Getting Started
You have already started!
You were looking for help for starting a web design business, which puts you way ahead of those that just try and start without first educating themselves.
Have you ever heard that "most small businesses fail because they were undercapitalized"? That statement is repeated so frequently and universally it has become accepted as the gospel truth. No one would dare challenge the statement.
But I say that the above statement is absolutely false. It sounds so good, but is not true. The truth is, most small businesses fail because of lack of business education. Think about it. One must have adequate financial resources to carry them until their business venture becomes profitable, -- this is so. However, those small businesses owners that failed - because they were undercaptitalized - thought they would have enough.
It was their education that was lacking. You are going to learn first what it takes to successfully start a web design business, and then you will get to work!
Education + Perspiration = Success
Your Big Three Steps:
- Have A Plan.
- Plan Your Work.
- Work Your Plan.
If you don't plan, then plan on failing!
Web Site Design Business Ten Due Diligence Quesions
Click on a question below to see the answer.
- Who is my target audience?
- How am I going to attract prospects?
- How am I going to turn prospects into clients?
- How am I going to complete the website designs?
- How am I going to manage billing?
- How am I going to handle technical issues beyond website design?
(domains, dns, hosting, maintenance) - What am I going to do to retain my clients?
- Where will my office be located?
- How much is it going to cost me to run my web site design business?
- When will I start making a profit from it?
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1. Who is my target audience?
Your target audience is smaller business owners. Target businesses typically with 1-10 employees. This represents over 90% of all business is in the United States of America. So, don't worry about the other 10%, OK?
Every small business owner, home based business owner or part time business owner in our day needs a website to be taken seriously. We have the best program available for them!Back to top
2. How am I going to attract prospects?
This is really the most difficult part of the entire process. Being a great designer, developer, or programmer (being expert in your specific field) is the easy part.
The hard part is selling your expertise.
If you can attract warm leads, then I KNOW that I can lead you to success. If you cannot, then you will not have clients and you will not make any money. It is that simple.
If you can make sales, the truth is, you could outsource the design, hosting, maintenance - the whole bit and be successful. This is why good salesmen are the highest paid workers in America.
No one makes any money if a sale is not closed.
Well, here are the things you will need to do:1) Get your own website up and have at least five examples (live, working websites) that you can show. If you are using my program, you will have an inventory of hundreds.
It is going to be extremely hard to sell yourself without showing what you can do. When I got started, I actually built five websites for business owners that I knew FREE, just so I would be able to demonstrate to others that I could do it! (I also provided their hosting - so I made money with that).
That was back in July of 2003, and I still have all five of these clients! Those "FREE" websites that I built have since "upgraded" to more services and yield about $500 per month for me in total income.
My total earnings from just those five (from 2003 - 2008) is right about $15,000, and that doesn't include the business cards, rack cards, brochures and banners I have designed and printed for them!
With pajezy, you can whip out a complete, professional website in just a couple of hours!
2) Get your promotional literature printed, but don't waste a lot of money on it. You will just need business cards and rack cards. If you are using my program, you will get these professionally, quickly and affordably.
3) "Tell on yourself" to your local newspapers and radio and any other free media via a press release to get the word out about your new company.
4) Join at least one good, business networking group or club. (local chamber of commerce or other business group) You will almost always get more business from effective networking groups than from "cold calling".
5) Put down lots of shoe leather. Go meet the small business owners face to face. Don't call ahead and ask to make an appointment, because you have become a "salesman" and are typically therefore despised. Just drop by and leave your information and a small gift, give a quick "elevator speech" and be on your way.
Leaving good information (printed newsletters or flyers) is always good. It is cheap for you and helpful for them. If you use my program, you will have access to many of these that I have written myself.
6) Teach free classes related to marketing with websites, improving websites .... if you are using my program, you will have access to my curriculum for these as well. You just need to facilitate.
7) Repeat the above steps, and ask your friends and clients for referrals.
If you are using my program, leverage your income through the efforts of others by referring your friends and family in other places to this program. (You can make money on your own efforts and those that you refer, too!)
3. How am I going to turn prospects into clients?
You will need to start by asking them the right questions to ensure that you understand what their ideas are as they relate to their expectations of their website. You will want to be able to either meet or exceed their expectations.
