Selling advice on CD ROM

[Wolf]

I'd appreciate some feedback please.

I've noticed that I am frequently asked for advice on how to do various surveys, risk assesments, H&S surveys etc but then never hear from these people again. No doubt even just my basic advice is enough for people to go and do their own thing. Unfortunately many companies seem to think as long as they have peices of paper to show any passing enforcement authority they have covered their responsibilities. Er, wrong!

A friend suggested I put down all my 'free advice', risk assessment templates, guidance notes etc onto a CD ROM and sell via my site, or some other site such as Ebay. Indeed I bought an 'Asbestos Awareness' CD from Ebay for £9.99 to get an idea of what was out there and it was not only amateur rubbish, but probably illegal if followed.

A long intro to ask - if I did this am I then devaluing my services as a consultant surveyor? Will people buy a CD ROM to do it themselves?

I'm certainly not increasing sales from surveying as I would have expected, and the only reason I believe is that firms are ignoring their legal responsibilities. If I promote the CD in the press etc, is that a way of putting my name forward for follow up work? Rapidly getting to the point of doing something else, so any comments much appreciated.

[inspireme]

people that would do the job properly will not buy the cd, they will employ you to do it for them. However, as you have seen many people want a cheap way of covering themselves, so maybe you can fill both needs.

Dont forget to try and sell the real service on the cd, and stress the importance of getting a professional, add your website and phone number to it so they know who to come to should they decide to get it done properly.

if you get a nice website, advertise on google and ebay then this could be a really good market to exploit. I see hundreds of those "automatic will maker" cds going around, its a similar idea.

£9.99 seems cheap to me, £50 for the cd would still seem to cheap to most companies.

matt