A simple system

I have a very simple system for you to access my expertise, by the hour, via live online meeting tools. It’s effective and inexpensive compared with the time you will save. When working together online you soon forget that we are miles apart.

What skills and expertise am I offering this way? Let’s focus on PowerPoint, website development and Word and Excel. (Note: I’m NOT doing telecare-or project management-related consultation this way! For that you are looking at a day-rate of £800. See below for online session costs.)

PowerPoint

Almost everyone with a presentation coming up could do with some outside expert guidance, whether it is at the planning, design or polishing stage. Let me look over your shoulder as early as possible and suggest improvements. If you are unsure how to do something, I can show you there and then. I can also undertake one-to-one PowerPoint training or design work on your behalf in this way.

Over years of marketing the Perspector add-in for PowerPoint I have acquired a deep knowledge of PowerPoint and learned much about what makes for effective visual communication with an audience. By riding on the back of my expertise you will:

• save time developing your presentation

• interest your audience more

• feel more confident and enhance your reputation

I worked online with Steve on a PowerPoint presentation to communicate the work of my team. As a result, I was able to develop some new ideas and techniques that I had not previously been familiar with and I was able to produce a very powerful presentation.

Although I have prepared similar presentations this experience was like having a ‘critical friend’ sat with me and I would certainly opt to use this service in the future.

~Ian Salt
Programme Manager, Physical Disability and Sensory Impairment, CSIP

Website development, language and Google advertising

I am designing more and more websites for people. (See Canary Wharf Dentists and Owene Energy for just two examples.) I have knowledge about what helps and does not help when it comes to users’ experience of sites and how search engines assess them for priority listing in their search results. There are many simple enhancements that contribute to good rankings that website owners often overlook. If you are not sure that you are doing all the right things with your website, let me look it over and tell you whether I can see things that will help.

If your first language is not English, but you have English pages on your site, let me assess them for mistakes and readability. Even if you have had them translated by a translation company the effect is often not quite right. I am also sensitive to the differences between British and American English if you prefer the latter.

Finally on this topic, I also have expertise with Google AdWords campaigns. If you are spending more than £100 (€145 or $200) per week on Google AdWords and do not have the time or interest to keep an eye on your campaign and keep tweaking it, you are almost certainly paying too much for your clicks. If I can get you the same number of clicks for less money we can divide the difference between us. It’s a no-risk arrangement for you.

Steve’s online collaboration in developing the Aspire Communications website has been invaluable. He focused the structure to help visitors understand quickly how networks of slides in a relational presentation enable them to be more effective and confident presenters and helped stop visitors becoming lost in the large amount of information on the site.

~Robert Lane
CEO Aspire Communications, Tucson, Arizona
www.aspirecommunications.com

Word and Excel

I have been using Microsoft Word since the early ’90s and in 1996 published a book (now in the Gower business books catalogue) called Create Impressive Documents. Even back then I had expertise in relating typographic skills to word processing. The point is that I know how to do many of the things that people find difficult in the earlier versions of Word (they have made it easier in Office 2007), such as how to have some pages that have portrait orientation, and some that have landscape orientation in the same document, or how to set up automatic tables of contents correctly. I also know many shortcuts and time saving strategies and have good proof reading skills. As with PowerPoint, we can discuss your document in an online meeting and I can show you how to do whatever you are struggling with. If you are going to publish a document in Word or a PDF file generated from it, you can send it to me for proof reading and to smarten up its presentation. All charged by the hour, at the rate below.

When it comes to Excel, my knowledge is not as deep as for Word or PowerPoint, but it is still much better than average. Let me show you, for example, how to set up a spreadsheet to contain data in a way that is easy to validate for consistency and to use to mail merge into letters or emails. Using Excel as a simple database in this way can be as effective and much quicker than struggling, as most people do, with a database program. Excel has even more shortcut ways of achieving things quickly than almost any other Office program and I know lots of them. Would you like to find duplicates in a list of thousands of items in seconds, for example? Hint: It’s not enough to just sort them alphabetically - you need to get Excel to show you where the duplicates are!

Three-step set up, cost, and guarantee

To set up a session:

1) Read the rest of this page, then get in touch by email or phone. Outline what you want to do and suggest a date and time for an online meeting that suits you.

2) Once we have agreed a) what we are going to aim to achieve, b) the time commitment and c) the date and time, I will send you an email with a link that will take you to a secure PayPal page. You pay for the first hour as a deposit by credit card or company purchasing card. You do not need a PayPal account to pay by card.

3) I then send you the instructions for joining our online meeting at the agreed time.

What you need for our online meeting

You need to be at your computer with an internet connection and either Skype (if you want to talk for free) or a phone from which you can dial to my London number: 020 8144 1643. This is a normal rate number. To connect with me by Skype, search for ‘PerspectorSteve’.

The ability for you to see my computer screen while we are talking and, if necessary, for me to see yours - with your permission, of course - is managed through a service called ‘GoToMeeting’. The arrangements are simple and I can tell you what to do at the time.

Cost

For these services I charge £36 per hour - that’s £18 (€27 or $36) per half-hour or part of it, plus VAT at the current rate for people in the UK or not VAT registered in the EU. (17.5% at the time of writing)

The first time we work together, the minimum session is an hour, after that we go by half hours.

Some people will be able to use their employer’s expenses claim process to reclaim the cost using the PayPal receipt.

Satisfaction Guarantee

If, after the first hour, you do not feel that we have achieved the agreed aim, or if the online technology is not working for you, or you don’t think we are going to make progress for any reason whatever, I will promptly refund your deposit and thank you for trying the service.

Nothing to lose except…

With the guarantee you have nothing to lose except the time you would otherwise take struggling with PowerPoint, Word or your website to get it right!