I thought this website was Genius!

I'd have to agree. And while curse words don't offend me at all (not even close) it's really apparent this guy is cursing just to curse, which is annoying.

Well, maybe "annoying" isn't the right word to describe it.

Because it's annoying when it's a 13 year old kid that's just learning how to use curse words that does it; it's downright obnoxious when it's an adult on his "professional" website.

There really is an art to cursing well. This guy slept through that class.

I don't think this approach was ever a good idea, not 5 years ago and not today. I can't imagine ever wanting to employee someone who thinks this sort of attitude would entice me.

I don't like his copy much.

His work looks both good and interesting - the little bit of it that he's showing. But why just pictures of the home pages(?) of sites he's designed rather than links to them, so that people can judge better? Did I miss something here? I loaded the page and waited, and looked around for links but couldn't find anything ... is it just the pictures of pages, without links?

I agree 100%. While I didnt seo analyze any of his sites they LOOK great and are nicely done. I dug the copy too. I guess it's not for everybody but look, it got us talking about it. I wonder how many other forums are having this same discussion and how much business it's brought him. Viral marketing at it's best!!!

Really? I had the exact opposite reaction, I don't think he could win a single job on 99designs. I thought with that opening I was going to see amazing but it was all kind of standard and ordinary as far as what I saw of the website design.

I mean frankly if that is his best in his portfolio then he is average or below average. I can do web designs like that and I am not a good designer.

AndyHenry! You sound like someone I want to know and learn from. Cheers.

Bingo. I stopped being impressed with that kind of attitude when I was 13. I know bad***es, and he isn't one I can pretty much guarantee.

He might be suitable if you want a simple website in his style, but he seems like he would be hellish to communicate with on something more complex.

His work is not nearly good enough for that attitude if you ask me.

Because those are the people who complain, and people who complain eat up more of your time for less of a return than anyone else.

So I'm on the same page he is. Alienate those people and drive them away as quickly as possible, before they can get close enough to start wasting your time.

See, look at Frank Kern's situation. He has about 300,000 people on his list. And whenever he sends a promotion, the ones who actually buy are within the last 2,000 people to join it. That's one out of every 150 people. And do you know what that says to me?

Frank Kern's list should have 2,000 people on it. Because right now, his conversion rate is 1/150 of what it ought to be.

But Frank Kern wants to be everybody's friend!

Me, I don't. I want a tiny little segment of the market - maybe 3% to 5% - that positively LOVES my stuff. Nice is nowhere. I don't want everyone to like my stuff. Screw those people. I want rabid, ravening fans that scream and dance and BUY when I drop a product. Not a big number in my list provider account.

12 years of building brands, logos and websites. And how is that like doing "fries" for 12 years. And you do what? Fiverr clones?

Now THIS ticks me off. You should NEVER EVER denigrate how someone chooses to make a living. I would have liked to see the actual working sites and think that the way he's laid out his copy is....odd...I may wear glasses but I'm not THAT blind (yet). But on the whole I kind of agree with what he says. Frankly it was a big reason why I stopped doing web design for clients: they hire me as the expert, don't give me content that I need (can't manufacture it out of thin air ya know) and then proceeded to tell me how to do my damn job. Nuts to that. The customer is NOT always right. I just got tired of dealing with it. So good for him for speaking his mind.

And some of us got into IM through designing websites and it is still viable.

I'm not a big fan of profanity, but I do like the way the website looks.

Hi,

They appear to understand and have a decent grasp of viral/word of mouth marketing.

There are places in the copy which appear to be borderline insulting/patronising - they seem to be deliberate too. My first instinct is that it repels me, but on second thoughts it's those parts that light the viral flame and cause posts like this which ask, 'is it good/bad' or 'have they gone too far?'

The only possible error I see is that this is appealing mainly to a more youthful section of the market, at prices which are possibly more suited (in general) to a less youthful section of the market.

But if they can use the youthful section to viralise it and still manage to pick up enough of the market that wants to be edgy and can afford them, then it has worked.

I believe that it's very tricky to walk the line that they are walking - balancing edginess with professionalism - it's really easy to go wrong. I think that they have done this part pretty well and in the current marketplace I think that they have given themselves an edge.

Not a bad site but he says the word 'sh**' too much for my tastes. Once or twice and you can say it's cool but too many times and it becomes stupid.

After about the third time I saw it I click away. :-(

I guess if someone has a opinion you don't agree with that makes them a hater.

People throw that word around way to easily. Expressing a negative opinion of something when opinions were asked for isn't being a hater. Why do you need to call your fellow forum members names before expressing your own opinion?

As for the website in question, I wouldn't buy from him. I've been around way to long to be impressed by swear words and touchy egos.

Ah, but there I go hating again. :rolleyes:

a.k.a. Grown ups

With 4000 Euros I would actually buy a good car, and refill its tank for about 1 year.

By the way, customers don't care about rude people, specially when those people charge such a high price for a WP website full of useless stuff.

I didn't see him saying "For 4k Euros, I can make a website that will allow you to make specific tasks that no other website makes", instead, he said something like "4000 euros / Full of videos, and other stuff".

I'm currently making other portfolio, and you will not see anything in my website that tells the customers that I'm the Web designer, not him, or that I'm better than anyone else. And there is more, the customer actually is THE WEB DESIGNER, cause you can't make his website without his suggestions, he's the one who's gonna choose the layout, colors, system, help to test it, and much more.

THIS...

Knowing a few developers, a lot of work goes into a custom CMS and front end work. Comparing that to wordpress is downright silly.