I have turned down a lot of business in 2008 from people who were referred to me (not just warm leads but HOT leads) because they had expectations for the performance of their website that neither I nor anyone else could fulfill.
A website is rarely the silver bullet for a small business owner that will end all of their sorrows.
So, ask them questions to discover what they expect, evaluate whether or not you can meet their expectations, and then either make them a proposal or refer them elsewhere. Don't take a job you can't do well on!
If you have enough business sense, or what I call "uncommon sense" -- since "common" sense no longer seems to exist, you may also advise them on what they should do and expect.
I have the advantage here, because I am quite expert at small business marketing and management, and have honed valuable critical thinking skills over the years.
If you are using my program, you will have access to lots of help here, too.
4. How am I going to complete the website designs?
Well, that is of course, up to you. If you are using my program, the only other tool you might need to be able to use is a photo editing software, like photoshop.
You will need a program like this only to create the custom headers for the site and other graphics that you may want to use. You may also choose to outsource this part and simply focus on putting the website together by collecting the graphics, text, photos and documents needed.
We can almost always create custom logos and website themes that will work within the pajezy.com program that make our clients happy.
Many of the "before and afters" are simply dramatic.Over 90% of the websites that we create are "remodels."
The business owners already had websites but were dissatisifed with them for one or more reasons.
See a "before and after" just being completed in November of 2008 below.
Before (using Microsoft Frontpage): click here
After (using pajezy.com): click here
5. How am I going to manage billing?
The billing part has been the most difficult thing for me in the past. Since I was charging monthly fees, I invested in several different automatic recurring billing programs.I tried Optigold ISP, ModernBill, and WHM Autopilot, however, none of them worked well for me with the complexity of how I was doing business.
Now, I use Quickbooks and have a Quickbooks Merchant account, too. It works well, and saves me money in bookkeeping expenses.
The first person you will need to pay is a person to setup and run your books. You must keep up with your cash-in and cash-out!
I stongly recommend Quickbooks Pro. It is $200 for the software and worth every penny, or, use Quickbooks online, which is just $9.95 per month and comes with a free 30 day trial.I do offer a strait commissions plan where I do all of the billing and you simply get a commissions check. To do this, you will just need to get a business license and keep up with your taxes.
6. How am I going to handle technical issues beyond website design? (domains, dns, hosting, maintenance, seo)
Domains
The most significant techical issue I have had to deal with is domain name problems, which came about as a result of my clients registering their own domain names and then failing to keep them renewed.As a result, their websites disappear and they call me! They think it is my fault that their websites are not working. After dealing wtih this for a couple of years, I now manage ALL of the domains for my clients and backcharge them for it. (I actually add $50 per year to their hosting account or just build it in free).
It is not worth the wasted time for $10 per year!
DNS
I manage this for all of my clients, and you may need to learn how to do this as well.Hosting
I provide hosting for all of my clients. I actually GIVE IT AWAY FREE. I charge for a subscription to my pajezy.com website editor and the customer support. I don't even charge for hosting. It is too competitive, usually.Maintenance
I provide maintenace for most of my clients now. They subscribe to my pajezy.com program, which handles it! I do sell "stand alone hosting" for self-built or custom build websites as well, but most of those clients have converted to pajezy.com service.SEO
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is a separate discipline from website design, but usually just as vital. This is what makes search engines "pay attention" to websites. I have created an SEO program, and the basics of my SEO intellectual property are built in to pajezy.com
7. What am I going to do to retain my clients?
I am glad you asked this question, because it is all-important. You don't want to lose what you work so hard to get. As I mentioned above, I still have my first five website clients that I acquired in 2003.
I keep making money every year on the work I did over five years ago! How do I do this? I keep in touch with them at least four times a year. I send a card, call, or stop by their place of business.You will need to do the same.
You will also want to "upsale" and "resale" your existing clients. Once you have created a trust relationship with them, they will buy anything you sell. Why? Because they TRUST you. Don't let them down!
Work diligently, professionally and ethically and keep their trust. They will be your best advertisers!
8. Where will my office be located?
When I first started, I had an office in an average location. If I were starting again, I would get a visible office space, but I don't need it now.
