seems to be there, and extra junk, that somehow has snuck into the work, isn’t any longer noticeable, after going over the same material 20 to 50 times.
That's where those, clear as day, obvious "Sore Thumb" typos come from. Mistakes that you naturally catch in an instant are practically invisible to the writer, but a well trained editor / proof reader will spot them and rectify the situation, helping the writer to look good, maintain his stellar reputation and avoid one of those terribly unfortunate and embarrassing moments that we all have experienced and would love to forget!
*** Q: Why does it often cost as much, and sometimes even more, to get a much shorter: Company Motto, Trade Magazine Ad, Mission Statement, Corporate Business Card, Billboard Ad, Company Letter-head, Organizational Slogan, Business Sign, or Catalog Introduction Page written for me, as it does to have you write an entire page of web, radio or television copy?
A: That’s a really great question! The truth of the matter is, there’s a very simple, logical explanation, when you stop to think about it. You see, when one is asked to make a “complete, clear and compelling” case for a product, service, organization or event, but is then given strict prerequisite rules, foundational guidelines and limited space, time or words to accomplish that task, the job becomes so much more complicated and tricky.
Obviously, we would all agree that it takes far more skill, effort, intensity of creative focus and driven determination, to get a message effectively across in a very tight, concisely constrained space of only 6 to 10 words, as compared to having a full 3 to 4 paragraphs to make one’s point, let alone, an entire page of copy, right?
For me to be able to efficaciously take the entire message that you want to get across to your niche targeted audience, and say it all in less than 12 words, is really quite a skillful feat and masterful accomplishment, one which takes literal hours of diligent preparation and experimentation.
Bottom line, doing a truly great job on those “really short,” limited space, pre-requisite, rule regulated projects simply takes a lot more energy, creativity, effort and time to do it right! Make sense?
**************************
If you have a question that wasn’t addressed here on this FAQ Page and you’d like a good, complete, well thought out answer, please don’t hesitate to contact me and ask away. I actually enjoy answering questions, as it helps me to (A) get to know what’s on the minds of my visitors and (B) Forces me to think through and lay out in simple words, thoughts that I sometimes just take for granted, floating around in my head until someone asks!
Please, feel free to ask me anything and I’ll be sure to get right back to you with an answer just as soon as humanly possible.
"Up-Words & On-Words!"
Larry L. Nichols
WordandWebWiz.com
"Words are my paints &
Minds are my canvases!"
If you don’t find the particular answer to the specific question that you have, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line and ask, and I’ll be sure to get right back to you with a reply!
*** Q: What is your “Mission Statement” or Company Motto?
A: My personal “Mission Statement” is as follows: Everyone deserves to be treated with respect, patience, honesty grace and dignity at all times. There’s no excuse to ever allow a bad day, a foul mood, a rude experience or lack of sleep to shirk one’s responsibility to treat everyone with the same professional kindness and care that I would want to be treated with. I believe they call this the “Golden Rule!
I make it a dedicated point to always do everything in my power to ensure that my clients are not only satisfied with my work and customer service, but well beyond that, I want them so literally thrilled with it that they will want to rush right out and tell all their friends, family and associates about the great work and treatment that they got here at Word and Web wiz!
This is how long-term, mutually satisfying, business relationships are developed and maintained.
*** Q: Should I wait until I already know pretty much exactly what it is that I want, before contacting you?
A: No, actually most of my clients prefer to put my nearly 3 decades of expertise to work for them as a springboard, as we bounce ideas around and discuss all the possible options available to them. Often what a client originally starts off assuming they need, might, after much in-depth discussion, prove to be a “dead-end” or perhaps choice number 4 out of 5 possible solutions to their particular individual problem.
*** Q: How much do your professional writing / editing / mentoring services cost?
A: Out of fairness to my clients, I choose to charge “by the project,” and never by the hour. My fees directly depend on the precise nature, intensity and depth of the work at hand, including all necessary research, strategizing, foundation building, etc.
