Business losing focus?

[JonathanSEO]

This site needs so much work. I think it requires the OP to do a lot of reading about conversion optimisation, selling products online etc.

Need a firm grasp first of the principles first otherwise on a forum you're going to get a handful of changes / suggestions that will be useful but won't help so much.

My biggest bug bears with the site are:

Design not great.

No real value proposition.

Too many sign up fields for the form.

Doesn't showcase the product that well.

No social proof.

No real credibility - address, telephone number, contact form, support. Etc etc.

I would potentially use something like this, but right now Trello is better when I compare the too.

I think it will struggle to get sign ups in the existing form. May as well cancel PPC till it's improved.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

This site needs so much work. I think it requires the OP to do a lot of reading about conversion optimisation, selling products online etc.

Need a firm grasp first of the principles first otherwise on a forum you're going to get a handful of changes / suggestions that will be useful but won't help so much.

My biggest bug bears with the site are:

Design not great.

No real value proposition.

Too many sign up fields for the form.

Doesn't showcase the product that well.

No social proof.

No real credibility - address, telephone number, contact form, support. Etc etc.

I would potentially use something like this, but right now Trello is better when I compare the too.

I think it will struggle to get sign ups in the existing form. May as well cancel PPC till it's improved.

Whilst I agree with most of what you say there, and I will cancel the PPC and will start the site right from the beginning with a more sales oriented approach. The topic of there being too many form fields I kind of agree with but don't.

Company: We need this as it's used to create the URL you would use the access the application i.e. yourcompany.opportunitylog.co.uk
Firstname and Surname: We need this to be able to create you a user on Opportunity Log, because even as an admin you are able to assign leads to yourself, which you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't have a firstname and surname.
Email address: We need this as its what you use to login
Password: I could remove this and have an auto-generated password, I'm just against them because I like to create my own so I can remember them.

So realistically I can only reduce the number of fields from 5-4, unless I remove the firstname and surname and force the user to enter them upon first login?

 

[JonathanSEO]

Whilst I agree with most of what you say there, and I will cancel the PPC and will start the site right from the beginning with a more sales oriented approach. The topic of there being too many form fields I kind of agree with but don't.

Company: We need this as it's used to create the URL you would use the access the application i.e. yourcompany.opportunitylog.co.uk
Firstname and Surname: We need this to be able to create you a user on Opportunity Log, because even as an admin you are able to assign leads to yourself, which you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't have a firstname and surname.
Email address: We need this as its what you use to login
Password: I could remove this and have an auto-generated password, I'm just against them because I like to create my own so I can remember them.

So realistically I can only reduce the number of fields from 5-4, unless I remove the firstname and surname and force the user to enter them upon first login?

Everyone of the fields has an easy workaround...

Company Name Field - Offer brandable URL as a later option. Look what Raven Tools do, you can setup your own custom domain name if you want later down the line.

https://raventools.com/create-account/

Firstname / Surname - should be just one field. Why make people make extra effort?

Password - get me to create it when I confirm my account...

And that's just the sign up form problems starter for 10

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Everyone of the fields has an easy workaround...

Company Name Field - Offer brandable URL as a later option. Look what Raven Tools do, you can setup your own custom domain name if you want later down the line.

https://raventools.com/create-account/

Firstname / Surname - should be just one field. Why make people make extra effort?

Password - get me to create it when I confirm my account...

And that's just the sign up form problems starter for 10

Sadly, I think we need to keep the company field. The system has been developed so that each account has it's own database. When you visit your unique URL the system uses the subdomain to determine which database it needs to connect to. Users for that account are stored in that database.

It's not easy for us to create a single login form which allows you to login without specifying a unique URL.

The way we've designed the application to work means that you can use your email address across multiple different instances.

I'm cancelling the adwords now, and I'm going to go back to the drawing board with the site and make some changes to the application.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

First name / Last name => Full name

Email => You need it

Password => I personally would keep it. I don't like auto-generated passwords. Also you don't want to wait for the email with your auto-generated password...

Company name => If you keep the system with the subdomains, then keep it too.

At the end of the day you would either have 4 form fields or 3 (if you don't offer the subdomain).

I wouldn't bother too much about it as that's not your main problem. So for starters just change firstname / lastname into full name.

But Jonathan is right, you should create some more pages in the future, including a contact form.

Best,
Uwe

 

[Sheppard Digital]

First name / Last name => Full name

Email => You need it

Password => I personally would keep it. I don't like auto-generated passwords. Also you don't want to wait for the email with your auto-generated password...