I used to have a garage. A small part of that is now my office. It is quiet and it is mine and it is convenient.
This can work for you, too. You can make it by having a home office, but it will necessitate that you are regularly out in public. You need visibility, you need to mix with your potential clients.
If you can find a good location with lots of traffic at an affordable price (and can get good signage), I think it would be your very best spend advertising, even though it wouldn't be allocated to that specific spot in your books. If you have a good, visible office space, you will be able to "kill two birds with one stone" with it. It will provide the office space you need as well as good advertsing.
When I started, I had this "visible" office space, but it wasn't great. I think I could have done almost as well without it, but if I were starting over now, I would find and better place. I simply don't need it now, because I am not just starting.
I have hundreds of clients and my office hours are by appointment only.
9. How much is it going to cost me to run my web site design business?
Well, you will have startup costs and operating costs. How much it is going to cost is dependent upon whether or not you are going to go into it full time or part time, and what you end up doing for your office.Startup Costs
If you use my program, you can get started for just $500 plus $50 per month. That will get you a website on your own domain, business cards, rack cards, training materials and sales support.
We will create a unique identity for you in your city/area under the MyBizWebs.com brand. You will become a part of our growing nationwide network of MyBizWebs.com affiliates.
You may use my program FREE to create the websites for your clients. How about that? My program can publish websites to any server anywhere in the world via FTP.
Option1: Hosting Only Accounts
We will provide YOU with wholesale, superior, cPanel hosting accounts and support to YOU for your clients for $10 per month or $100 per year per account. What you charge your clients is up to you.Option 2: Online Editor Subscriptions / FREE Hosting
If you choose to sell the pajezy.com website editor subscription and support to your clients, you will make an extra $20 per month per client! (We charge $39.95 and they get the use of the editor and FREE, toll free support from us directly - we DO NOT outsource our customer support!)We will give them a FREE hosting account and a FREE domain. We will bill them directly for the subscription sevice and you will get a monthly commissions check.
You will still charge them directly for creating their websites, and your construction fees are up to you.
Option 3: Complete, Private Label Branding
In this program, you have your own label of our website editor (with your logo & phone number) and you get your wholesale accounts for just $5 per month or $50 per year, but the startup costs are significantly higher. Visit http://www.websitesforsmallbusinessowners.com/ for more information about this particular program.Operating Costs
If you use my program, it will cost you $50 per month for support. You will have your office expense, auto expense or travel expense, membership fees, and advertising expenses -- but I do not recommend that you spend money advertising in conventional media (radio, newspaper) unless you have a lot of cash to start.
You will have bookkeeping expenses. Unless you are exceptionally good, you will need a good accountant or full charge bookkeeper.
10. When will I start making a profit from it?
Startup Cost + Operational Costs - Net Sales (after taxes taken out) = Profit
If you are using my program, you can build a nice, complete, fully functional, professional website for a client easily in just one eight hour day. (I can do this in just two - four hours, but I developed the program and I am very fast)
I charge a $500 flat fee for a full site construction for a small busienss owner, $250 for small sites and $99 for a single page brochure type site. When I am building websites using my pajezy.com program, I am making from $75 to $250 per hour.
If you sell a full pajezy.com subscription, you will make an addtional $240 per year without having to do anything! (We do all of the support from that point on!)
If I were starting out today and had the use of the pajezy.com program, I would be making a profit by the end of my third month.
Leveraging Your Income
The program you will be enrolling in (if you choose to do so) enables you to leverage more income by referring others in other areas to the same program.
We are expanding via a simple program and simple 2 Tiered network. You can earn more money by referring others to our program. There is no negative incentive in doing this. You will make the same monthly from your 2nd tiered referrals as you do from your own business.
Even though you can sell our service (and your service) to anyone anywhere in the world (so long as their business is moral, ethical and legal), you will be most effective promoting it in your own circle and your own geographic neighborhood.
Your ability to earn money from other geographic regions is expanded by introducing new people to our program. After you have followed our program and are making money yourself, you will find it fairly easy to encourage someone you know somewhere else to get involved.
However, don't expect to be successful doing this "referral" until you have proven our program works yourself. It will work for you because it has worked for me!