Approaching the client

Upon reception of a lead, whether it is a form, a phone call or a recommendation keep 4 things in mind. Listen – Listen – Reflect – Identify. This psychology is amazing. One of the biggest mistakes I made when selling our website services was overwhelming the client with my company pitch.

Listening has three major bonuses:
1. You get a gist of the potential clients needs, background and expectations
2. It shows respect and patience
3. Allows you to absorb what is important to the client and reflect with only the necessary comments and suggestions

Reflecting
You should be packing as much information in as little conversation as possible. Always remember that most clients are there to hire you for your expertise. Most of the time they do not want to get an ear full of technical jargon, they are there to allow you to provide a solution via their communication with you.

1. Stay focused on the clients needs and expectations
2. Interject ideas that might improve on the project
3. Be personal and confident in your ability to be a great consultant

Identify
Identifying is a collection of listening and reflecting. After learning your potential client’s expectations and needs you have a much better chance of selling your products and services.

1. Try to get a good idea of what type of person/ client you are dealing with and respond accordingly
2. Let the client know you have been listening by going over what they said and how it can work with the proposed project
3. Be professional but friendly, give your prospect a reason to want to work with you
4. Make them feel comfortable

Building a better web development proposal

A good proposal is modified several times from the original proposal template. The original template however, is a well thought out outline and contains the following specific major topics, in addition to a service outline and price quote. However, the continual refinement of the proposal template while taking into account other competitor’s proposals is also a very important part of a successful proposal template. We have basic outlines and templates for brochure websites, ecommerce websites, custom backend development and Internet marketing. Proposals can also use a capability that is built into Microsoft’s Word that allows the author to set up variable fields that will always change from proposal to proposal.

1. Uniquely brand and layout clean headers and footers for each section of the proposal
2. Build a general scope outlining the prospects requirements and notes
3. Whenever possible, give detailed reference to the agreed project definition and stay away from making it appear like a template, even though you started with one
4. Customize the proposal template by citing the client’s name, company and appropriate contact information
5. Add a short blurb about your company standards and practices, that reflect your dedication to quality and support
6. Give the client options showing possible add-ons and updates to the service
7. Try not to add unnecessary jargon that will dilute the purpose of the project
8. Follow up with a letter of intent – outlining the deliverables and requirements needed from the client

The Process

This is what dictates if your business is going to going to tread water, succeed or fail all together. It does not matter if you are a one-man show or a full-blown design and development firm; the process is the meat and potatoes of what makes a business run smoothly. Even with a vast amount of leads pouring in every day you have to create and keep fine-tuning the process.

My definition of a process is “A procedural list of executable tasks that are organized. When defined correctly this will allow the simplification of your company’s procedures and help to organize a project “. The more you tweak and tighten up your process the better. A process outline can change from company to company and in some ways defines its service and product output. These points are points I personally think are most important when defining a general process for your web Design Company.

1. Define your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Breakdown what parts of project are areas that can be improved upon.
2. Time is always an issue; figure how much time or resources an average company’s tasks take. Brainstorm on simple concepts that can cut the fat out.
3. Learn from past projects. You can examine areas where there was a breakdown in communication or misunderstanding. Use that as a road map to explore what areas can be improved upon.
4. Stick to your process and don’t stray from them

Because each company has its own personality and niche, the processes associated with it change. There is not a perfect global process outline that works for everyone. Your company’s process is a huge part of its soul and ability to be successful.

I hope this article was helpful

Cheers, and happy processing,

Markus Nelson

About the author:

Markus Nelson is CEO of Blue Light Labs Multimedia in Atlanta Georgia. He is a self-made entrepreneur of 8 years and works with THE HOLODYN CORPORATION, a think tank devoted to improving digital media and design.

When I was using a web hosting reseller I ran into one of the hardest longest weeks of my life moving account after account to the hosting solution that is now running our websites today. I knew I needed to get out and I was the largest account this reseller had in the process he did not make this an easy transition for me or my clients. He was completely angry with me for starting to move accounts to these new servers without telling him and in the process things locked up and started to not copy over correctly. There could have been a legal battle there could have been blood, I don’t know if I’m just a softy or not but in the last eight years I have not had any legal issues with clients or vendors and I would like to keep it that way. I guess there is a first time for everyone and mine might be coming down the pipe. Now I feel much safer with the way we have setup and organized our hosting process. Don’t get me wrong we have had some down time, but when it does happen we have a great off location support team that sits on our servers 24/7.

