Can't even give a website away!

[arfurd]

I know the saying, "If it seems too good to be true!"

There is a lady that has a B&B in the town, she has a website that I had a look at. It had been built using FrontPage 5.0, no image compression and quite simply a mess, both structurally and cosmetically.

I decided to give her a call and offer to do a makeover of her site, well, (this I why I'm c**p at sales) after she had told me she was paying around £240 per year hosting, and she had paid around £500 for the design of the site. The site doesn't even have email, just a mailto: link for a yahoo address.

So after hearing this and having further conversation, I was nearly crying (OK I wasn't really). But I did feel that sorry for her, I decided to offer her a makeover for free, host her site for a 3rd of the cost but 1st year free as she had recently paid. All I asked was for her to pay the transfer fee of £10.

Guess what? She told me to stick my offer where the sun don't shine!

To me it was a no brainer, but to her I was nothing but a low life con artist!

Some people are just that suspicious they can't trust anyone. I was gutted for her, and also for me that she thought that badly of me.

 

[Dave Kinnel]

Probably because she has been screwed over once and just doesn't trust web designers any more. She is also probably being approached weekly with similar offers to yours. I know I am even though for the search term I require (shop type and town name or combo' thereof, say "cobblers in Wigan") I rank top of page one of Google and the rest of page one if links to my site, apparently there are people out there they can do better!

To many dodge pot back-bedroom web/seo people out there, many trying to rip people off or simply unqualified and incapable, as your example shows.

 

If she is in your town you should go for face-to-face - far easier to build credibility.

Perhaps, as you suggest, you appear to be giving too much away. Pitch in reasonable, not too cheap.

 

[Paul Norman]

Free would make me suspicious, too.

People in business know that nothing should be free, and therefore usually, when someone is trying to make it sound free, they are trying to take your wallet. The fact that you were not doing that will not make any difference to their perception.

 

[PromoAde]

How about a step further, albeit slightly risky.

Do the makeover anyway. Make some improvements, make it more accessible. Then just email her a link with this new sparkly amazing website that's hosted on your server, which looks 100x better than her existing one. Once you make it a reality, how can she resist?

 

[marketingquotes]

If she is in your town you should go for face-to-face - far easier to build credibility.

Perhaps, as you suggest, you appear to be giving too much away. Pitch in reasonable, not too cheap.

Yep, pop over to see her - She may well apologize and become a long term customer.

 

[fisicx]

arfurd,

Just been looking at your site and it's not very good. I do feel sorry for you, it doesn't even have a maito address. I'll do a makeover for free...

 

[arfurd]

arfurd,

Just been looking at your site and it's not very good. I do feel sorry for you, it doesn't even have a maito address. I'll do a makeover for free...

Your point!

 

[S-Marketing]

Is it not possible the woman had seen your site? To be honest I wouldn't trust your opinion on my site after seeing yours.

What makes you think you could make her a site better than the one she has?

 

[fisicx]

Your point!

Well that's what you did to the landlady, I thought I'd offer the same to you

There are a number of threads on this forum about how much cold calls are despised, I'm not surprised the lady indicated where your bike was.

 

[arfurd]

How about a step further, albeit slightly risky.

Do the makeover anyway. Make some improvements, make it more accessible. Then just email her a link with this new sparkly amazing website that's hosted on your server, which looks 100x better than her existing one. Once you make it a reality, how can she resist?

I go down this route with customers who are looking for websites, then if they like it I'll build it.

 

[arfurd]

If she is in your town you should go for face-to-face - far easier to build credibility.

Perhaps, as you suggest, you appear to be giving too much away. Pitch in reasonable, not too cheap.

Think I'll just chalk this one down to xp.

 

[firstmarket]

I think you're getting hung up on one rebuttal. If you wish to progress in sales you must realise that not everybody is going to want your product. It's not always a reflection on you, the product or how you conduct yourself.

However, if you want to build up a portfolio by offering to do the design for free then start thinking about the individuals you're going to target. What benefit would doing a design for this Woman bring you - not a lot I would suggest. What benefit would going to the Princes Trust and offering to help a few of their new start ups with their websites - referrals.

If you want to work for free make sure you do it for influencers and people that will talk to other members of the business community.

