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August 4, 2017 at 3:53 am #996979Up::0
Hi soloists,
As a web designer, I often come across people who aren’t sure what’s involved in getting a website. I also find that it’s a challenge for me to get my offer to resonate with people.
In order to fine-tune my offerings, I would like to ask you…
What benefit do you expect to see by having a website?
And…
What’s your worst fear about having someone else build it for you?
August 4, 2017 at 7:13 am #1209824Up::0heylouise, post: 250381, member: 79034 wrote:Hi soloists,As a web designer, I often come across people who aren’t sure what’s involved in getting a website. I also find that it’s a challenge for me to get my offer to resonate with people.
In order to fine-tune my offerings, I would like to ask you…
What benefit do you expect to see by having a website?
And…
What’s your worst fear about having someone else build it for you?
My experience has been that very small businesses often don’t see any benefit to having a website and you’re going to struggle to convince them otherwise (I’m not saying they’re correct).
Those that do see a benefit (again in my experience only) want to be found in the SE’s, namely Google and on page one…Ha ha.
Occasionally they’ve been interested in educating their “audience” about what they do and how.
I have had a couple of clients who I suspect saw their website as a status symbol or something you have to have in business like a slick business card.
Generally they only want business leads…all without any additional effort to promote or drive the site, it all has to happen by the magic you provide.
To answer the second part of your query I’d say that it usually comes down to $$…Can I control the cost if I get someone else to do it?
How long will it take to get an ROI, if you can’t answer that I believe it’s a case of “Wix here I come”, or allow for a budget not in excess of $500.
More sophisticated business people will see beyond that, but they’ll still want to see hard numbers imo.
A secondary condition to the above is…Is the developers “design style”in keeping with what I visualise for my business? Even if my personal choices are crap from a UX UI perspective e.g. I just love some font that’s illegible and I have to have a slider because someone I know has one.
I think the questions you ask are perennial for small web designers/developer studios…and why it’s a very tough business to be in.
Hopefully someone can offer you something more constructive.
Cheers
August 4, 2017 at 12:21 pm #1209825Up::0heylouise, post: 250381, member: 79034 wrote:Hi soloists,As a web designer, I often come across people who aren’t sure what’s involved in getting a website. I also find that it’s a challenge for me to get my offer to resonate with people.
In order to fine-tune my offerings, I would like to ask you…
What benefit do you expect to see by having a website?
And…
What’s your worst fear about having someone else build it for you?
The way I see it you have the questions and the questioner all wrong.
The true question is what benefit can you (web developer) give to me (business owner). You need to convince me that I need a website, and what benefits I will get out of it.
You are not approaching this from a customer focus.
My worst fear about having someone build a web site, is that they are only focused on getting the job, and not on making me money. It comes down to your focus again on f its about you or the customer
August 5, 2017 at 12:09 am #1209826Up::0What I consider benefits may be different to w
bb1, post: 250391, member: 53375 wrote:The way I see it you have the questions and the questioner all wrong.The true question is what benefit can you (web developer) give to me (business owner). You need to convince me that I need a website, and what benefits I will get out of it.
You are not approaching this from a customer focus.
My worst fear about having someone build a web site, is that they are only focused on getting the job, and not on making me money. It comes down to your focus again on f its about you or the customer
I asked this question because, what if there’s a difference between what I think is a benefit, and what my target market think is a benefit? How will I find that out?
August 5, 2017 at 1:36 am #1209827Up::0Hey Heyloiuse,
Taking a very broad view (largely in line with the comments above) I think the two dream outcomes/benefits small business owners want from their website are:
1. Attract lost of good quality leads (or sales/enquiries if selling products)
2. Appear on page one of Google for their target keywordsBoth these are extremely hard (we can dream though!) and require so much beyond a website to make happen. For example – is the product/service in demand? Is the offer right? Is the business strategy right? How much competition? etc etc..
That’s where I think the web developers job for small business can be so hard, where they are sometimes expected to carry a whole business on the back of a website!
Given that most people will have some sort of website already, perhaps the more realistic benefit is that you can help take the current metrics (sales/leads/traffic/engagement) and improve them with a new site.
In terms of biggest fear, I also think that it’s the cost – mainly that it will blow out and/or not get properly finished (sort of like a renovation!).
Not sure that helps all that much, it’s quite a tricky market to cut through. Your current pitch looks pretty good at first glance!
Good topic of discussion
Cheers, Peter
August 5, 2017 at 8:44 am #1209828Up::0Peter – FS Administrator, post: 250401, member: 1 wrote:Hey Heyloiuse,Taking a very broad view (largely in line with the comments above) I think the two dream outcomes/benefits small business owners want from their website are:
1. Attract lost of good quality leads (or sales/enquiries if selling products)
2. Appear on page one of Google for their target keywordsBoth these are extremely hard (we can dream though!) and require so much beyond a website to make happen. For example – is the product/service in demand? Is the offer right? Is the business strategy right? How much competition? etc etc..
That’s where I think the web developers job for small business can be so hard, where they are sometimes expected to carry a whole business on the back of a website!
