Business losing focus?

[Sheppard Digital]

Hi All,

I started my own business back in 2006, since then I've worked on my own and with a business partner(that business didn't work out). I've been working for myself again now for 4 years.

Primarily I used to build websites for businesses, but as time went on I realised I didn't like dealing directly with clients that much, and that the skills required to make a website successful were getting more and more(designer/developer/seo/marketing/social networking). One person just can't specialise in all of those things.

So I made the decision to stick with web development and provide web development outsourcing services. Over the years business has been ok, it's made enough money to pay me and have an apprentice, but to be honest, things could be better. We've got four main clients who continue to send us work, and this keeps us going. We're doing stuff from email newsletters, websites through to web applications and API's for mobile apps.

Because of the work we do, I decided to build a content management system of our own, that we could easily tailor to each client and brand it to match their business. The clients that are using it are very happy with and we get some really good feedback.

I've always wanted to get into making our own web applications/products to, as I'd love us not to be building websites forever. So we've built a couple, one is a simple Learning Management System and the other is Lead Management System (which we've just built). The problem is, neither of these are currently making us any money! and I'm finding promoting them difficult, we can get the visitors but we just can't get the signups.

Then I'd like us to concentrate on building web applications, and be specialists in building web software. But again, it's not something we make a great deal of money from at the minute, and we'd end up having to deal directly with clients, which is something I don't really like doing, but maybe I should.

I also hate sales/cold calling. I just lack the confidence to approach people.

Now, the problem, I feel like the business has it's fingers in too many pies and doesn't know what it wants to be. 95% of our income is from web development outsourcing, but I'm struggling to find new clients due to the fact many are already using freelancers, other companies or have their own developers in-house.

We have a website for the main business which is a single page and about two years out of date. I'm in the process of trying to redesign it and add more content, but at the same time we also have good domain name for web application development, so I keep thinking we should put a site under that for just web application development, and then we have the software we'd developed which each have their own website, as well as the CMS having it's own website too.

I feel we're losing focus. I want the business to concentrate on doing something that has legs, something that the business can expand in.

My head says stick with web development outsourcing, but on the flip side, if we lose an existing client I feel we'll struggle to find a client to replace them. The clients using us at the minute are mainly small designers/marketing consultants as our service allows them to offer their clients websites under their own brand. Larger agencies are not really going to use us a they have their own staff.

We've put a lot of time into our CMS, which like I say gets good feedback, but at the minute how it works is the client provides a PSD, we create the HTML and then integrate it into the CMS and provide the client with login details. So really the CMS is for people that don't do websites, its not a directly replacement for something like wordpress as you can't create you're own templates, its done by us.

I'm hoping for some suggestions/ideas of how I can solve this dilema?

I forgot to mention, the lead management system we've developed is aimed at small businesses and I really think it's dead easy to use in comparison to some of the more well known systems. The site is getting about 100 visitors a week or so for the past 3 weeks, but we've only had 4 people sign up to use it, even though we've been offering it for free as we want some feedback on how to improve it.

 

[Socio South West]

As you write you are clearly in love with what you do.... You have to decide whether you are a web developer or a businessman - and it sounds like the former is the case. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be in business, but that you need to have the right team around you for it to run to suit yourself which may not mean that its for maximum reward.

If you want product specialisation, you have to work out what is going to keep you in bread and butter and probably keep ploughing the same relatively lonely sounding furrow that you are at the moment.

Your CMS system sounds like it has taken a fair bit of development, and stands as a product for which there is a fair bit of demand in terms of bespoke systems that you should be able to develop quite quickly for clients....

BUT...... You acknowledge that you don't enjoy the customer interface - if you want the business to develop commercially, then employment of someone who does enjoy that side of the business is the logical thing to do. I would see taking on the opposite of yourself (Someone who enjoys the customer interface more than the web development side) as the ideal solution to make that work.