 

[S-Marketing]

Yep, what firstmarket said.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Sometimes people wont buy no matter what you do.

I don't think your technique helped much either though.

I'm a marketing consultant. I specialise in marketing businesses who offer a service, from web design to builders. I reckon I could help at least 90% of service business owners to make more money. If, however, I walked up to builders on a site telling them I knew they were running their business badly and I could do it better, I'd probably get a slap.

 

[arfurd]

Is it not possible the woman had seen your site? To be honest I wouldn't trust your opinion on my site after seeing yours.

What makes you think you could make her a site better than the one she has?

I don't advertise my site because at the moment I agree my site looks poor. Never been happy with mine, must've tried to change it 10 times!

I just show them some of the sites I have done. Not only that just because someone has a well designed site doesn't mean you'll get a good package or well looked after.

 

[arfurd]

Well that's what you did to the landlady, I thought I'd offer the same to you

There are a number of threads on this forum about how much cold calls are despised, I'm not surprised the lady indicated where your bike was.

Yeah agree with you on cold calling, and thanks for the offer please show me the link when finished . And how did you know I had a bike?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

I don't advertise my site because at the moment I agree my site looks poor. Never been happy with mine, must've tried to change it 10 times!

I just show them some of the sites I have done. Not only that just because someone has a well designed site doesn't mean you'll get a good package or well looked after.

I think that's a bad mistake and would really put me off. I think you need to start with a great site if you are going to convince people you can do the same for them - maybe your B&B lady would have taken you up on your offer then??

Back to the question though I think it's as simple as knowing you very rarely, truly, get anything worthwhile for free.

 

[arfurd]

Just to add, I only do sites part time, that was always my intention after completing my MCAD.

I seem to get just enough work to keep me going in my spare time. I always explain this to new clients so they know. If I did advertise I would probably get too much work (yes could outsource).

I just thought on this occasion I would do the good Samaritan thing and it backfired.

 

[Glassglen]

Does this sound like a ok price, i am starting a new company and tried to build a site with wordpress but im crap at things like that so i called the bloke who built and hosts my other site. He quoted me £370 for a 3 page site using wordpress ( i asked him to use wp as the other one he is hosting for me won't let me change menu items and a few other bits and i want full control over the new site...is this a reasonable price?

 

[arfurd]

I don't touch CMS. BUt I know there's a couple here that will be able to answer that.

 

[fisicx]

...is this a reasonable price?

No.

Wordpress is free. The themes are free. All you are paying for is his time. 3 pages would take about an hour to do so he is charging you a lot.

For example: I can do the same for £120 with as many pages as you like plus all the plugin you could ever want. Others on the forum have similar offers.

 

[marketingquotes]

Does this sound like a ok price, i am starting a new company and tried to build a site with wordpress but im crap at things like that so i called the bloke who built and hosts my other site. He quoted me £370 for a 3 page site using wordpress ( i asked him to use wp as the other one he is hosting for me won't let me change menu items and a few other bits and i want full control over the new site...is this a reasonable price?

Depends on the quality of his work - a 3 page site should be a lot cheaper than that - however, if he is a top end designed and has a great portfolio then go for it.

You can get a site designed for less, but you do get what you pay for - pay a cheap price and you will get a cheap site.

Have you compared quotes from 3-4 other designers?

 

[Glassglen]

I want to be able to edit the whole site myself including the menu, but the control panel from the company that hosts my other site dont give me the option. He has built me a good site www.gilhamandgilham.co.uk i am happy with it but sometimes i want to add to the menu that is the only reaon i asked for wordpress

 

[HFE Signs]

I have to say - There is a lot of sharks out there in the website / ppc and seo industry. Unfortunately some people get caught and find it hard to trust you genuine guys on the basis of previous experiences. It’s a shame, sounds like you were offering her a great deal and the rewards for her would have been extremely beneficial. It is sad when idiots spoil the credibility of decent professionals.

 

[ITsoldUK]

Does this sound like a ok price, i am starting a new company and tried to build a site with wordpress but im crap at things like that so i called the bloke who built and hosts my other site. He quoted me £370 for a 3 page site using wordpress ( i asked him to use wp as the other one he is hosting for me won't let me change menu items and a few other bits and i want full control over the new site...is this a reasonable price?

Depends, as stated.