Given that most people will have some sort of website already, perhaps the more realistic benefit is that you can help take the current metrics (sales/leads/traffic/engagement) and improve them with a new site.
In terms of biggest fear, I also think that it’s the cost – mainly that it will blow out and/or not get properly finished (sort of like a renovation!).
Not sure that helps all that much, it’s quite a tricky market to cut through. Your current pitch looks pretty good at first glance!
Good topic of discussion
Cheers, Peter
That does help a lot! Thanks Peter.
August 6, 2017 at 5:24 pm #1209829Up::0heylouise, post: 250381, member: 79034 wrote:Hi soloists,As a web designer, I often come across people who aren’t sure what’s involved in getting a website. I also find that it’s a challenge for me to get my offer to resonate with people.
In order to fine-tune my offerings, I would like to ask you…
What benefit do you expect to see by having a website?
And…
What’s your worst fear about having someone else build it for you?
Are you building all types of websites for every type of business owner?I find it is much easier to offer niche targeted website and get to know your market then compete with 100s of other designers/developers all offering 5 page WordPress sites. I used to sell all types of site like every other developer/designer now I target 2 industries its much easier then selling to everybody.
August 7, 2017 at 4:50 am #1209830Up::0herveybaywebdesign, post: 250423, member: 79416 wrote:Are you building all types of websites for every type of business owner?I find it is much easier to offer niche targeted website and get to know your market then compete with 100s of other designers/developers all offering 5 page WordPress sites. I used to sell all types of site like every other developer/designer now I target 2 industries its much easier then selling to everybody.
That’s a very good point. Becoming a specialist in an industry or specific type of website is a great way to stand out as a business owners and attract ideal clients… and not just in web design
September 18, 2017 at 9:03 pm #1209831Up::0herveybaywebdesign, post: 250423, member: 79416 wrote:I find it is much easier to offer niche targeted website and get to know your market then compete with 100s of other designers/developers all offering 5 page WordPress sites. I used to sell all types of site like every other developer/designer now I target 2 industries its much easier then selling to everybody.
This x 1000.I get the majority of my work via referrals and/or repeat business nowadays, but when I do need to go out and look for a little work, I always take a look at the recent clients I have worked with, and their industry, and focus on reaching out to clients within the same/similar industry segment with some specifics on what I can do for them. Works FAR more effectively than trying to attract someone on a far more “generic” basis.
September 19, 2017 at 12:57 am #1209832Up::0heylouise, post: 250381, member: 79034 wrote:As a web designer, I often come across people who aren’t sure what’s involved in getting a website. I also find that it’s a challenge for me to get my offer to resonate with peopleI’m going to take a guess and say that you’re onboarding process is either broken or you don’t have one at all.
Your sales/pitch process should be educating the prospect, not just selling them.
Get that sorted and all your problems go away.
September 19, 2017 at 3:40 am #1209833Up::0John Romaine, post: 251479, member: 39536 wrote:Your sales/pitch process should be educating the prospect, not just selling them.
This.To lesser or worse we all have difficulties getting that initial face-to-face (or at least a response ; ) from new client contacts. But if you’re speaking with them and still finding you’re not landing many projects, then as John alludesto, you’re probably doing too much speaking “at” the client,rather than trying to help them understand what they need (sometimes different than what they initially thought) and what you can do to help them achieve that.
Work this out and you’ll see significant improvements in client conversion.
September 19, 2017 at 7:08 am #1209834Up::0It all comes down to selling, most web designers sell design and making things look pretty but what business owners typically want is more leads and sales.
So first you need to inform your leads that your purpose is to get them more leads / sales.
Then you inform them …..You will get the more leads because you design conversion focused websites with integrated search optimisation (if that’s what you do)….
You then explain your process on how you do it and why it’s different to others in your industry. It costs this much because of x, y and z.
You can follow up by showing them case studies of your results / designs so they know what they’ll receive and they level of quality you provide versus someone at say $500 dollar price point.
You should have a minimum entry point for the quality you want to provide and if leads fall below that then you simply say that it won’t be a good fit and you move on. You can’t convert the nonconvertible and if you take on low end leads it will not work out well for you in the long run.
September 19, 2017 at 7:19 am #1209835Up::0Byron Trzeciak, post: 251505, member: 56118 wrote:It all comes down to selling, most web designers sell design and making things look pretty but what business owners typically want is more leads and sales.So first you need to inform your leads that your purpose is to get them more leads.
Then you inform them …..You will get the more leads because you design conversion focused websites with integrated search optimisation (if that’s what you do)….
You then explain your process on how you do it and why it’s different to others in your industry. It costs this much because of x, y and z.
You can follow up by showing them case studies of your results / designs so they know what they’ll receive and they level of quality you provide versus someone at say $500 dollar price point.
You should have a minimum entry point for the quality you want to provide and if leads fall below that then you simply say that it won’t be a good fit and you move on. You can’t convert the nonconvertible and if you take on low end leads it will not work out well for you in the long run.
Sounds familiar
September 19, 2017 at 7:20 am #1209836 -
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