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XACconsultant
11-07-2008, 08:48 PM
I used to be a member of the .com version of this site last year and am making the switch to this one. I want to be as instrumental to the success and growth of this forum as I can be.

A little about me and what I do now... I am a business and marketing consultant from Kansas City, MO. We recently expanded our website to allow for article and event submission as-well-as any other informative resources others can learn from. The site is new, very new, so please feel free to contribute content to it and help the hundreds of new visitors we are attracting daily. We are tragetting business professionals and entrepreneurs who may be interested in starting a new business.

I know and respect many people on here, many who I would love to have offer opinions and information to those who are visiting the site. I look forward to meeting many new people and re-introducing myself to those who may have lost contact with me in the last year.

Thank you for creating this new forum. It looks great!

Michael Hillebrand
Business Analyst and Marketing Consultant
XAC Consultants
index (http://www.MyXAC.com)

vangogh
11-07-2008, 09:36 PM
Welcome to the forum Michael. Guess you know most of us were at the old forum too. The site looks good. Hopefully some of us here can help you with it.

Thanks for following us over here and joining the community. And thanks for wanting to help us build it.

Steve B
11-07-2008, 10:49 PM
Hi Michael,

Welcome to the site. What was your username on the .com version of the forum?

Paul Elliott
11-07-2008, 11:23 PM
Welcome, Michael. I don't guess I knew you from the old forum. That's probably because I was only active 3 months before the change.

Paul

cbscreative
11-08-2008, 05:13 PM
I'm glad you were able to find out where all the best members of the old site moved to, so welcome aboard, and I hope you enjoy our new hangout.

XACconsultant
11-10-2008, 11:09 AM
Thank you everyone. I tried to go back and remember what my old SN was but I can not remember for the life of me. I'm sure I will come to it before too long. But I remember most of the people I see on here though I may not have had an actual conversation with many of you, I came to respect the opinions you all have which is why I really wanted to visit this site and become active again. I received a lot of critical advice from many of you and value it to this day. ErinWrites was most particularly helpful. CBScreative also offered advice on a couple threads I had going. Thank you very much for that.

If there is anything more than commenting and offering my advice to the threads on here that I can offer, please just let me know. I run the show and I always look out for those who deserve the assistance.

Thank you all again for creating this new forum and welcoming me.

Paul Elliott
11-10-2008, 11:26 AM
Thanks, Michael. Tell us more about your Business Analysis business.

I'm sure we could all benefit from your perspectives on this subject.

Paul

vangogh
11-10-2008, 11:29 AM
Nice of you to say Michael and thanks for the offer to help. I think for the moment the best thing anyone could do is start new threads, replying to existing ones, and help spread the word.

I'm glad some of us were able to help you in the past and hopefully that will continue in the new location.

XACconsultant
11-10-2008, 11:41 AM
Vangogh, I have no doubt you all will. It's all about the people around ya, and with this forum, I can assuredly say that I am doing quite well.... lol

As far as business itself goes, we offer assistance to those business owners and entrepreneurs just starting out in helping with basic tasks like setup, marketing, accounting, and everything in between. So many people today are starting a business not knowing how to start, or they have an idea in mind and they simply lose focus after they dive in. It like knowing the basics of swimming so they dive into the deepend and once they realize they can't reach the bottom, they forget what to do... We simply help them from start to finish, or answer the call when they lose focus.

We were starting to see a decline in people coming to the site, and being the type of person I am in which I love helping people learn new things, I decided to start our new site. With our new site people can post articles, tips, suggestions, etc.. for visitors to read. It is really just us receiving information from people around the country and posting it for everyone to read. Our goal is that people will be able to learn a few things and reachout to those who have the experience they may not. We are not in this business to get all the clients we can. We really want to establish personal relationships with everyone we work with, and we want to convey that feeling into our free resources online.