It all boils down to this (IMHO)...

You have paid for a service. One guy may charge £1 an hour, another guy £100 an hour, one may take 1 hour to do the work, another take 4...etc you get the picture.

It is about perceived value. IF you are happy with the results, have a site you are proud of and can do what you want to do then, yup...extremely reasonable in my book. If you aren't, then it is a different story.

No two men possess the exact same skills, attention to detail, overheads, etc...if you start going down the route of charging what everyone else does then you become a commodity NOT a service and the only difference is price....

yup, installing wordpress is pretty much standard, a commodity if you like, customising it is not...JMTC

Regards
Daren

 

[Mike tells it like it is]

I know the saying, "If it seems too good to be true!"

There is a lady that has a B&B in the town, she has a website that I had a look at. It had been built using FrontPage 5.0, no image compression and quite simply a mess, both structurally and cosmetically.

I decided to give her a call and offer to do a makeover of her site, well, (this I why I'm c**p at sales) after she had told me she was paying around £240 per year hosting, and she had paid around £500 for the design of the site. The site doesn't even have email, just a mailto: link for a yahoo address.

So after hearing this and having further conversation, I was nearly crying (OK I wasn't really). But I did feel that sorry for her, I decided to offer her a makeover for free, host her site for a 3rd of the cost but 1st year free as she had recently paid. All I asked was for her to pay the transfer fee of £10.

Guess what? She told me to stick my offer where the sun don't shine!

To me it was a no brainer, but to her I was nothing but a low life con artist!

Some people are just that suspicious they can't trust anyone. I was gutted for her, and also for me that she thought that badly of me.

I have heard similar stories before. so many seem convinced their site is ace when it's not.

 

[telemax]

I know the saying, "If it seems too good to be true!"

There is a lady that has a B&B in the town, she has a website that I had a look at. It had been built using FrontPage 5.0, no image compression and quite simply a mess, both structurally and cosmetically.

I decided to give her a call and offer to do a makeover of her site, well, (this I why I'm c**p at sales) after she had told me she was paying around £240 per year hosting, and she had paid around £500 for the design of the site. The site doesn't even have email, just a mailto: link for a yahoo address.

So after hearing this and having further conversation, I was nearly crying (OK I wasn't really). But I did feel that sorry for her, I decided to offer her a makeover for free, host her site for a 3rd of the cost but 1st year free as she had recently paid. All I asked was for her to pay the transfer fee of £10.

Guess what? She told me to stick my offer where the sun don't shine!

To me it was a no brainer, but to her I was nothing but a low life con artist!

Some people are just that suspicious they can't trust anyone. I was gutted for her, and also for me that she thought that badly of me.

Afurd

We do a lot of Web Site sales. The people to target are not the ones with awful sites. Think about it, the web has been around for 15 years yet they still haven't been able to stump up a few hundred quid for a half decent site. What does that tell you about their attitude to the web?]

On the other hand call those with a good site, who you can see have invested money into it over time, are likely to always be thinking about how to improve things or most likely at least will engage you in a conversation.

 

[peebles]

yip you need to work on your sales skills! why not next time offer them to do a website, it will cost £x but you only pay once you are 100% happy with it. just a thought. you might have to do up a checklist or something to make sure you don't get taken for a ride.

 

[arfurd]

Afurd

We do a lot of Web Site sales. The people to target are not the ones with awful sites. Think about it, the web has been around for 15 years yet they still haven't been able to stump up a few hundred quid for a half decent site. What does that tell you about their attitude to the web?]

On the other hand call those with a good site, who you can see have invested money into it over time, are likely to always be thinking about how to improve things or most likely at least will engage you in a conversation.

I was asked to look at it by someone that knows her, (not that well eh?). Her knowledge of computers let alone the internet is bare minimum.

Whilst I don't doubt her attitude, I do believe she was very naive and trusting the 1st time round, which is why she was ripped off, IMO.

I do have some good clients one of which is very entrepreneurial and is always looking for things to improve on. It's great news for me! One day I'm being paid to create a new site the next it's all over.

 

[S-Marketing]

I do have some good clients one of which is very entrepreneurial and I Love him....(in a non-platonic way of course )

I think you mean platonic. Unless this is your way of telling us you are gay.

edit, Hey, you changed it whilst I was typing.