You're really not getting the point. The entire purpose of screening is not to talk to everyone, because some people are a waste of time and energy which could be invested in more productive things. The screening mechanism is designed to prevent most of those people from getting to you in the first place.

Hi travlinguy,

When you say 'we are taking about business' - there are many who say that it's wise to focus on what you're good at and nothing else. So why would he do things differently and tone down the site (losing the effect it has currently) just so that he becomes a client broker as well as a web designer?

Plus you're stating that he's actually passing on 'problem babies' to others. Not the best referrals then? (See below).

Perhaps you have never been in the situation where you passed on a referral and it came back to haunt you, big time? It can happen. You can lose friends, clients etc because you are indirectly responsible for the consequences of the referral, but many people won't register the 'indirect' part and will see it as 'directly responsible.' Sometimes it's difficult to get any kind of remuneration for the referral. Why take risk for no benefit or for just 10%? And these referrals are 'problem babies', too.

This is just horses for courses and we are all entitled to our own opinion and approach to business, but it just seemed that yourself (and many others) were assuming (with respect) that there is only one way to do business - try to make every single prospect your customer or a referral.

...and the above is an example of that - 'End of story.'

But it's not the end of the story. It might be wise for some who are looking for their first customer to alienate potentials. There are lots of reasons for this. Here are a few -

a) many of the predators in business prey on those looking for their first customer because they see them as easy meat. Someone who comes out snarling is not such easy meat. Is it always better to start out seeking clients with hints of neediness/desperation or with supreme confidence (IE clients need me, not vice-versa)? I know which one I personally prefer. The former screams, 'bite me!'

b) if someone is looking for their first customer, what better way to get attention than to stand out from the crowd? Sure, you may be correct that it cuts down the field of opportunity (let's call this variable X). But conversely, it also gets attention which widens the field (let's call this variable Y). Who is to say that Y can never be greater than X?

c) Because people have the same thought process as yourself (the coarse approach cuts down the field of opportunity) they may well also assume that this person is confident about his work and his client-pleasing ability. Again, it's another X>Y? trade-off. Some of that group who may even be slightly offended may still employ him because either 1) they want someone dynamic 2) the project they have needs to be eye-catching and different, therefore he is ideal.

Perfectly smooth and juicy font, yet negligible presentation of his own work, like he'd done it by teabagging his butt in a bucket of paint and splatting a website on the screen with it...

An unhealthy dose of arrogance, he's going Gregory House on our asses "meh I'm so awesome that the more people I repulse, the more they'll want to come back for more".

Weird tastes and unique presentation for his cost. Yet the part with "you can put videos and stuff" turned me off. I definitely wouldn't use his services cuz he ain't concrete enough... for that price.

A nicely wrapped viral £9,000 sale proof to seal the deal, along with an IQ test to dispel those not serious enough to write him an e-mail.

You can see that the site has a bit of these classic red-text-on-yellow-splattery-surface-background kinda structure if you scroll down quickly.

That site is the perfect business card.

If they're looking for their first customer, they probably don't have a reputation or a portfolio to back them up. They might as well try to appeal to the masses at that point.

Seriously? I think his work is pretty decent at best.

Here's an example of his work. Do you think that is really good?

Here's another example of his work. It's not bad at all. Clean design, clean code - but as CDarklock said about those other guys that he mentioned, it looks like a free theme from Wordpress.org


This one is nice too.


P.S. I'm not hatin' or anything. While I agree the guy's got mad snarky copy, his skill is not exceptional as some people have expressed in this thread.

He will once he checks his logs.

thing is the same happens with plenty digg stories and they notoriously do not convert well or lead to ongoing traffic. Some things create buzz and thats all. IN SEO the easiest thing you can do for linkbait is be shocking or insulting and people link to it. Problem is in the long run it hurts for branding. May or may not happen here but he does have a conversational style.

Yeah, that used wetsuit ad was brilliant. I read it and laughed out loud.

By discussing this site, the fact that it makes people stand on one side of the fence or the other and the fact you all are arguing about the particulars of which side of the fence you are on means most everyone here has missed what he is doing and in his words are all **** marketers.

The guys designs are clean, His copy is brilliant and his strategy probably has him making more $$ than 99% of the people who have posted in this thread. I've seen 3 posters in this thread who have a clue.

I was personally entertained.

If I was given a choice of this guy, and someone more polite with the same quality of work, I would probably try to get this guy first.

I'm the girl with a giant sized stuffed Carpenter ant that sits on her bed and it freaks some people out.

I'm the girl who had a Freddy Kruger poster over her bed in college.

I'm the girl with a squalking rubber chicken which terrifies Omar on the live marketing chats.

I'm also the girl who would paint the underside of a chair or desk, and in those areas you are not supposed to see - and that really resonated with me.

Anyway, I am more pleased to see someone who is more real than someone who is just being nice for the sake of finding more customers.

And while someone recently alienated me on this forum with how rude they were, my issue in that particular circumstance was that that rude behavior I received was not part of their sales letter. So - if I know up front you might be a rude ass ******* then I know up front how to approach you and work with you.

The fact that someone might be a bit persnickety does not scare me. What scares me more is if I don't see it coming up front.

You like chili. I like chili with a kick - but I want to know it is spicy before I take a bite.

Well, I can't answer for everyone else on this thread, but I only responded like 10 minutes ago. lol

Not to mention - we have great designers on this forum who I hire for a lot less for the work I need done.

If I thought he was the right person for a project I wouldn't hesitate to give it a go.

Hi ramone_johnny,

His responses are funny and I'm delighted to see that his honest approach has paid off. In line with my original comments -

LINK

I think that there are lessons here and I appreciate them.

Thanks for sharing his email. I like his style even more now.