Suggestion for guides looking for business

[Escher]

Trekkers come to this forum because the site is not taken over by guides. On sites where guides post adverts everywhere trekkers are put off and won't even read your adverts. You are more likely to pick up business if you follow the rules for posting as more people will use this site. The guides that have done well here are the ones that can post useful information, answer questions and provide useful insights into Nepal. This is what people want when they employ a guide.

People are put off by guides who post the same adverts over and over again. Trekkers wonder "what does this guide have to offer over and above repeating the same adverts over and over and over?" Trekkers can not tell whether you will be a good guide or not.

Change your approach to interacting with trekkers here and you never know you might pick up some business. I suspect that posting the same set of adverts every single day does not serve your business well and in fact makes agencies and guides that do this look like they have nothing to offer at all.

Just look at the posts in this forum. The same 5-10 guides post the same adverts over and over every single day.

If I want to employ a guide then I would not pick anyone that does this as they have not shown that they have anything more to offer than repeating the same adverts over and over.

I am reminded of the guides that hassle people in the street in Thamel. I wouldn't employ those guides either. In my opinion you will pick up a lot more business from this site if you make a positive contribution, join in in the way that trekkers do, answer questions, educate us about Nepal but do this without advertising or repeating the same things over and over. Then trekkers will naturally want to employ you as they will view you as a person who is knowledgeable and helpful and not someone who can do nothing but repeatedly spam this bulletin board with the same boring adverts day after day.

[kiwigirl]

I agree with you totally Escher.

I get so annoyed with all the advertising that I dont read them anymore:mad:



Trekkers come to this forum because the site is not taken over by guides. On sites where guides post adverts everywhere trekkers are put off and won't even read your adverts. You are more likely to pick up business if you follow the rules for posting as more people will use this site. The guides that have done well here are the ones that can post useful information, answer questions and provide useful insights into Nepal. This is what people want when they employ a guide.

People are put off by guides who post the same adverts over and over again. Trekkers wonder "what does this guide have to offer over and above repeating the same adverts over and over and over?" Trekkers can not tell whether you will be a good guide or not.

Change your approach to interacting with trekkers here and you never know you might pick up some business. I suspect that posting the same set of adverts every single day does not serve your business well and in fact makes agencies and guides that do this look like they have nothing to offer at all.

Just look at the posts in this forum. The same 5-10 guides post the same adverts over and over every single day.

If I want to employ a guide then I would not pick anyone that does this as they have not shown that they have anything more to offer than repeating the same adverts over and over.

I am reminded of the guides that hassle people in the street in Thamel. I wouldn't employ those guides either. In my opinion you will pick up a lot more business from this site if you make a positive contribution, join in in the way that trekkers do, answer questions, educate us about Nepal but do this without advertising or repeating the same things over and over. Then trekkers will naturally want to employ you as they will view you as a person who is knowledgeable and helpful and not someone who can do nothing but repeatedly spam this bulletin board with the same boring adverts day after day.

[Escher]

I agree with you totally Escher.

I get so annoyed with all the advertising that I dont read them anymore:mad:

They don't do themselves any favours at all. In a typical week I move dozens of messages into the guides looking for clients forum, certain guides will spam every single thread if they were allowed too, and they never say anything useful. I have to email several of them every week as they just won't follow the rules, and many pretend to be trekkers when they are clearly guides being deceitful. They must think we are really dumb. Why would I want to employ a guide who is dishonest (and stupid enough to advertise the fact on a public forum), or at least rude enough to ignore the rules, despite being asked politely over and over to stop?

What good is a guide if they cannot add anything useful to forum about their home country and their profession when they must be experts? If they cannot demonstrate some knowledge beyond cutting and pasting itineraries from guide books then how good are they going to be on trek?

Unfortunately for them, it appears to me that the number of useless adverts they write is inversely proportional to how good a guide they will probably be and leads to a decrease in business not an increase. But they just can't see this fact and how they portray themselves to trekkers.

There are lots of questions asked here about out-of-the-way treks and people seeking up-to-date information on subjects like "are there tea houses in Mustang." Some of the threads are crying out for a knowledgable guide to fill us all in with first hand information, but this very rarely happens. Which just says to me that the guides that do know don't post here as they are too busy working. And the guides that do post here don't know the answers, have no clients to guide and fill their time posting adverts over and over.