How Do Convince My Prospect To Host With Me?

You can help maintain their site, give an hour of updates per month, anything more is extra. You can charge more if you do it this way, minimum 40 per month I'd say.

Alternatively, you could include a few months free, and then they will likely renew with you rather than switch everything over themselves.

Personally, when I do very small websites, I tell them that they have to host with me. Most people are usually fine as long as their confident you know what you're doing.

Try asking: "So...with all the options you have out there...why would you want to go with me?"

If he gives you any reason, that's it. "Oh, that surprises me. I would have thought it would have been because (of this other reason). Why's that?"

If he can't give you any reason, you probably don't have much of a chance of getting this one.

If he says, "I don't know--you tell me," then you have to ask another question. "Sure, Mr. Prospect. I could talk about a hundred things, though. Is there anything specific that you'd like to hear about, that would help you make your decision?"

Their reasons will always be more powerful than your reasons.

You don't have to convince anything. That should be your policy. You tell them that they host with you.

If there is probably a specific reason why they want to host it themselves...figure it out and overcome that objection.

"Hey can I host the website myself"

"Good question joe, no we host all of our websites, and for good reason, if anything ever happens to the website we can fix it, we set up your email for you which can be tricky, and if you need any changes to content we can change that, which is also something tricky that can mess up the site if it's not done right.

Is there a reason why you feel you need to host the site yourself?"

Once you know the true reason, overcome it.

It will probably be an issue of control or they are just cheap and don't want to pay more than 10 bucks per month for hosting.

If it's an issue of control like they want to be able to manage the site or they want to have the site in case anything happens to your company then address that with a rebuttal.

If it's about managing the site tell them that managing a website is something webmasters get paid a nice salary for, and that to keep the quality of your web work high you maintain all of your websites since you are trained experts. (your clients are local small businesses not web designers or webmasters if they were they could make their own site).

If it's about you not being around assure them that you will be around for a long time and MAYBE say that even if you weren't you would make sure you set up the site on their hosting if you can't host it anymore.

Stick to your policy, any objection they have there is an easy rebuttal for. Don't convince anything...don't even bring it up unless they ask. And come off as if it's routine, and how you work...no if's and's or but's.

I really don't have a hard rule that they HAVE to host with me, if they already have hosting and it works fine for them I'm not going to battle them to move it over with me. For new sites I tell them I do the backups and if there is every a problem like they get hacked or something I can restore their site quickly since I have control, etc. Really, for just hosting I charge 20/month so it isn't really a point of major contention. If I was doing updates for them I charge more.

I've never had that problem most people that you will design sites for will want to host with your, it's easier for them too. If you're hosting local site just get a VPS and host them all on there and charge 10-20$ / month, local site don't use much bandwidth.

Instead of asking them for their hosting business. I would include the hosting as part of the website design package. Basically I design the site for said business. Business agrees to host with me. You can charge a monthly maintenance fee to maintain businesses website and hosting account and give them a bit of a discount on the front end to make it more attractive to them.

That is what I DO Also include a free mobile version of their website and you have got them hook line and sinker my friend. Offer them a mobile app to as well hey why not there are tons of professionals on odesk who will work for cheap to build you and your clients awesome products while you get to skip all the way to the freaking bank. SMS could be tossed in to the maintenance hat as well, maybe even seo. It just depends on how much hand holding you want to do.

Gixmo has it right. A decent VPS will get you on your way and a few clients will be profitable.