However, I would caution about taking someone very sales orientated on, as you could end up with a flood of work very quickly which would cause you more problems than its worth - take the cautious approach, and either someone who offers skills on the development side selling part time, or someone selling a couple of days a week, and see how it goes.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

As you write you are clearly in love with what you do.... You have to decide whether you are a web developer or a businessman - and it sounds like the former is the case. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be in business, but that you need to have the right team around you for it to run to suit yourself which may not mean that its for maximum reward.

If you want product specialisation, you have to work out what is going to keep you in bread and butter and probably keep ploughing the same relatively lonely sounding furrow that you are at the moment.

Your CMS system sounds like it has taken a fair bit of development, and stands as a product for which there is a fair bit of demand in terms of bespoke systems that you should be able to develop quite quickly for clients....

BUT...... You acknowledge that you don't enjoy the customer interface - if you want the business to develop commercially, then employment of someone who does enjoy that side of the business is the logical thing to do. I would see taking on the opposite of yourself (Someone who enjoys the customer interface more than the web development side) as the ideal solution to make that work.

However, I would caution about taking someone very sales orientated on, as you could end up with a flood of work very quickly which would cause you more problems than its worth - take the cautious approach, and either someone who offers skills on the development side selling part time, or someone selling a couple of days a week, and see how it goes.

That's very helpful and makes sense.

Taking someone on part-time would be the obvious choice, but I'm worried about the costs involved, especially to start off with, as the business doesn't have a great deal of money. Obviously once work starts coming in the business will be rewarded.

 

[Psl]

What is the link for your Lead management system?

if you can't post the link then PM it please.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Sadly as I've not made 30 posts yet I can't post a link. If you search google for "opportunity log lead management system" it should be the first natural result in the list.

I'm making some changes to the website later today to try and increase conversion rates, a bit trial an error.

The system was developed because we had a number of clients who had tried the more well known CRM systems but found they were way overcomplicated for what they wanted to do. We ended up building a CRM module into our Content Management System and our clients used that. They were more than happy with it so we decided to go ahead and develop a really straightforward and simple lead management system without all the complications.

We only finished it about 2-3 weeks ago, we've had 4 people signup to use it so far.

At the minute we're really looking for feedback.

 

[Psl]

Sadly as I've not made 30 posts yet I can't post a link. If you search google for "opportunity log lead management system" it should be the first natural result in the list.

I'm making some changes to the website later today to try and increase conversion rates, a bit trial an error.

The system was developed because we had a number of clients who had tried the more well known CRM systems but found they were way overcomplicated for what they wanted to do. We ended up building a CRM module into our Content Management System and our clients used that. They were more than happy with it so we decided to go ahead and develop a really straightforward and simple lead management system without all the complications.

We only finished it about 2-3 weeks ago, we've had 4 people signup to use it so far.

At the minute we're really looking for feedback.

Thanks.

Is this the right site? http://www.opportunitylog.co.uk/

 

[Psl]

Sorry silly me, your name is on the site:redface:

Note to self: clean glasses.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Thanks.

Is this the right site?

Yes, that's correct.

 

[Psl]

On your site, why do all the info panels just scroll and why can't I just control when and what info about the system I want to see, i.e. click on a section and it opens in a new window?

 

[Sheppard Digital]

On your site, why do all the info panels just scroll and why can't I just control when and what info about the system I want to see, i.e. click on a section and it opens in a new window?

That's something I'm working on today.

I'm changing it so each feature is listed down the page with an image and short description about it.

 

[Psl]

That's something I'm working on today.

I'm changing it so each feature is listed down the page with an image and short description about it.

Great, I will pop back later and have a look.

 

[japancool]

Sheppard Digital,

Have you thought about partnering with someone who will take your system out into a wider market? Approach someone like a domain registrar who offers e-commerce, and see if they're interested in offering your service as part of their packages.