Company name => If you keep the system with the subdomains, then keep it too.

At the end of the day you would either have 4 form fields or 3 (if you don't offer the subdomain).

I wouldn't bother too much about it as that's not your main problem. So for starters just change firstname / lastname into full name.

But Jonathan is right, you should create some more pages in the future, including a contact form.

Best,
Uwe

Thanks.

I've stopped adwords.

I'll work on the site, but in the meantime I'd still love some feedback on the application itself.

 

[garyk]

Or what about integrating sign-in with google ID or facebook ID or OpenID?

That way its not another set of credentials to remember. I'd agree with Jonathan and in fact if you research tests done by those who do alot of conversion optimisation you will find that with each additional form field you are decreasing sign-ups.

You have to make it *as easy as* possible.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

Hi there,

Two more things in regards to the homepage before I take a closer look into the software itself.

1. Sign up process:

One of the best (if not THE best) SaaS company in the world (37signals) also uses 4 form fields: https://basecamp.com/

We even use 5 as we ask to re-type the password: http://www.invoiceberry.com/signup/free

2. Login / Sign up process
I think a lot of businesses are still not ready to log into their business-related software with their Facebook or Google ID. I assume that it would also change your entire back-end as a person can have more than one account/company registered on your website.

Will play around with the software later and get back to you...

Have a great evening everyone,
Uwe

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I know this thread has started to concentrate more on Opportunity Log, but I'd like to go back to the main question of the business losing focus.

I've taken a look at the figure for the work we've been doing so far this year, 49% of it has been providing websites to agencies using our agency branded cms, the other 51% has been doing API development, amendments to existing applications and building a couple of websites which are not typical websites (such as an event finder website).

So far we've concentrated on trying to advertise ourselves as doing web development outsourcing, which I suppose has been more or less correct, as none of the work we've done so far this year has been for any clients directly, always through someone else like an agency or mobile app development company.

In another thread, I've had some comments suggesting our hourly rate of £40 is too much for people looking to outsource development, so maybe we're targeting the wrong market completely.

Based on what I know now, and have researched, I'm wondering if we should take the business in a new direction. First would be to rework our current website and really push web application and mobile web application development, dealing with clients directly. This would allow us to keep our hourly rate possibly increase it at a later day. It would differentiate us a little from other businesses who provide web design and development, I'm not good at marketing so we'd keep away from that side of things.

We've already created a seperate website for our CMS, which targets agencies and designers who want to offer websites but don't have the skills in-house, so we'd keep that website running.

In the end we'd up with Sheppard Digital specialising in Web Application Development, especially since I love developing stuff! and then DigitalCMS which rather than being a product is actually a product combined with a collection of services such as PSD to HTML.

I think taking the business in this directly makes sense for us, as it seems to be what we're going now anyway, we've just not really clearly define our purpose.

Any comments?

oh, the final option for us would be to merge with one of our agency clients to create a new agency, but I got burnt in the past when I started a business up with someone else, so working with someone else isn't something I'd be keen to jump in an do.

 

[japancool]

Question - do you want to build products that provide you with income streams, or do you want to concentrate on bespoke contract work?

If the former, then you need to solve the fundamental problem of getting your product to market.

As for £40/hour being too much, I don't know about the mobile app development market, but, for example, in the Dynamics CRM bespoke development market, you'd expect to pay £600 a day as a bare minimum.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Question - do you want to build products that provide you with income streams, or do you want to concentrate on bespoke contract work?

I'd love at some point to have most of our income coming from our own products, but at the minute developing for other people is the bread and butter, we've got to keep that going as it's what's paying us.

With our own products, although we have to listen to customer feedback, in the end it's me that makes the decision about what goes into the product and what doesn't. When you're building products and applications for other people, even if something is a really bad idea it's the client who gets the final say. I've had it loads in the past where no matter how much you try to educate the client, they want what they want, the way they want it.

I suppose the question I need to ask now is, can we work on both opportunity log while trying to re-work the business at the same time? We have to do enough to keep the existing business ticking over.

Opportunity Log could be a complete failure, and it could be a long time before we build something that's successful, but in my opinion the OpLog application itself is well built and does in some way show what we can do, so it can be used to show potential clients what we can do in terms of application development, so it's not all a loss. Plus, you make mistakes to learn from them I suppose.

 

[japancool]

When you're building products and applications for other people, even if something is a really bad idea it's the client who gets the final say. I've had it loads in the past where no matter how much you try to educate the client, they want what they want, the way they want it.