Personally I would love to have many of your reach into the archives of your past and look to see if there is anything you could contribute to the site. I have come to really respect the opinions of everyone here and would be very proud to have you speak to the visitors we are bringing in daily. We realize the need consultants have to be more like a community of helpers. Our job as a community is to help people who need it, knowing we are the ones that are helping the economy by ensuring the small businesses and even larger ones are the ones who employee families and without our help and assistance many of them will fail which can and will have adverse effects on so many more than just them.

If there is an opportunity to help and guide, we want to encourage everyone in our industry to help out. That is why we actually use many of the people we work with to connect to other businesses and projects. So many times we are faced with clients or projects we can not work with, so we refer them to another agency or comapny that can. From website design, to advertising, to business printing, etc... We are all in this together and we love being able to help everyone, even if we ourselves can not do the work. I will be sure to keep in mind everyone here when it comes to refering visitors out to other businesses.

I think this is long enough.. but it is an arial overview of what we do and most importantly, why we do it...

Paul Elliott
11-10-2008, 12:13 PM
Personally I would love to have many of your reach into the archives of your past and look to see if there is anything you could contribute to the site. I have come to really respect the opinions of everyone here and would be very proud to have you speak to the visitors we are bringing in daily. We realize the need consultants have to be more like a community of helpers. Our job as a community is to help people who need it, knowing we are the ones that are helping the economy by ensuring the small businesses and even larger ones are the ones who employee families and without our help and assistance many of them will fail which can and will have adverse effects on so many more than just them.

If there is an opportunity to help and guide, we want to encourage everyone in our industry to help out. That is why we actually use many of the people we work with to connect to other businesses and projects. So many times we are faced with clients or projects we can not work with, so we refer them to another agency or comapny that can. From website design, to advertising, to business printing, etc... We are all in this together and we love being able to help everyone, even if we ourselves can not do the work. I will be sure to keep in mind everyone here when it comes to refering visitors out to other businesses.

Michael, you may have dangled too big a piece of bait in front of us! :D

Paul

KristineS
11-10-2008, 12:24 PM
Welcome to the forum Michael.

XACconsultant
11-11-2008, 09:57 AM
Thank you KristineS...

Paul Elliot: let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

Everyone: We just updated our site last night. Made it cleaner and easier to navigate. Please visit it and let me know what you think. While we are trying not to change the feel too much too often, we want to make sure we get the site looking it's best before we start promoting it to anyone and everyone. So critical advice is welcome. I do the site myself and don't know a whole lot so I am sure many of you will be able to find some good poitns to pick at...

Paul Elliott
11-11-2008, 11:41 AM
Paul Elliot: let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

Thank you. I deal with a number of small businesses and some of them need business organization, advice, and coaching.

I always want to keep in touch with the people who do things well that I do not. I often set up virtual teams of consultants. I'll get in touch as those situations arise.


Everyone: We just updated our site last night. Made it cleaner and easier to navigate. Please visit it and let me know what you think. While we are trying not to change the feel too much too often, we want to make sure we get the site looking it's best before we start promoting it to anyone and everyone. So critical advice is welcome. I do the site myself and don't know a whole lot so I am sure many of you will be able to find some good poitns to pick at...

1. It seems you are missing TITLE, KEYWORDS, and DESCRIPTION tags.

2. When you write your TITLE tag, use keywords and selling--not simply your company name. BTW, it simply says "homepage" right now.

3. There is a section below your </html> tag (at the bottom) that asks you to remove it.

4. Perhaps you want to consider adding a Google Analytics script for more tracking and testing.

5. I would suggest you remove the ABC news feed. This will "fork" your visitors' attention. From the psychological point of view, anytime you fork your target's attention, you markedly diminish the likelihood that he or she will behave as you desire. You want to remain in control of their eye tracking and thought processes. If you give them the opportunity to go elsewhere, you have likely lost them.

Stay after it! ;)

Paul

vangogh
11-11-2008, 01:13 PM
Michael you may want to start a thread in the website review section. I think more people will look there to review a site since this is the intro forum.