One thing I will say about opportunity management though is that, although it's all useful to an extent on its own, I think it needs to go beyond opportunity management to be really attractive. From experience of what small businesses want is a CRM system that goes beyond just managing sales opportunities. It needs to be suitable to use once the lead progresses to becoming a client.

If I have to shift data out of your system into another system once the sale is closed, I might as well just use the other system to start with.

 

[Gecko001]

Sheppard Digital,

I have had a look at your website. What you do is impressive going by the website. Very impressive.

Are those questions you ask of potential clients working? I will say no more.

 

[TelesMedia]

Hi,

I disagree with Socia. I think you are more designer/developer than a businessman. You say you dont like the speaking with clients etc or creating new business so it sounds like you excel infront of the computer screen.

Do you have money in the pot to get a business development manager on board and start canvassing your business to potential clients ?

You can have best product in the world but its useless unless you get it out there. Sounds like you need a salesman to me.

 

[TelesMedia]

Shame you are not london based. would love to get involved with your strategy. Just one thing for example.........get icons for your social networks, click facebook and you have 5 likes and last post was 2011. Makes the icon a bit pointless and isnt a great signal to new clients.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Sheppard Digital,

Have you thought about partnering with someone who will take your system out into a wider market? Approach someone like a domain registrar who offers e-commerce, and see if they're interested in offering your service as part of their packages.

One thing I will say about opportunity management though is that, although it's all useful to an extent on its own, I think it needs to go beyond opportunity management to be really attractive. From experience of what small businesses want is a CRM system that goes beyond just managing sales opportunities. It needs to be suitable to use once the lead progresses to becoming a client.

If I have to shift data out of your system into another system once the sale is closed, I might as well just use the other system to start with.

This has been mentioned to me by a client of ours who tried the system out. Luckily, when I built the system I created it so that when you create a lead it actually creates both a lead and a contact, meaning the database supports the ability for us to add a contacts section and allow you to upload files/post comments and create alerts for contacts as well as leads. It's just something I've not got around to do yet, I guess I wanted to get some feedback on the system as it stands at the moment.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Hi,

I disagree with Socia. I think you are more designer/developer than a businessman. You say you dont like the speaking with clients etc or creating new business so it sounds like you excel infront of the computer screen.

Do you have money in the pot to get a business development manager on board and start canvassing your business to potential clients ?

You can have best product in the world but its useless unless you get it out there. Sounds like you need a salesman to me.

we recently invested some money into developing the website for our content management system service, and we're waiting for the delivery of some promotional material which we're going to send out to local marketing agencies. We got the content re-written and a little SEO done too.

If anyone would like to take a look at the website, search Google for "cms for agencies" and it's about the 3rd natural result down.

We have a little money in the business, but not a great deal.

 

[garyk]

I agree with japancool. I think its use *may* be limited because it only does lead management and nothing beyond this when a CRM system does lead management and more.

It could be that you look at the CRM vendors on the market who

a) Have an API so you can integrate your offering
b) Have a weak feature set with regards to lead management

That way you can interop with an existing platform and get them to promote/raise the proflle of your own offering. One thing I have learned this year is that its way easier to produce something and promote/sell it on an existing platform rather than try and sell your own platform.

You could also look at the SaaS accounting vendors, like Kashflow as it maybe some clients just need lead->customer rather than a crm (lead->opportunity->propspect->customer).

I'm curious as to why you chose to build your own CMS rather than just add value to an existing solution which would have saved bags of time and momney?

Gary

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Sheppard Digital,

I have had a look at your website. What you do is impressive going by the website. Very impressive.

Are those questions you ask of potential clients working? I will say no more.

I'm actually in the middle of re-developing our main website, our current site is about two year old.

But yes, I agree, our existing site does absolutely nothing to attract new clients.

One of our biggest issues is that what we do seems to be rarely searched for on Google. I remember a while ago checking and the number of people in the UK searching for our main keywords was very low.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I agree with japancool. I think its use *may* be limited because it only does lead management and nothing beyond this when a CRM system does lead management and more.

