Sell what you say
Spotted a fascinating article detailing options for professional speakers to sell spoken advice and support via per-minute phone calls. Think of this as a legit spin on the psychic advice and phone sex biz model.
Four services are highlighted.
Ether
Enables you to sign up for a free Ether (1-888) number, which is forwarded to a phone number of your choice, be it cell, home or work. You then decide how much your time is worth, per hour per minute or per call. Customers will only be able to call you when they’ve prepaid the set rate. Ether bills their credit card and sends you this fee minus a 15% commission. There’s no monthly fees, no setup fees, and no connection fees. It would be your responsibility to advertise this service on your website or blog. Of course 888 numbers are only valid in the USA, so you’re limiting your potential market to 300 million Americans (bummer!).
BitWine
Is a Skype-based directory of service providers which offers “Trusted Advice from Real People”. Ideally for bloggers, there’s custom code to advertise the service on your blog. Rankings are posted so customers can see the reputation of the seller (as on eBay). Sellers charge from zero (free) to $3.00 a minute or more depending on category. Since it is Skype-based your services can be marketed globally.
Wengo
Is an on-line expert community, similar to BitWine except everything I accessed seemed to be in French. Maybe I’m missing something. Is there an English-language version out there somewhere?
Skype Prime
The 800-Pound Gorilla of the online telephony world with 171 million VoIP subscribers has launched their beta service which is similar to Ether. You can create a Skype Prime ‘snippet’ to advertise the service you provide on your blog. Billing and the back-end details are handled by Skype for a 30% commission. But you can market to anyone in the world with a Skype account. The calls start as free, then switch to the paid calling plan, with you charging either by the minute or a one-off fixed fee for the privilege.
These four plans indicate the beginnings of a new business model for professional speakers and information brokers. Right now they’re a nice-to-have experimental way of leveraging your time and expertise. But when Avian Flu hits and the conference halls empty, they might be indispensable.
I’d love to hear from anyone with experience of these services. Good or bad. Please leave your comments below.
1 Comment so far
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Hi, at http://www.wengo.com you’ll find the english version of the website, as we just launched, the services from around the world are currently mixed on the same directory, this will change in few weeks with specific directory to each country (France, US, England, Spain…)!
Aziz
Wengo Team
By Aziz on 04.12.07 11:30 pm
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