What Jenni should say is, "I would be thrilled to come out, but I'll have to keep consultation charge in place. What I can do is credit your consultation towards first room we makeover, each additional room would be at regular rate. I'm sure I'll have some great ideas that we can work on together"

Of course it takes confidence in yourself to come back with that kind of a reply. Jenni is only going to have that kind of confidence in herself by knowing her competition, what they charge, and that fact that she is as good, or better, than they are.

So here's key to not giving away farm:

Know your competition and commonly established rates for your service.

If you are competent, confident and know you have as much skill and talent as your competitors, there is no reason why you should be charging any less than they do. In fact, some people believe if you charge more it's a sign that you must really be good!

But let's not get carried away, point isn't to see how much you can charge before you run yourself out of business. The point is, "Don't sell yourself short"

One great way to measure your competition is to call and try them out. I personally did this not long ago when I was thinking about opening a software consultation / training business. I found a small business specializing in software training and had them send out an employee for two hours of Microsoft Access training. The friendly lady who arrived spent two hours reading 'help' screens (to herself) and flipping though paperback user's manual trying to figure out how to show me some rather simple tasks I had questioned her about. Hardly what I would call expert training. However, it served its purpose - I knew I could do a better job.

Do your research and provide an efficient, professional service. Show them that you're worth every penny. If you build that kind of reputation, price will not be much of an issue. Your customers will admire your confidence and work ethic and be happy they're doing business with you.

Oh, and keep deed to farm in your drawer where it belongs.

A visitor built website receives two types of traffic.

- People who submit content. - People who consume content.

The content producers must have an incentive to contribute. That incentive can be opportunity to promote themselves; for example, a "resource box" at bottom of each article that they submit, or an "about artist" page for each account. Some visitor built websites provide an incentive based upon a share of website's revenue.

In most cases, content itself will be incentive enough for content consumers. But in case of a "free classifieds" website, reality is that few people seek advertising. In this case, your website's audience will consist soley of producers. In order to get repeat visits, you'll have to cause their ads to expire after a certain interval.

The most important part of a visitor built website is content management. The content must be subdivided into sections or categories. Let your visitors choose category for their contribution. In direct posting, website visitors will abuse posting process by posting an item under several or all categories. You need to decide if posting an item under more than one category is to be allowed.

Examples: www.epinions.com members earn money by writing and submitting reviews of consumer products. www.site-reporter.com members earn money by reviewing websites and completing questionnaires.

A visitor built website lets you focus on tasks more directly related to generating revenue, like advertising and promotion, while relieving you of most of chores of content creation. Which type of visitor built website will you start?

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