It could be that you look at the CRM vendors on the market who

a) Have an API so you can integrate your offering
b) Have a weak feature set with regards to lead management

That way you can interop with an existing platform and get them to promote/raise the proflle of your own offering. One thing I have learned this year is that its way easier to produce something and promote/sell it on an existing platform rather than try and sell your own platform.

You could also look at the SaaS accounting vendors, like Kashflow as it maybe some clients just need lead->customer rather than a crm (lead->opportunity->propspect->customer).

I'm curious as to why you chose to build your own CMS rather than just add value to an existing solution which would have saved bags of time and momney?

Gary

This is a question we get asked a lot. I wanted something that we'd built from the ground up, it allows me to fully understand how the system works and it gives us the added benefit that no matter what a client wants we can achieve it and we'd know exactly how to do it.

The clients we had at the time wanted a branded CMS as it made their organisations look bigger than what they were.

We tried using various opensource systems in the past, but found the usability of the backends to be not that great. Having our own CMS allows us to control how everything is done, and should a client want something to work differently we can do that too.

I've never been a fan of things like wordpress, I don't like the idea that almost every agency is churning out work based on the same system, I don't feel there's much differentiation, although there may be, maybe I just don't see it.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Going back to Opportunity Log.

I'm not sure if anyone has logged in and taken a look?

Currently when viewing a lead you can upload files, add comments and alerts. To make the system more usable, would it be sufficient enough if I add a 'Contacts' section where the screen looks just like the Lead screen, so with a contact you can also upload files, comments and alerts?

 

[TelesMedia]

Have you emailed lots of businesses about the product ?

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Have you emailed lots of businesses about the product ?

I've only sent out about a handful of emails (maybe 30) and I've got a Google adwords campaign going.

Ideally I was initially looking for a handful of businesses to use the system and provide feedback before we really started to push it.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I've been having a think about OpLog, and rather then making it a fully fledged CRM I think I'd rather make a few amendments and aim it at people who want to simply track website enquiries.

What I'd plan to do is provide a small snippet of code which people place on their enquiry form, that's it. The form data is submitted to OpLog and it will automatically generate a lead and create any required custom fields in order to store the data from the form. This makes setup really easy as there's no messing about, OpLog will look at the fields you have on the form and do whatever it needs to.

It means each time a form is submitted, rather than just receiving an email, which is normally what most web forms do, the user will be able to view all submissions via OpLog, and assign a status to them or assign them to someone within the company.

I believe there are plenty of small businesses out there that don't have a need for a full on CRM, but would love some way of easily (and cheaply) tracking enquiries from their website.

If I do this, I believe that I need to re-work the website a little and make more reference to the fact that it's designed to collect form data and make it easy to track and manage, rather than being a lead management system. Although you will also be able to create leads manually, so it could be used for that too.

 

[Metalfrogboss]

My advice, having analysed the site your're talking about, is to start pushing traffic to it to see what your viewers like, before you spend any more time on changes to it. You could (with resepct) end up being a busy fool making changes nobody likes, Shaun.
This is something we see all the time, and which can lead to utter frustration.
get more visitors to your site and get their feedback and you will surely get more information about how to develop your site.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

My advice, having analysed the site your're talking about, is to start pushing traffic to it to see what your viewers like, before you spend any more time on changes to it. You could (with resepct) end up being a busy fool making changes nobody likes, Shaun.
This is something we see all the time, and which can lead to utter frustration.
get more visitors to your site and get their feedback and you will surely get more information about how to develop your site.

It's had almost 300 visitors in the last 3 weeks, so far I've had 6 people sign up and only one of those is actually using it and providing feedback.

Because I'm using adwords to drive the traffic to it, it's costing me £39 per hundred visitors ( I probably need to look at the adwords accounts and filter out some keywords ).

 

[Metalfrogboss]

It's had almost 300 visitors in the last 3 weeks, so far I've had 6 people sign up and only one of those is actually using it and providing feedback.

