Perhaps you’re already familiar with the newspaper terms “above the fold” and “below the fold.” If not:

“Above the fold” is a graphic design concept that refers to the location of an important news story or a visually appealing photograph on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper. Most papers are delivered and displayed to customers folded up, meaning that only the top half of the front page is visible. Thus, an item that is “above the fold” may be one that the editors feel will entice people to buy the paper. (Wikipedia)

“Below the fold” (as you may have guessed) refers to the bottom half of the  page.

These terms have carried over onto the web.

Online, “above the fold” refers to what the viewer can see without scrolling down. In order to entice visitors to stay on your website, it’s important to make sure you put your best content above the fold. Web designers must consider where the fold falls when creating their design and owners should plan their content accordingly.

Awareness of where the fold falls on your homepage is crucial, but since visitors can enter your website on any page, it’s an important consideration across your entire website.

But, since visitors use different size monitors and have them set to various screen resolutions…

How can you tell where the “fold” is on your website?

Well, the easy way is to view your website (or any website) on www.whereisthefold.com.

You’ll get a screenshot showing the page design with horizontal lines and shaded boxes super-imposed on top, showing where different browser sizes cut off. There are also numbers indicating the percentage of people who use that size browser.

Pretty nifty! (Click images to view larger website screenshots)

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Definition:

tittle : the dot over i or j

Example Sentence:

Make sure you tittle your i’s and cross your t’s.

Origin:

Tittle comes from the Latin titulus, which originally meant “title.” Titulus came to refer to marks such as the abbreviated form of n written over a vowel (like the Spanish tilde, which indirectly got its name from titulus), and then to any mark above a letter.

Source: merriam-webster.com

I have a confession: I am an entrepreneur and I don’t really know how to sell.

But, (obviously) my one-person service business relies on me selling my services.

I’m getting better at it, but most of the time, my sales cycle feels a little awkward.

Quite often, prospective clients want to cut right to the quote. Here’s a real email (made anonymous for these purposes) I got from a prospective client:

I am looking to have a logo created for my company. I am looking for a very simple logo.

I am also looking for a simple website for the company. Basically I will need a home page, about, services page, and resources page.

Also, I have the domain name for somedomain.com and I would like to get a blog started and eventually turn the blog into a website with more information on it to include blog posts, video blogs, advertise & sell products – books and ebooks, etc.

Could I get a quote for all of these different options? I am on a small budget.

After over a dozen emails back and forth (asking for clarification and details, etc.) over the course of a month, she decided to go with another company.

Honestly, it wasn’t a good fit, and I think I knew that pretty early on. But, I spent a lot of time and effort trying to cultivate a relationship that wasn’t going to work. These situations get really tiring and frustrating.

After watching this 16-minute video by Pam Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, I completely see where I went wrong.

There are three steps you should go through before you ever submit a proposal (initiate, educate, validate). I was trying to cram all of that into a proposal based on a few vague emails.

The first instance you see that the prospect isn’t a good fit, you should take them out of the sales funnel – not drag them kicking and screaming the rest of the way.

I highly, highly recommend watching this video (embedded below) if you’re even slightly confused about your sales process:

Get a handle on the sales process — and close more business from Pamela Slim on Vimeo.

Or watch it on Pam’s site here.

I’d love to hear what you think of the video (and the sales process) in the comments.

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