The learning curve was a little steep and we spent a few long weekends working out billing issues and software conflicts but overall now this company has a piece of mind. If you currently have 50 or more small business clients and maybe a few larger budget clients, I recommend getting your first dedicated server through the planet. The planet is one of the largest hosting providers on the planet and they watch our dedicated servers while we sleep. Getting Cpanel, WHMCS billing and Apache server running was a headache but made a huge difference in the long run.

I have not used many billing systems but I really like WHMCS it integrates into the WHM control panel and allows clients pay their bill, upgrade their service or purchase other products. WHMCS automates reminders, support tickets and even domain renewals. It has many features that can be tweaked to your preferences. Once it is installed you no longer have to use WHM to create your accounts all plans, services and products can be setup from the billing system.

Happy Hosting..

Hi my name is Markus Nelson I live in Atlanta Georgia with my Wife and daughter Ashley and Saturday. I have been running a web design and development company( bluelightlabs.com ) for over 8 years. Before I lived up the North Georgia Mountains for quite some time where there was not a great local market. I went to collage in Savannah Georgia for computer animation and found that it was not my calling in the ( Making a living world ), unless I was to work for a company and give up my quest for entrepreneurship and personal freedom.

Let me get this straight off the bat, ( Don’t do this!!) and what i mean by ( Don’t do This!! ) it is not easy, it is defiantly not a get rich quick way to build a company. I am 33 years old now and can’t even begin to tell you the amount of energy, stress and dedication it takes to make a company work. There are so many things I should have known earlier before I jumped into this endeavor and it is these things that motivated me to write this article. I am not the best author for sure, but I hope this information helps other people that are interested in building a web design company find it more tangible. There is also a great deal of stuff I want to share with fellow entrepreneurs that will hopefully provide a great head start to succeeding in this market.

I have broke this article down into a few small sections, these are the areas that have been the most important to me in the success with business. If any readers have any questions or comments feel free to contact me from our website at http://www.bluelightlabs.com/contact/

I will be more than happy to respond on any questions or comments regarding this article. On a note I am not the most grammatically correct person so if you find any mistakes save yourself some time – I already know my weaknesses and don’t need to be reminded of them anymore. I have a small blog I started that has other information similar to this article; you can check it out at http://www.atlantawebdesign.blogspot.com.

Ok now that we have that out of the way – here is the breakdown.

It all boils down to research -

Well this a topic that really gets to me, I never really did much research to start with and wish I did from the very beginning. Heads up – you can never do enough research. I cannot tell you how important research is. If I had done more research I would be miles ahead of myself and my company would be stronger to this day.

I know this is a broad term but it is an important one none the less. I started by doing the only research I did at my first Job. I was part of a small IT department working for my dad’s company. I was working and living with a co-worker that was an anal overachiever that made my life miserable. Since he was always on top of stuff before I could even get to the scene I spent a good amount of time in my cubicle surfing other web design company websites looking for ideas onhow to create my own little niche business. I literally spent a great deal of my employer’s money just getting prepared to start my own company. Everything from our original logo to the first official search engine submission of my website in 2000 was done from my little cubical without a window.

Our proposal has gone through many different renditions but going out of your way to actually request a proposal from a competitor is a great way to start building your own. The proposal is a huge piece of your company; you will use it over and over and make many versions of it so remember to spend a great deal of time researching and looking at other competitor examples. When the phone starts ringing at least 70% percent of the time, possible clients are looking
for not only a price quote but also an idea of how your company presents itself. Presentation is a huge part of what you want to research how you present your company will attract certain types of clients so think about the type of client you want to attract. For example, do you want to dive straight in and go after fortune 500 companies with huge budgets or do you want to target small to medium local businesses. Blue Light Labs after 8 years is now starting to make this next step toward going after the larger company contracts. What I love about large company contracts are you don’t need as many and you don’t feel like you are juggling your time with a great deal of small ones. Of course attracting these types of organizations is not an easy issue. Blue Light Labs has built hundreds of websites but I feel only 10-30 of them are worth putting into a portfolio to attract larger more serious organizations. This does not mean that the other websites we built are not portfolio worthy but what it does mean is you only get a limited period of time to hook a potential client on your website so be specific on how you want to show the quality of your work.