Because I'm using adwords to drive the traffic to it, it's costing me £39 per hundred visitors ( I probably need to look at the adwords accounts and filter out some keywords ).

That's not actually a great deal though, and looking at your site mertrics it appears that the average visitor only looks at one page per visit. It's not good enough to drive traffic, or even get page 1 positions, you have to convert visitors to enhance your reputation online. Equally you have no value (as a domain) around the Internet.
Not a great advocate of adwords, but I do run some for clients. I would ensure that you are creating negative keywords, look at your click through rate, study how this converts - using a package like Adobe Omniture, and see what value you are actually getting from them. Try to reduce cost and increase revenue. Adwords, like all online is about common sense, coupled with marketing nouse, understanding of user patterns, and trends. Get this right (and believe me this takes years) and you might crack it.
Hope that helps

 

[JonathanSEO]

The website does a very poor job of selling the product.

You can't do site reviews when not a full member though.

But why do you 5 fields to signup?? Too many, you only 1 or 2 max - Name & Email. Send me an auto generated password.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

Hi Shaun,

I've just signed up for your service and later tonight I will play around a bit.
I like the design of the website as well as the user interface of the software itself. Well done!

I will write some further comments once I tested the software, but just a few points now:

- As mentioned before there are businessmen, there are developers and there are people who can do both. You are clearly number 2 or 3. It doesn't mean that you can't do business if you don't like cold calling people.

- You mentioned somewhere in this thread that you want to change the system that it will integrate with your customers' contact form. What do other websites which offer contact forms do? Do they have their own opportunity/lead management system? Maybe you could offer your customers to create their own contact forms with the help of your software too? Also, be sure to make it as simple as possible to your customers to add this snippet to their contact form as people generally speaking don't have a lot of web development knowledge.

- If I understand it right the idea of hiring a business dev person isn't the best as your finance resources are limited

- Maybe a partnership in terms of putting opportunitylog.co.uk into a new company and doing a 50/50 joint venture with someone who is taking over the business/customer/marketing part of the company makes sense?

- Try to get as much beta testers who give you feedback as possible!


Have a great evening,
Uwe

 

[Sheppard Digital]

The website does a very poor job of selling the product.

You can't do site reviews when not a full member though.

But why do you 5 fields to signup?? Too many, you only 1 or 2 max - Name & Email. Send me an auto generated password.

I've just purchased full membership, I'd appreciate any comments on how to get the site to sell the product more.

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Hi Shaun,

I've just signed up for your service and later tonight I will play around a bit.
I like the design of the website as well as the user interface of the software itself. Well done!

I will write some further comments once I tested the software, but just a few points now:

- As mentioned before there are businessmen, there are developers and there are people who can do both. You are clearly number 2 or 3. It doesn't mean that you can't do business if you don't like cold calling people.

- You mentioned somewhere in this thread that you want to change the system that it will integrate with your customers' contact form. What do other websites which offer contact forms do? Do they have their own opportunity/lead management system? Maybe you could offer your customers to create their own contact forms with the help of your software too? Also, be sure to make it as simple as possible to your customers to add this snippet to their contact form as people generally speaking don't have a lot of web development knowledge.

- If I understand it right the idea of hiring a business dev person isn't the best as your finance resources are limited

- Maybe a partnership in terms of putting opportunitylog.co.uk into a new company and doing a 50/50 joint venture with someone who is taking over the business/customer/marketing part of the company makes sense?

- Try to get as much beta testers who give you feedback as possible!


Have a great evening,
Uwe

Thanks for your comments.

Regarding collecting data from peoples sites. I've already created some code that will accept data from ANY form with any amount of fields, and using the field names it will create a kind of dynamic database and store the form data. It will let you view all your collected data in a table and click to view more information. It wouldn't be too difficult to incorporate this into Opportunity Log.

I see a user adding this to their forms as being as simple as pasting in one line of code, and I'll create a script which intercepts the form submit action, send the data to opportunity log and then continue with the form submission as usual.