My Clients are so much more comfortable and at ease with this arrangement, as it gives them a great sense of fairness and security, as putting a price on a finished project is so much more directly tangible in the mind of the client, compared to a mere dollar per hour estimate.
If someone says, "I charge $45 dollars an hour", what does that really mean to you? Does this person work quickly, or slowly, do they stay steadily on task, or might they tend to get easily distracted, or fool around a bit on your time? What if they get sick, or tired, or a friend suddenly "pops in” for an unexpected visit? Will you get stuck paying for their coffee, meal, and bathroom breaks?
When I tell a client, "O.K., based on what we've discussed; if this is really exactly what you've just described to me, I can perform this service for $120.00 and have it done by next Thursday evening."
Simply contact me with an brief explanation of what it is that you’re looking to accomplish, and I’ll reply right back with some helpful suggestions, perhaps some further clarifying questions, and after we both feel that we have successfully discussed the project and have reached an agreement on the best possible plan, we can then go about moving forward on it.
WOW, isn’t that so much simpler, fairer and easier to get your mind comfortably around? There are never any “surprise charges.” It’s all just laid out in detail and then agreed upon in writing. It's perfectly tangible, practical and just plain, “Makes Sense!” My clients absolutely Love It!
*** Q: How do I pay you?
A: I believe that every single business transaction should be “mutually beneficial,” as well as, and equally important, “mutually comfortable and secure!”
Therefore, unlike most online businesses, I’m trusting enough and willing to simply ask for just the first 50% of the agreed upon fee, to be paid in advance, before I start my work, and then, the second half of the fee is payable immediately upon completion of the project. This “old school” philosophy has proven to be a “BIG” factor in helping me to quickly develop, trusted, long-term, comfortable and secure relationships with numerous happy clients all over the world.
For your ease and convenience, I accept all payments through www.PayPal.com. Over the long years, PayPal has proven consistently to be the most trusted, reliable and widely used “industry standard” payment processing system world wide. If you want thoroughly safe, secure and well documented online exchange of money, and who doesn’t, PayPal is clearly the answer. Not only are most people already quite comfortable and at ease using PayPal.
PayPal utilizes the world's most advanced, state of the art, proprietary fraud prevention systems to create a safe, global, real-time payment solution. That and awesome customer service has quickly positioned PayPal to become a global leader in online payment solutions with over 100 million account members worldwide.
Available in 103 countries and regions around the world, buyers and sellers on eBay, online retailers, online businesses, as well as traditional offline businesses are transacting with PayPal. They’ve already received numerous prestigious awards for technical excellence from the internet industry and the business community! I think they are thoroughly amazing and give them a massive “Thumbs up,” as do my client and associates.
For those of you who haven’t yet tried PayPal before, let me say this. It is absolutely awesome. It offers you options in how you choose to transfer your funds, either simply by way credit card, as you are most commonly used to doing, or for regular users, you can actually have an account created with PayPal that gives you a safe, secure, centralized, password protected, online place to receive and send funds to and fro. PayPal even automatically exchanges all currencies for you, so that you can easily do business with people all over the entire globe.
PayPal is clearly the safest, most secure, world-wide trusted payment system around. That’s why I choose to use it. Because they have always done right by me, my clients, my friends, family and associates and trust and reliability are very important to me, as are my valued clients. If you have any questions about them, please feel free to check them out. www.PayPal.com. It’s simple, sure, safe and secure.
*** Q: How come when getting a “website” built for me, I pay one half of my “Initial and Final” payment to 2 different companies?
A: Simple, we’ve done this to allow ourselves the ability to keep the price of the websites down to the barest, minimum price possible. The split payment situation “ONLY” occurs for clients having a website built for them. Allow me to share and explain the details behind the circumstances that have led to this decision.
You see, our commitment is to give you, our valued client, the very best, most effective, easy to use and manage, profitable website at the very lowest possible price, bottom line!
Since there are 2 separate and distinct entities working as a team to build your website, one of us, (Me) doing all of the content writing and marketing strategies, etc., while the other is the Web Designer / Techno-Guru, who’s expertise makes it all come to fruitful manifestation, we needed to figure out a way for us BOTH to get the funds necessary to put food on the table and pay our family’s bills as we work on your websites, while keeping the price down to the barest, possible minimum.
