My current web design sales process isn't cost effective. Need help streamlining my service

Are you including the web content in the final price? If so, then charge more.

I think you should probably modularise the deal your customers receive so they can choose to add content to the site for an additional cost. Maybe charge $1000 as a base rate then an extra $500 for content. This way you make nearly double the profit you make when the content is ordered and are able to reduce the base price of the offer to the client.

Of course you would have to think of a good way to price it and advertise the various services you offer but it's something to think about.

Here's my advice...and I'm only giving it because you asked for it.

The idea behind web development is not to sell a website, because anyone can do that these days. Wordpress, Joomla...there are dozens of options for people will little skill to make a great looking website. And you know what? It doesn't matter...because the site's code doesn't earn that customer any money. If the site loads fast and performs well, a Wordpress site is just as good as a custom design.

What makes your customers money is understanding how the Internet works, knowing how to reach consumers and how to convert. That's the real value of building a website...yet you didn't say a single word about any of those things. So you're not doing these people any real favors since they are paying an average price for an average website that they don't know how to use.

So if you want to make more money, give your customers KNOWLEDGE. Teach them about SEO, email marketing, blogging, local optimization and dozens of other vital skills that they desperately need. Instead of looking at it as a one-shot deal where you collect and say goodbye until more programming is needed, make them monthly clients where you're optimizing their site and they're making more money for your efforts. Because at the end of the day, your customers have no idea why they need a website. They trust you to educate them enough to where it will produce results, and 99% of the design firms don't do this. So they do nothing and their website does nothing...and the money they spent with you was wasted.

So if you want to make more money, teach clients how to make money online. Show them how to drive consumers, get people in the door and how to connect via social channels. If you take these steps, then that $1500 website is easily worth five times more....and people will be happy to pay it when they see the return on investment.

I know that probably stings a little, but I wasn't trying to offend you. it's just a basic truth in the world of web design...either you're out to make a quick buck, or you're out to make lifelong clients that can't stop bragging about you.

You're probably charging too little. But ...

Wait you're outsourcing "copywriting" for a local business? What copy are you having produced? It's a local business. They need little things like hours of operation, directions to the store, menu/costs of products & services.

If you are producing blog content for them this is no joke like a $5,000/month service because you need to create it for them on an ongoing basis ... AND you should be getting most of that content from the business themselves. They should be giving you every single question every customer ever asks and giving you the answer to it. All you should be doing is adding some polish and graphics and posting it.

You can get a template that is HIGHLY customizeable so you only have to buy it once. Then you just pay someone on fiverr like $50 to create a few graphics that you need and use that businesses color scheme to give it a unique look. You shouldn't be spending anywhere NEAR $400 per site for this.

Get the right kind of customizeable business template and you can sit down with the client and do this with the client beside you in 30 minutes. No back and forth.


I'm going to say something a little harsh here ... but you're totally on crack with this. I come from a computer background. I've done network admin. I code personally in .net myself and I would never in a million years put a simple brick and mortar business on an asp.net platform.

For crying out loud, use an COTS CMS!!! There's a reason Wordpress powers something like 90% of all sites on the web. It's fast, more than secure enough for most sites, and it's so template driven that you can do virtually anything with it at the same time you make adding new content and doing updates a piece of cake.

You could very seriously charge twice what you're charging at the same time you put in 1/4th the work and 1/4th the cost to give the client virtually the same thing you are now.

You can produce more for the client in less time and make them happier. You work less and make more which makes you happier.

And you're hand coding sites in ASP.net?

Not a good idea at all.

Your entire process is way too dependent on you and your time and you're doing it in a way that's averaging you just $50 per hour. That seriously sucks.

Shift to using wordpress sites and get a commercial license for a highly customizeable commercial theme. It'll be way better for you, you'll make way more, and produce for your clients way faster.

Pretty good advice above mate!
Your website building should be just the first of many sales for each client.

Value add Hosting, SEO, More content etc etc and keep charging for every bit you add.

Remember the "Lifetime value of a client" Your only making $400 upfront but your leaving at least that PER MONTH on the table with every one of them. (probably a lot more!)

Treat your websites like a loss leader, get them into your system and then work them over with the extra's.

First Mission, contact all your previous clients and see what fruit is still on the tree there, that will be the easiest sales for your ongoing services.

Great work mate, now ramp it up!

ODA

In a nutshell. based on the above outline of your process, YOU have a systems issue above and beyond anything else. You are not working smarter.. you are working harder. With the back and forth and the creating and the just in case scenarios, you are working in circles, and what appears to be 3 steps back and one step forward. Simply put, you need to change YOUR process.

1) you sell the client.
2) You work with the client on the layout and design basically willfully forcing them into a pre built template that you already have.
3) you go over the layout and design elements with the client to remove the 12 or so back and forths on this later
4) you outsource content
5) you send SPECIFIC communication to your programmer of what is expected based apon step 3
6) Changes at this point should be nil, if you have implemented a system of checks and balance to ensure the production is meeting the needs and wants of the client.

I personally... get a signature, or a e-mail that states the client is happy with every step of the process. This is your logo ( sig ) this is your basic layout and structure ( sig ) this is the colors ( sig ) this is your content ( sig ) this is your sites layout with color and logo implementation ( sig ) this is your final product ( sig ) This process backs up the initial communications that lay all of this stuff out.

if you wait and get so far in the project and the client says.. oh I don't like the blue in the logo, and now you are changing text color and this and that and the other all because of that... Smarter not harder.

I personally don't think that because you are not using Wordpress has a damn thing to do with it. the truth is, you are working within a frame work you feel comfortable maintaining long after you work through your current programmer and move to the next and the next. THAT part of all this is SMART.

You simply need to implement a system and become a BETTER / SMARTER project manager. if you get right down to the core of your failure in this, it is on YOUR shoulders. everyone around you is doing what they are told. YOU simply are not getting the detail and information from the client to all of those involved in doing the work. - And I would more than bet, the truth is you are not getting those details from the client to start with.

I run my own web agency and i know what you're facing mate. The only difference is that i command a 5k per website project and every one of them are done by me(basically a Rambo) were wireframed in Photoshop before deploying them into my CMS.

Usually when client approves wireframe, it should be really really easy to take off them there as you can always "argue" that they have approved the proposed wireframe