I effing HATE my web design business!

I can tell you that larger companies new to web design are readjusting how they approach businesses. The company I work for now offers web design service for $129 a month with no setup fee and unlimited changes every month. It actually will bring you revenue every month without worrying as much when you take a upfront lump some . It's also easier to convert people to customers when they hear $129 monthly compared to $3k one time.

The problem is caused by pricing too low, and attracting bottom-of-the-barrel clients. These are the ones who expect a million and one changes for free, are unclear about what they want, and expect you to respond instantly at 3AM. Oh, and view web design as a commodity to be gotten for the lowest rate.

Then not defining the terms clearly before accepting the work is the second critical piece of the puzzle.

Ron Rule put together a document defining all of this:

http://www.warriorforum.com/war-room...ent-again.html

Someone whined it looked extensive. Yeah, that's how you avoid trouble: by covering as much as you can in a strong up front agreement. Be a professional, not an amateur, and you will avoid trouble.

Get out of the business for god's sake. Unless you are a Ron Rule type of professional who know's what he is doing and strives to be serious, forget it. It's not an easy cash cow where you just make a few edits to a theme and make a nice profit, ad infinitum. It's probably the most client-intensive role in offline marketing and unless you got the balls and the integrity for that and make intelligent provisions, then you are just going to F yourself - and the poor *******s who hire a fool who doesn't really know what they are doing - over big time.

The best thing to do is what the guys at OMG Machines do. Build and rank local niche website so they dominate first page for a certain fairly low competition word, generate some leads, and then you have something that is a simple sell. You're selling a decent looking new website that already gets customers and leads and is complete, just need to transfer over some details and then get monthly occurring through maintenance and link building packages.

It is so hard to convince clients when you pay too much, but when you find the right client, it's much easier than handling a client for such a low price and all they do is nag about getting their site up and changed even before 7am in the morning.

It's a tough business, but it's a good business if you can handle it. I have sold web design, but I have never made it my sole service to offer to clients.

It is a hard business to be in these days. I have had great clients and I have had the clients from hell. You take the good with the bad but I found the clients that want the site for next to free are the worse.

Anne L

I am going to be "That" guy on this one. I USED to be that veteran site builder that hated his job. It was / is good money however there is an aspect that I will NEVER get back to.

What is that you ask? MONTHLY anything. I don't want to bill you for hosting, I don't want to be contacted at all hours of the day to make a "simple change" I don't want to be the one spending hourson the phone when the hosting is down. I don't want the LOSS of life!

Anyone that has done this started with a vision. They wanted to design cool sites, or they looked at it as a source of re occurring revenue. NO one sees the time involved.
Im not about to hate on the guys that outsource a bunch of stuff. but even that is time consuming in a sense.

So the hidden hatred is TIME, or lack of it actually. Once you get into the 50 sites or more category that you are maintaining area ( At 1 time I was looking over 120 sites ) you will notice that YOUR time has reached Critical mass

You are on the phone or reading e-mail constantly from your clients to change this and change that. for what $40 a month? Even $100 a month. Its sounds and looks like good money. However, like I said you get in that 50+ category that is all you have time for. I pump out 6 to 10 sites a MONTH with the average bill right in the $2000 range. Do I even have to ask where the money is?

I have SEO clients that pay $5000 for 90 days, and I have gone as high as $40,000 for 90 day SEO contracts. In my previous business model there would have been NO WAY I would have had TIME to do that.

I will ask you this. Name me another business that charges a monthly fee for service and that service is expected to be instant?

Keep in mind, I do maintenance work. But now its setting an appointment, getting the details and charging a rate. I enter the time allotment in my Google Calendar, I know have a reminder to do the work, I have time set aside to do the work, and I don't get in those Over Booked situations. Its kinda like smart business!

Anyways that was my pain point, and solution!

Hope that Helps!

I almost got to the point that I despised my business, but then I took a time out. I found that many of the problems were cause by me. I wasn't letting the client know exactly what they got for the fees they paid.

I change my client agreement, they noting they would get only 2 revisions to a newly developed website then there would be an hourly fee of $255.00 for additional revisions(this was for smaller businesses). It's amazing how the clients learn to love your work, when you charge hefty fees for it.

Their website would be delivered in 45 days, but that 45 day clock only started after they delivered all of the necessary materials to get the site completed. Too many clients were taking their sweet time getting images and copy to me, then would deliver it at the last minute and expect the website to be completed at the last minute. Now if they delay delivery of materials, I let them know their site will be delivered as my schedule allows.

Look, I do business with them because I choose to, not the other way around. I don't take every client that comes along, if I sense they're going to be a problem client, I pass. All money is not good money, and I value my time and my peace of mind.

I get the whole fee upfront, unless I am doing a huge development project( in the $10,000+ range) then it's 50%. I have my terms outlined on my website.

In short, I took control of my business and stopped letting any client control it. I don't deal with many small businesses, in most cases they are too much of a PITA.

I deliver extreme value to my clients, and I over deliver, because I want what I do for them to genuinely help grow their businesses(translate -- profits).

Once I took back control of my business, I began enjoying it again. If I wanted to despise my occupation I'd get a job.

A good quote from mad men would be, love the work, hate the clients.

It's very easy to get overwhelmed, and that's usually a problem of not charging enough or having set processes for delivering on the work. You can have 50K worth of work one month and be able to completely deliver with no problem, and another month you can have 8k worth of work and end up getting behind. You will have people who trust you as the expert, and what you say goes, and other sneaky *******s who get past your filtering process and demand changes in format with the exact pixels dictated to you.

I used to charge yearly for hosting, and still do occasionally, but I like the price point around $50/mo for content changes, new addition to a photo gallery, small changes like that. We offer unlimited changes, and the changes aren't the problem. One out of every 10 clients will want some sort of monthly change. Most on my end go 6 months to a year without ever adding anything to their website. The key to that is to go after BUSY business owners.

A red flag for me is when someone says their business is struggling, or they NEED X amount of leads to make ends meet. When someone asks for regular changes and they aren't related to monthly specials, or something extremely pertinent to their business, then it is because they are not busy enough.

Overall, I enjoy it... it's stressful and can be a pain in the ass at times and if you have a server crash and lose a ton of info it makes you want to blow your brains out. It's fulfilling though. My biggest problem is not delegating enough.. I can't get over the fact that it cuts into my margins, but in all reality, I'd probably be profiting more if I focused on other areas that can generate more money.