Since our clients pay their “Initial” and “Final” payments through Paypal, and Paypal charges us (The proprietor of the business, Never “YOU” the client) a percentage of our fee, for the administrative costs to them, transferring funds, and those costs occur each and every time we move funds (payment) back and forth to each other, we needed to make a decision.
Do we: (1) raise our prices on our clients to cover the administrative costs that PayPal charges us for accepting our payments and moving money to one another to do our work together? Or (2) keep the prices down by simply asking the client to put half of the agreed upon payment in my PayPal account, and the other half in the Web Designers account.
After asking a bunch of our regular clients for their opinions and preferences, it proved to be a clear victory for the idea of keeping the prices down to the lowest possible minimum and our client’s assured us that it really was no trouble at all to split their payment on websites into 2 separate Paypal accounts.
*** Q: Do you edit documents, as well?
A: Actually, editing is a large portion of my daily workload. Truth be told, every writer who takes their work seriously and wants to be taken seriously, needs an editor. Even the most skillful writers, when they have finished creating their masterpiece, need a good, strong, well versed “editor / proof reader” to check for consistency, redundancy, typos and any inexplicable changes in tense or voicing, etc.
Remember, a writer it often at a distinct disadvantage in editing their own words, because they already have so much of the material memorized, by heart, because these are their very own thoughts and words. Most writers, when editing their material, already know what’s supposed to be coming up next, so sometimes the eyes and the mind play tricks, and stuff that is actually now missing, seems to be there, and extra junk, that somehow has snuck into the work, isn’t any longer noticeable, after going over the same material 20 to 50 times.
That's where those, clear as day, obvious "Sore Thumb" typos come from. Mistakes that you naturally catch in an instant are practically invisible to the writer, but a well trained editor / proof reader will spot them and rectify the situation, helping the writer to look good, maintain his stellar reputation and avoid one of those terribly unfortunate and embarrassing moments that we all have experienced and would love to forget!
*** Q: Why does it often cost as much, and sometimes even more, to get a much shorter: Company Motto, Trade Magazine Ad, Mission Statement, Corporate Business Card, Billboard Ad, Company Letter-head, Organizational Slogan, Business Sign, or Catalog Introduction Page written for me, as it does to have you write an entire page of web, radio or television copy?
A: That’s a really great question! The truth of the matter is, there’s a very simple, logical explanation, when you stop to think about it. You see, when one is asked to make a “complete, clear and compelling” case for a product, service, organization or event, but is then given strict prerequisite rules, foundational guidelines and limited space, time or words to accomplish that task, the job becomes so much more complicated and tricky.
Obviously, we would all agree that it takes far more skill, effort, intensity of creative focus and driven determination, to get a message effectively across in a very tight, concisely constrained space of only 6 to 10 words, as compared to having a full 3 to 4 paragraphs to make one’s point, let alone, an entire page of copy, right?
For me to be able to efficaciously take the entire message that you want to get across to your niche targeted audience, and say it all in less than 12 words, is really quite a skillful feat and masterful accomplishment, one which takes literal hours of diligent preparation and experimentation.
Bottom line, doing a truly great job on those “really short,” limited space, pre-requisite, rule regulated projects simply takes a lot more energy, creativity, effort and time to do it right! Make sense?
**************************
If you have a question that wasn’t addressed here on this FAQ Page and you’d like a good, complete, well thought out answer, please don’t hesitate to contact me and ask away. I actually enjoy answering questions, as it helps me to (A) get to know what’s on the minds of my visitors and (B) Forces me to think through and lay out in simple words, thoughts that I sometimes just take for granted, floating around in my head until someone asks!
Please, feel free to ask me anything and I’ll be sure to get right back to you with an answer just as soon as humanly possible.
"Up-Words & On-Words!"
Larry L. Nichols
WordandWebWiz.com
"Words are my paints &
Minds are my canvases!"