When customers are on ProjectStack they are in search for a skilled expert to complete their job. We show customers your business for free so you don’t want to miss an opportunity in getting your next booking and make sure your set up for success the right way.
Register & set up your profile
People are more likely to message & reach out to you with an enquiry if you have a friendly professional headshot rather than a picture of your business logo. The personal touch keeps it more approachable & friendly.
Polite Notice
To ensure a consistent and positive experience for both sellers and buyers we ask sellers not to include business logos or contact details on their profiles otherwise their profiles will be rejected. This measure is in place to maintain fairness across the platform and to contribute to the creation of a uniform and trustworthy space for all sellers. This, in turn, enhances the overall experience for our buyers, making ProjectStack a reliable hub for their service needs.
Add in all the services you provide
In order to get found more easily on the expert page you need to include all the services you do when setting up your profile. Even if you are not going to add it on your listings yet. For example, if someone was searching on the expert page for someone that does pebble dashing, Rob would come up because he included it as a service he does when setting up his profile.
Make a good first impression with your bio
You might find adding a bio a boring and unnecessary step but it’s essential for potential customers to get to know you, as well as an opportunity for you to highlight your experience and expertise in your industry. Think of it as a digital elevator pitch!
Things to consider when writing your bio (profile info):
- Your experience & accomplishments
- Add some personality – whether you want to add a little humour & flair or keep it as professional & straight to the point, your customers will get a little taste of what to expect when they reach out or work with you.
- If you include keywords you may attract more views.
- Highlight your specialities & skills
- Mention your hobbies & interests
Set up the backend of your calendar
Booking Offset – set how many days before the booking date user need to make a booking (e.g., the value is set to 5 days, then if today’s date is the 1st of the month, booking can only be made starting from the 6th day of the month); Leave blank if you wish not to use this feature.
Booking Days – Set the days of the week you work. Leave all blank if you work 7 days a week.
Booking Availability – Set your working hour time (GMT) starting from earliest till latest. In this example our calendar is set from 9am till 6.30pm in the evening.
Booking Slot Interval – This is the time slot you need free in between bookings. In the example we have 60 (1 hour) which means if someone has booked you from 9am till 12.30pm then another person can only book you from 1.30pm onwards. Please note this needs to be done in minutes.
Booking Import URL – You can sync your ProjectStack calendar with other external calendars that you use. For example if you use google calendar you can copy their ICS link and copy it in the booking import URL field. which will then block out dates not available in your google calendar.
Similarly, you also have a booking Export URL which you can use in your google calendar settings which will block out dates that are not available in ProjectStack calendar.
More control – regardless of whether you have set your availability or not you may still want more control in case you miss a booking. Tick this option to manually accept booking – meaning the booking will not automatically be confirmed with the customer untill you manually accept (or decline) their booking.
Now that you are set up as an Expert it’s time for the fun stuff and set up a listing for each one of your services.
Add a listing
Click the ‘List a Service‘ button on the top panel of the site, this will then take you to another page where you can fill in the details of your services.
Choose the appropriate category for your service
You can click on the drop down to choose from the list or type something in to find your category quicker
Showcase your work!
Don’t waste the opportunity to showcase the work you have done linked to that service. Potential customers are more likely to book Experts when they have a visual examples of work they have done. Great thing is you can add multiple images and even video’s however we only allow video’s under 60 seconds.
Tip: Make sure you upload good that are clear, good lighting and of a good quality.
Title your service
Make sure your title clearly indicates what the service is for. When potential customers are browsing through the services page the title is in bold & is one of the first thing that stands out, so then the customers can decide if they want to click on it for more details. Take a look at the example below of a service title:
Setting your Price
At ProjectStack, we’ve designed our payment system to benefit you, the seller. Unlike some platforms where sellers need to pay upfront for leads, we’ve flipped the script.
Instead, when a buyer books your service, they make a partial payment that covers our commission fee. This means you don’t have to invest your own money upfront just to secure potential leads.
Here how its works…
The buyer pays a portion of the service cost as a partial payment when booking your service. This fee will cover the commission fee you as a seller owe to us. For example if your seller commission fee is set to 15% then the buyer will pay 15% of the listing price upfront upon booking. The remaining balance is then paid directly to you by the customer once the job is completed. You can refer to our ‘Expert Fee Table’ for more details.
Location
Add the location by city or town where you are happy to carry out the service for this listing.
Don’t worry people in nearby towns & cities will still be able to find you. For example, if you live in Stevenage and a customer typed in Hemel Hempstead or Royston your listing will still appear as google maps know they are all based in Hertfordshire.
However if you wanted to give customers a more personal experience you can set up a identical listing and put another city in there as each listing can have its own location. This also may be useful if you wanted to increase the price to factor in travel costs
Approximate completion time
This doesn’t show up for all categories but if it does for you then just type a number. For example if you was going to plaster a room and it will take approximately 3 days then put a number 3 there (you don’t need to type days after). This is there to give potential customers a realistic timeframe of when the job will be completed.
Notice Period
This is optional as your calendar can manage this with the offset feature however some experts don’t set this because each service notice period may vary so this way you can give potential customers a realistic idea of when they can book you to carry out their work.
Tags..
Tags should be relevant but the more you include the more easily your service can be found. Tip: Think of tags as keywords that customers are typing to find the service you provide.
Some tags may already be there in the drop down but if you can’t see a relevant tag, if you keep typing and hit enter it will be included on your listing. You will know it’s worked if you see the keyword in the grey square.
Extras
Extras are add-on’s. They give experts the choice to give customers the option of adding on complimentary service. If the customer chooses to add-on a extra the price will increase by the extra amount. Be sure to change the the ‘per day’ to ‘per booking’ setting. You also have the option of adding multiple extras’ by clicking the add item button.
If you want an idea of what this looks like on the front end then look at the picture below.
Requirements
When the customer is about to book your services, they will be re-directed to the checkout page. On this page you will have the option to ask specific questions that you may need to know before hand. So for example I’m selling cupcakes and I want to ask the customer two questions.
First I will type the question in the first box where it says ‘title’. I keep the second box as text as I want the customer to type the answer. The third box I may type ‘please indicate here’. Take a look below.
I’m now going to click add item to type my second question. Again I type in the question in the first box. The second box I will choose ‘multiple choice’ as I want the customer to choose from a few options. In the third box I will type my options with a semicolon (;) after each option, please look at the picture below.
The picture below is a screenshot of what this will look like for the customer once they are directed to the checkout.
Add a description of your service
Write a helpful description about your service. When writing your description try to also answer common question that customers may have. Also remember to include a section on your ‘payment terms‘ so there is no misunderstandings on how you expect to get paid.
Booking note
This is optional. If you do, this will be revealed to the customers upon booking.
Booking Slot duration
Set the time in minutes the service will take per day. So for example if it takes 3 hours type in 180 (3 x 60mins). Even if you are working 3 hours over 5 days, there is no need to add the time for all the days – just 180.
Now save your changes. Try getting at least one review from a past customer once your listing is approved. Congratulations, you just set up your first listing.
Happy listing!