23
Mar
07

Feedback Request – My Web Design Company

By Joshua Steimle 13 Comments Categories: Web Design

MWI turns away approximately 75% or more of the web design requests we receive through our RFP form due to pricing issues. Since MWI’s pricing for a static, basic, corporate site starts at $15K (and we’ll probably raise it to $20K soon) that puts us out of reach of all but those clients with the deep pockets, which is precisely how we want it. However, it also means we leave a lot of money on the table, and so I present to you My Web Design Company.

my web design company


In the past we’ve referred clients to other companies and individuals whose pricing might be more in line with the folks we reject, but that hasn’t been very lucrative for us. In fact, I don’t think any of the people we refer business to has landed a single deal we’ve passed them. They’re all capable people who receive these leads from us, but some of them are busy, some of them really aren’t much less expensive than we are, and for other reasons unknown to me they simple don’t land the deals. But I think I could land a fair amount of them if I had a slightly different business model, and so I’m going to experiment with launching a lower-end brand of web design that locks clients into certain rules of engagement, therefore lowering my risk, but still giving them the potential to get some good design at a lower price.

My question to you, gentle blog reader, is what you think of the initial design and the way I’m marketing it based on the homepage concept above (you can click on it to see it full size). I know, it’s not very flashy, but I’m not sure I want it to be. I just want it to be simple and straightforward and tell people what we’re about. Any feedback would be appreciated.

FYI, the way I’ll be driving people to this site, other than the standard SEO methods and such, is that when someone submits the MWI RFP form if they’ve checked that they’re interested in web design but they have specified their budget as being less than $10K then it’s going to give them a screen saying “MWI’s pricing for web design starts at $X, it looks like you might be looking for something in a lower price range, in which case we would recommend My Web Design Company” and then they can either proceed with their RFP to MWI or cancel and go to My Web Design Company’s website.

And for those of you who I’ve been sending leads to in the past, this doesn’t mean I don’t want to work with you, it just means I’m going to do more of the work landing the deals. While I probably will start out doing most of the work myself, I hope I can end up outsourcing most of it.

And can you believe the domain mywebdesigncompany.com was available as of yesterday prior to me buying it? I mean, it’s not the greatest, but considering there are about 20,000 searches per month for “web design company” I’m really surprised it was still there.

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  • Doug Bradshaw

    This looks like a nice way to go if you know what you need or want.

    It seems to me that the people who are going to be asking for a cheap website may not know what they need. If that is the case then this site may be too you oriented and not enough them oriented.

  • http://crowelladv.com Jeremy Votaw

    I love the idea for you. I am guessing you have been following logo-works’ process on this. I would make the suggestion of buying a couple logo-works packages to see exactly what the process is like – and where you can differentiate…. or out-market.

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    The thing I like about Logoworks is that people are buying a product rather than a service. It doesn’t change what you get in the end so much, but it changes the process and the way the relationship is viewed. One of the problems MWI had in the past was that we were charging Logoworks prices for high-end, custom work, and that’s not sustainable. If the price is low, the only way to make any real money is to structure the process in such a way that it’s locked down and you tell people “This is what you get at the end, this is the process, and you pay 100% up front. If you don’t like it, go shop somewhere else.” Of course you don’t say it that way, but you get what I’m saying. That’s what anyone who markets a product is doing, in essence.

  • http://splitbamboo@gmail.com David

    I got my first ecommerce site done by a professional designer for $650. She called it something like web-in-a-box. It worked for me.

    How about a subscription price?

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    Yeah, even this will be steep for some budgets. But what I’ve seen with the people contacting us is that most of them would go with us if we were to take our prices down to $5K. I figure I’ll take them a little lower, put some conditions on the process/results, and then we’ll see if that works for them while still working for me.

    I don’t see the logic of the subscription because it essentially turns into financing. It doesn’t match what’s being provided. If there is no ongoing service then why would there be an ongoing fee? And if there’s a lot of work up front, why wouldn’t the customer pay for it up front? The only answer is if the work is being financed, and I don’t want to get into the lending business, because then you’re also in the business of trying to collect from people who don’t pay. For me it’s going to be 100% up front payment.

  • http://smoothharold.com Blake Snow

    Looks good, Josh. Ditch the unecissary tabs so as to optimize your conversion goals. Change “Welcome” to “How it works” and include the copy you aldready have there. Then you Just need a “portfolio”. Lose the other four tabs but make those pages available somewhere else for SEO purposes, etc. You could also put a “Also looking for hosting or search engine optimization link” at the bottom of every page.

  • Jim Durant

    Looks good… I’ll probably steal the design when it’s up.

  • http://www.split-bamboo.com David / Headwaters Bamboo

    What about other services? “partnership” with logoworks, all that backend ecommerce stuff that doesn’t make any sense to a normal person, photography (stock and otherwise), other marketing beyond SEO, call center management, etc.

    None of these would have to be your services but rather contracted with other providers and bundled for the customers convenience.

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    I appreciate the suggestion but I want to keep it simple and straightforward and keep my management overhead minimal. I can crank out simple static websites all day, but as soon as ecommerce or any programming gets involved then it just gets too messy.

  • http://www.split-bamboo.com David / Headwaters Bamboo

    I can understand your point, but I am looking at this from the standpoint of a small businessman that is responsible for product, operations, sales, marketing, finance, and whatever else you throw at me. And the website aspect is NOT my forte (as you can see from what I’ve got).

    It sounds to me like you are after a different demographic that my bootstrap experience, and yet the way I look at your sample page, it looks like it is talking to me…

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    It’s just a matter of focus. At some point you have to say “This is what we do and this is what we do not do.” Ecommerce is an entirely different beast than designing and building static sites. It might not seem like it to some clients, but from a production standpoint you have to involve entirely different people, partners, and/or technologies.

    The way I look at it the scenario is probably like this… My bandwidth allows me to produce 10 static websites per month at a price of $3,000 apiece or 5 websites with ecommerce at a price of $5,000 per month. While it is generally easier to work with a smaller number of clients, the tradeoff would be that 1) I wouldn’t be able to make as much money, 2) my business would be complicated substantially by having to manage partnerships or arrangements with an entirely new set of contractors in order to provide ecommerce services, therefore increasing the risk of failure on any given project, which would lead to unsatisfied clients which isn’t good for anyone.

    On the other hand, if I only focus on static websites there is more than enough demand to keep things busy, I can make more money, and I’m focusing on what I’m good at, therefore increasing the chance of success with my clients, and happy client refer more clients.

    To me, offering ecommerce seems to present a big cost without much benefit. Plus of the people who contact us I would guess one in a hundred is interested in ecommerce anyway.

  • http://www.skrame.com Seth

    While checking out this site (mywebdesigncompany.com) and the portfolio, I stopped to consider the clients that I’ve worked with. None have offered good images to me. They usually tell me to “find something online” or give me a low-quality image.

    Your sites on the other hand, always seem to have diverse, smiling business people. Are these images supplied or stock? If stock, can you recommend some stock photograph suppliers? The only sites I’m working on now are for non-profits (both are for free in my spare time), so obviously money is a concern. I’ve looked at a few, and I can’t ask my church to drop $350 on an image.

    ps – If anyone actually looks at my site – I’ve taken some time off from web design, so if my site seems ugly and table-based and inaccessible,… well, it is. Since designing i I’ve learned a lot about CSS and standards and therefore I am redesigning. Hopefully no one visits until after my new design is up.

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle