Demonstrating Quality

In this week's newsletter:

Showing your quality
Doing is better than telling
This week's projects
Last call for Fee Survey

Showing your quality

I've always been impressed by the depth and variety of experience that so many Skillfair members have, and that's been reflected in the testimonials, references and other information they've provided for quality checking purposes. We've now added a new feature to the system that allows members to display their key memberships and accreditations alongside the quality rating - so clients can see immediately who is 'Prince Qualified' or a 'Chartered Marketer' for example. We'll be contacting the various professional bodies over the next few weeks for permission to use their logos so members will only be able to display their credentials if they've provided evidence of these to us. Once you're a full member of Skillfair you'll be able to add further detail to your profile, as well as your professional credentials, all of which boosts your own website presence on search engines.

Doing is better than telling

Of course qualifications are only part of the story, they're a good way of demonstrating commitment to your profession and distinguishing yourself from other less well-qualified providers. But once you're in touch with a client the various bits of paper are much less important than what you actually do and unfortunately it is much easier to damage a good reputation than it is to build one in the first place. We've had feedback from a few project owners recently that messages they've received have included some fairly obvious spelling mistakes. In a competitive market it's easy to rush your response to any enquiry but it's more important than ever to check and double-check before sending any message - you may be the first to respond, but if you give the wrong impression you'll also be the first on the reject pile.

This week's projects

The upsurge in interesting projects has continued this week and we've been busy sending out alerts to people with specialist skills, such as data cleansing, facilitation & evaluation, as well as more general business advice, training & sales. There's bound to be a project with your name on it coming through soon, so why not join now and make sure you hear about it in time to respond?

Last call for Fee Survey

A couple of our partner organisations have had some problems getting emails out to their members with the Fee Survey link, so we've held it open for an extra week. We've had over 1500 responses already but if you haven't had time to take the survey yet we'd love to be able to include your response. You'll be entered in the free draw for a free Skillfair membership as well - so why wait?