 

[arfurd]

Afurd

We do a lot of Web Site sales. The people to target are not the ones with awful sites. Think about it, the web has been around for 15 years yet they still haven't been able to stump up a few hundred quid for a half decent site. What does that tell you about their attitude to the web?

This is not always the case though, I have a client that had a really naff wp site. The site was managed by a large web firm (probably the site was too small for them to bother with as they were very helpful in transferring it to me). When I showed what her site could look like, she went ahead with me straight away.

 

[arfurd]

yip you need to work on your sales skills! why not next time offer them to do a website, it will cost £x but you only pay once you are 100% happy with it. just a thought. you might have to do up a checklist or something to make sure you don't get taken for a ride.

No I'm not going to work on my sales skills; I tried to sell ice to the Eskimos once, ended up buying holiday shares!!

I mainly rely on word of mouth, although I do have a little go at an email campaign now and again which yields results.

 

[captaincloser]

No I'm not going to work on my sales skills; I tried to sell ice to the Eskimos once, ended up buying holiday shares!!

I mainly rely on word of mouth, although I do have a little go at an email campaign now and again which yields results.

Everyone in business is in sales, and reading this thread it's clear you and at least two others have no perception on 'rejection' and how to deal with it.Also, on a sales note, you'll never win many friends (or customers) when you target people with the line that they have just wasted a chunk of money on carp (in your opinion).

Not cold calling, not engaging with potential clients and slamming sales in general is a sure sign of a loser.

Also as others say you need a red hot site yourself and to make money probably need to raise the bar from pitching BandB's..though no offence to BandB owners.

Get trained in sales and then,maybe, start making an income.

 

[arfurd]

Everyone in business is in sales, and reading this thread it's clear you and at least two others have no perception on 'rejection' and how to deal with it.Also, on a sales note, you'll never win many friends (or customers) when you target people with the line that they have just wasted a chunk of money on carp (in your opinion).

Not cold calling, not engaging with potential clients and slamming sales in general is a sure sign of a loser.

Also as others say you need a red hot site yourself and to make money probably need to raise the bar from pitching BandB's..though no offence to BandB owners.

Get trained in sales and then,maybe, start making an income.

Why am I in the firing line? I have not felt rejected, I'm just genuinely gutted for the lady. I don't target B&B's, in fact I don't have a B&B client.

I only called her on request or I would never have even seen her site.

I don't need training, to truly sell something like yourself (i.e. ones services), you need to believe in what you are selling, that way you cannot sell something which you cannot do. Do this and you'll quickly get branded a cowboy! I back myself and my capabilities and would never take on anything I couldn't do.

When it comes to sales I had a telesales job where the product was clearly a con, I didn't like it and didn't believe in it. There were sales reps that were clearly making money within the company, but the cost to small businesses was severe, and in some cases put them out of business.

 

[captaincloser]

Cut your reply out and pin it on the wall and have another look at it in 20 years time ! You will laugh.

Right now you need to get out more ! Its a big, ugly world.

 

[captaincloser]

Its incredibly easy to justify oneself on here but the reality is very different in business. Sales is tough and not for the faint hearted who justify themselves by saying everyone else is a con man. How long were you in the job-honestly ?

You didnt make money but you stayed there watching con men instead of leaving immediately? Naughty.

 

[arfurd]

Cut your reply out and pin it on the wall and have another look at it in 20 years time ! You will laugh.

Right now you need to get out more ! Its a big, ugly world.

Why will I laugh?

 

[captaincloser]

Why will I laugh?

If you knew that today you wouldnt need to pin it on the wall.

 

[arfurd]

If you knew that today you wouldnt need to pin it on the wall.

So you haven't a clue either then?

 

[Dave Kinnel]

So you haven't a clue either then?

Arfurd, there isn't one business that does not involve sales. Therefore you have no choice but to hone your sales skills if you wish to succeed. Even with word of mouth your going to have to give the sales pitch eventually, work won't just be handed to you on plate.

And as many others have said, rejection is all part of it. Eventually though it won't bother you in the slightest.

Or employ a sales person while you just get on with the web design, although this will give you little control over the direction of the business and your probably better suited to being an employee and doing what you enjoy with the pressure of self-employment.

You simply can't dismiss sales as unnecessary