Second Opinion

At times, building a small business and making critical management decisions on your own can be stressful, especially when you know that making the wrong decision could be damaging to your business. When you are about to spend limited financial resources, you need a result, which is why it helps to be able to bounce an idea off someone who has a different perspective, and has the business experience to offer a second opinion.

These informal conversations can help germinate the seed of an idea for great advertising copy through to an entire successful growth strategy. It is also an effective way to stop a bad idea in its tracks before it starts costing you money.

My Second Opinion service is something that clients find valuable. In fact you don’t even need to be a regular client to take advantage of this service. All it takes is a phone call or an email to put your mind at ease about an idea you’ve had, or maybe even come up with that next big idea! Clients call or email me about marketing ideas, operational issues, management challenges, or even just to talk about how they are feeling.

You can talk for just a few minutes, or as long as you need. You are under no obligation to purchase any of our products or services. If all you make is one 10-minute phone call, that’s fine. I’ll be pleased to hear from you.

How clients use ‘Second Opinion’

Review sales copy and design such as a sales letter, email, newsletter, brochure, web copy, speech or video script. Some clients are very small businesses that can’t afford professional fees for copywriting and design, but are looking for guidance and want to know if they are on the right track with what they have created.

Review a Marketing Plan and submit comments and ideas that could help improve the results of the strategy.
For a small business, this can mean a plan for an individual marketing project, or a comprehensive Marketing Strategy, or even a Business Plan for the business.

Provide an opinion about a specific marketing tactic. For example, a client may want to know whether their planned implementation of the tactic will work, or even if it is relevant for the product they are selling in the market they are targeting.

They may already know that your marketing idea isn’t likely to work and want my opinion on what you should do to make it a success. Many business owners have the seed of an idea in mind, which is often fundamentally good, but is unlikely to work without developing the idea further. My experience and objectivity is often all that is needed to provide the catlyst that turns an idea from good to great.

Have a persistent problem to resolve. For example, you may be continually losing quotes, are struggling to keep customers, the sales team is not producing enough new business, marketing activities barely generate an enquiry, or there are a large number of customer complaints. This is just some of the many issues that I can work through with you.

How it works?

In most cases, I can work through a ‘Second Opinion’ over the phone and by email. This helps to keep your costs to a minimum. Generally, clients ask my opinion on very specific issues, which make them relatively quick and easy to respond to. The more I know about your business in terms of background information or even a brief, the more succinctly I can help you.

What does it cost?

This service is designed to be affordable for even the smallest business. My philosophy is that if I can help you grow successfully from a small enterprise, then you will hopefully continue to use my services as you grow, which increases my fee income - a win, win for both of us.

I charge per minute based on an hourly rate of $ 75.00 p/h (including 10% GST).
This includes time to analyse and respond to emails, or the time of a telephone conversation.
Depending on the location of your business, a call charge may also be incurred.

On average, a simple review can take as little as 15 minutes to half an hour.

How do I pay?

Regular clients will be sent an invoice under our normal trading terms.
If you are not an exisiting client, you will be sent a PayPal invoice which requires settlement within 7 days.
Larger reviews will be quoted and will require prepayment using the secure services of PayPal.

To find out more, or to start using the ‘Second Opinion’ service, please give me (Peter Downs) a call on 08 8332 4160, or email me at peter@infomarketing.com.au.

Second Opinion