Well, I took your advice, copied your page title, (thank you for that), took a whole bunch of new photos (the weather is gorgeous right now), dug up a couple of snow pics from last year, wrote masses of new copy, and have expanded my website by almost double or more. It now includes several new sections, mostly to encourage off-season and winter bookings - there's new sections on "Specials", "Fall & Winter", rough sketches of "Floor Plans" (to be improved when more time available), as well a "Help/ FAQ" section specifically aimed at helping the non-US/international folks work out how to actually get here. Phew!!!paolo wrote: I would recommend a winter wonderland page on your site.
Hopefully, no unresolving photos or broken links, or too many typos, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Be brutal! (And don't foget to refresh if you've been there before, as your cache will give you the old version.)
The motivation to get this into presentable form came from a failed showing of the house to an oil tycoon today. We thought we had a whole month over Christmas and New Year in the bag. He loved it, but when it came to price, he wanted to pay less than it would cost us to run, and this from a man who turned up in a cashmere sweater and brand new BMW, took a phone call mid-viewing from the "oil business in Texas", then took great pleasure, whilst walking our beach, in recounting the story of when he flew his wife's favorite musician in from Cayman Islands by private jet for her 50th birthday party.
Even so, I quoted him our normal, bottom line off-season weekly price and offered 4 weeks for the price of 3 as a sweetener, but it turned out he was expecting almost a " free trial" and if he liked it, he would keep it on indefinitely, of course implying he would pay the higher rates later. In other words, offering nothing but smooth talk, pennies on the dollar and carrots, and assuming we are DESPERATE to cover expenses, despite a relaxed and laid back attitude by us. He was actually quite shocked when I told him it would cost us $1,000 just to let him in the door for a month in heating, lighting, refuse disposal, linens and cleaning, on top of what it would cost us to leave it empty.
Now, when he calls back (probably to tell me he found some other poor sucker to fall for his game instead), I will take great pleasure in politely telling him that I'm so relieved he's fixed up elsewhere because our house is no longer available, this being the very positive result of our new marketing initiative! Well, in my dreams anyway......
All the best,
Joanna
www.propertyangels.com