Tell me about it!

I suppose the question I need to ask now is, can we work on both opportunity log while trying to re-work the business at the same time? We have to do enough to keep the existing business ticking over.

Opportunity Log could be a complete failure, and it could be a long time before we build something that's successful, but in my opinion the OpLog application itself is well built and does in some way show what we can do, so it can be used to show potential clients what we can do in terms of application development, so it's not all a loss. Plus, you make mistakes to learn from them I suppose.

I haven't had a chance to take a look at the application, but in principle, I think it's a good idea. Lots of small businesses need a method of managing a sales pipeline, but the question is, what is your USP? Compared to something like this:
http://www.zoho.com/crm/sales/opportunity-management.html

As I said earlier, I think you need to partner with someone to make the best use of the product you have, or target a market segment. Make a splash. If you're convinced about the value of your product, pick an industry and target it. Seems a shame to waste the effort you've already put into it.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Tell me about it!



I haven't had a chance to take a look at the application, but in principle, I think it's a good idea. Lots of small businesses need a method of managing a sales pipeline, but the question is, what is your USP? Compared to something like this:
http://www.zoho.com/crm/sales/opportunity-management.html

As I said earlier, I think you need to partner with someone to make the best use of the product you have, or target a market segment. Make a splash. If you're convinced about the value of your product, pick an industry and target it. Seems a shame to waste the effort you've already put into it.

I'm certainly going to go back to the drawing board in terms of the website itself, I've completely rushed the current site and not really thought about making the website 'sell' the application.

 

[japancool]

I'm certainly going to go back to the drawing board in terms of the website itself, I've completely rushed the current site and not really thought about making the website 'sell' the application.

That's not quite what I meant, I'll drop you a PM.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

I guess the £40/hour really depends. If you have direct clients who you need to somehow get, manage, meet, educate and in general spend a lot of time on, then you should be able to charge a lot more per hour/day.

However, if you work for an agency or small web designers who like to outsource their development needs, then I think £40/hour is a good price. Think about it that way. If you charge £40 an hour and need 20 hours to do the web development work, then the designer needs to charge his customer at least £800 for your work, without even making any money from your side of the business. This makes his web design quite expensive.

I guess it also really depends on the work you do. Some PSD to HTML work with a standardized CMS like Wordpress or Joomla isn't worth £40/hour for the web designer or his client.

In regards to the Opportunity Log application: I think what japancool means (and if that's the casd I agree with him) is that you should partner up with someone and share the responsibilities. You do the development work and your partner does the business/marketing work. That's normally the easiest way to get started.

Best,
Uwe

 

[japancool]

In regards to the Opportunity Log application: I think what japancool means (and if that's the casd I agree with him) is that you should partner up with someone and share the responsibilities. You do the development work and your partner does the business/marketing work. That's normally the easiest way to get started.

Yes, and I was thinking that the partner would be another company who develop complementary products that could integrate with the opportunity logging software or who sell into a marketplace that would benefit from it.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I guess the £40/hour really depends. If you have direct clients who you need to somehow get, manage, meet, educate and in general spend a lot of time on, then you should be able to charge a lot more per hour/day.

However, if you work for an agency or small web designers who like to outsource their development needs, then I think £40/hour is a good price. Think about it that way. If you charge £40 an hour and need 20 hours to do the web development work, then the designer needs to charge his customer at least £800 for your work, without even making any money from your side of the business. This makes his web design quite expensive.

I guess it also really depends on the work you do. Some PSD to HTML work with a standardized CMS like Wordpress or Joomla isn't worth £40/hour for the web designer or his client.

In regards to the Opportunity Log application: I think what japancool means (and if that's the casd I agree with him) is that you should partner up with someone and share the responsibilities. You do the development work and your partner does the business/marketing work. That's normally the easiest way to get started.

One of our clients charges about £50 an hour, which is only £10 more than us, but they make money on their marketing, design and add time for project management, then make £10 per hour on what we do. The biggest benefit is it helps the agency keep everything in-house and build their reputation. Once they get to a certain size they can then replace us with a in-house developer if they wanted to.

Best,
Uwe

To give you an example, we have a couple of clients who use us because without us they can't provide their clients with websites. They provide us with PSD files and for £478 we'll convert 2 html templates, integrate the HTML into our CMS and host the site for 12 months. Our clients are combining their design and marketing skills with our CMS/HTML service to provide their clients with a complete package. The few clients we have at the minute think that's great value.