Research is a good way of avoiding making mistakes that can bite you in the ass later down the line. The first thing I did was find a good local book keeping company to officially take care of my taxes these companies can typically take care of everything you need such as incorporation, taxes and write-offs. I cannot tell you how important it is to get one that works well with small businesses I used BBS in Marietta, Georgia and they are worth every penny. You don’t want

to waist your time trying to do all this legal stuff yourself, unless you are into that type of thing. It is money well spent in my opinion. I would recommend looking and interviewing a few before choosing the one that will work for your web design company.

Vertical markets are markets in witch you can target more intensely. Lets say you want to go after Real Estate Related companies or you want to primarily design and develop e commerce websites. Finding a vertical market that is in demand is a great way to get an idea of how you want to present your company to either a local market or a national or international market. In conclusion as much as I could keep going on and on about researching different ways and angles to approach your building your companies foundation though research this is a short list of what I would recommend are the most important.

Incorporation:

What type of web site design firm do you want to become. Are you a one man show, or do you want to put together a team? Find out what types of incorporation will work the best for your goals. Becoming a LLC vs. a C or an S corporation gives you different options and tax breaks. Your company name and it’s domain name will stick with you thought the life of your company so give it a good amount of thought. Eventually your company name will start to become a way to market yourself with word of mouth or visual representation, so take it seriously.

Vertical Markets

What do you think are your strengths and weaknesses and what types of clients do you want to attract? How do you want to present your company when you do manage to get exposure and traffic to your website?

Other money outlets

On top of designing websites what other ways can you make money with your services. Do you want to offer Hosting, Internet Marketing or resell ecommerce gateway and domain services? I have to tell you Blue Light Labs would not survive if I did not get into the hosting business.
Hosting allowed for me to have a recurring source of revenue during slow months where we where focusing on improving internal company issues.

Do you have any startup capitol? What are the best ways to use it? I only had $200 dollars in my pocket when I started, so I didn’t have much to work with. It is so easy to get too exited and spend a ton of money software, hardware, marketing, office space printed material ext. If you don’t have a great deal of money browse though things like gorilla marketing blogs or books, find a good hosting provider to work with that will give you a flexible reseller account.

Drive!!

You have to have drive; drive is the one thing that most successful entrepreneurs have. You have to be driven you have to work hard and you have to keep up with your competition. If you are not a driven individual stop reading this and forget it. Believe me there is no easy way into this business. It is competitive hard and requires many hours of dedication and hard work. The pay off is amazing though, in my opinion having a 4 man company that has almost hit the one million dollar mark this year is a huge achievement and something I am proud of. I don’t personally make a great deal of money, most of it goes back into the company or toward all the dept I occurred while struggling when I started it.

Think Big

Try not to get too comfortable stay on top of your technology, competition and all the constant changing aspects of your deliverables.

People

If you are planning on building a team people are obviously important. One the biggest things I pride myself on is my team. I was not afraid to brush up mycompetition because my competition became my company. I spent a great deal of time meeting other web designers and developers and building relationships with other entrepreneurs like me. All this social networking naturally allowed me to build a team that was perfect for Blue Light Labs. Travis Christopher and David Warren from liquidsquidstudios.com became our sales and design department, David Hunt from Webuddha.com and Holodyn.com became our development and research department and finally I just slipped into what was naturally my strength the marketing and project management department. Are you getting the picture?

Just remember to keep patent and focus during your startup, business will come with quality work and dedication to your clientele.

Surround yourself with people smarter than you and learn from it, keep yourself open to change and new technologies, and for god sake enjoy what you do..

Markus Nelson…

Follow markusnelson at http://twitter.com

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Imagining our business in 12 months from now ideally I would like to start nailing down at least 50% of our quality leads so My Team and Me can focus on quality professional work and stop underselling ourselves to get a bid. This way everyone wins which is what business should be more about! A healthy life comes with doing what you do best and getting results without driving yourself into the ground. Removing the struggle and frustration out of the air would be the best thing that could happen to us. Educating and communicating effectively with current clients as well as prospects I feel is the first step to our success.

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