I see this as a good feature because it means the application can accept data from any form without any configuration, although we would provide the ability for the user to edit the labels of fields once the system has received the first form submission.

I'm going to leave that feature for the time, being, but something I'd certainly like to integrate later, but first I need feedback on the system so far.

 

[gary brown]

Hi Sheppard Digital,

Can you send me a pm with a link to your site.

thanks

Gary

 

[Sheppard Digital]

Hi Sheppard Digital,

Can you send me a pm with a link to your site.

thanks

Gary

Hi Gary,

I'll drop you a PM too, but the site is http://www.opportunitylog.co.uk

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I've had a quick look at the analytics information and to my shock 72% of visitors to the site are from mobile devices, which could be having an affect. The site isn't responsive, and if people are on a mobile device they may be expecting the application itself to be responsive and more usable on mobile devices!

Something I need to look at.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

I've had a quick look at the analytics information and to my shock 72% of visitors to the site are from mobile devices, which could be having an affect. The site isn't responsive, and if people are on a mobile device they may be expecting the application itself to be responsive and more usable on mobile devices!

Something I need to look at.

How many visitors do you have per day? Looking at your statistics only makes sense once you have a representative amount of visitors per day in my opinion.

Best,
Uwe

 

[Sheppard Digital]

How many visitors do you have per day? Looking at your statistics only makes sense once you have a representative amount of visitors per day in my opinion.

Best,
Uwe

This week we're averaging 18.5 visitors per day.

The bounce rate is 90% too, so people are visiting the site and clicking straight off it, and we're paying about 38p per visitor at the minute.

Although found that the signup form doesn't work on Internet Explorer, although visitors using that browser only account for 7% so far. I'll have to have a look at the IE issue this afternoon, but the strange thing is IE isn't kicking up any errors. I hate IE!

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

This week we're averaging 18.5 visitors per day.

The bounce rate is 90% too, so people are visiting the site and clicking straight off it, and we're paying about 38p per visitor at the minute.

Although found that the signup form doesn't work on Internet Explorer, although visitors using that browser only account for 7% so far. I'll have to have a look at the IE issue this afternoon, but the strange thing is IE isn't kicking up any errors. I hate IE!

I guess the bounce rate is so high because you only have one page.

If I remember right every visitor which leaves the page without clicking on a second page is a bounce?? So I wouldn't worry too much about that at the moment.

However, I would change your home page as it isn't "sales friendly".


EDIT: What's the problem with IE? Seems to look fine on my IE...

Best,
Uwe

 

[Sheppard Digital]

I guess the bounce rate is so high because you only have one page.

If I remember right every visitor which leaves the page without clicking on a second page is a bounce?? So I wouldn't worry too much about that at the moment.

However, I would change your home page as it isn't "sales friendly".

Best,
Uwe

Do you have any suggestions to improve the homepage?

I did a little brainstorming this morning and I've figured I need to talk more about how the system saves you time, keeps you organised, and helps increase conversions (talking about the benefits rather than the features), everything needs to come back to these points I think.

 

[Uwe (Invoiceberry)]

Do you have any suggestions to improve the homepage?

I did a little brainstorming this morning and I've figured I need to talk more about how the system saves you time, keeps you organised, and helps increase conversions (talking about the benefits rather than the features), everything needs to come back to these points I think.

Exactly! Features are cool, but benefits sell.

 

[Gecko001]

This week we're averaging 18.5 visitors per day.

The bounce rate is 90% too, so people are visiting the site and clicking straight off it, and we're paying about 38p per visitor at the minute.

Although found that the signup form doesn't work on Internet Explorer, although visitors using that browser only account for 7% so far. I'll have to have a look at the IE issue this afternoon, but the strange thing is IE isn't kicking up any errors. I hate IE!

I am amazed at this. So that means when I found your website through Google, Google got 38p? If this is correct, it is crazy.