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elitebiz
02-19-2009, 06:21 PM
I don't understand where I am going wrong with my business. I thought if you provide legitimate value you are supposed to succeed? I provide web design, pc repair, computer tutoring, computer training products etc. and as of now the only customers I'm getting are the ones buying my computer training videos and that's just not enough to pay the bills.

I want to expand more into web design and pc repair. I've been doing those two things for major companies for over 12 years. I've proven that I had the skills in these big companies and I know I'll be able to do this I have even offered free websites to people to build a public portfolio (since I cannot show anything I've done for companies I've worked for) but then I get ridiculous responses like "OH THIS IS A SCAM NO ONE MAKES WEBSITES FOR FREE I'M REPORTING YOU TO THE FBI!!!". If I try to charge anything for a website I get responses like "MY TEENAGE NEPHEW CAN MAKE ME A SITE FOR FREE!!!" or "I'M NOT PAYING THAT I'LL HIRE SOMEONE IN INDIA FOR $3 AN HOUR!!!". Oh and did I mention these are responses on the phone when people call the toll free number for my business?

I have seen similar web design businesses portfolios for my area where they are charging $500 - $3000 for static websites that I would have done for someone for free in a couple of hours. I just think to myself how did they get them to spend so much? It makes no sense to me. Then I see places like "Geek Squad" where at first I thought they only charged like $7 an hour to fix a computer but then I was surprised that they charge an insane amount and I would charge half of what they are charging. Yet of course people will go to them over me because they are located inside Best Buy. I have a friend who gets a lot of PC repair work and I'm a bit jealous because I have more qualifications than him overall in computers and computer science yet he is making $500 every weekend just doing this on the side. He doesn't even use a website or phone number or anything to get business.

Is there just no more room for more independent web developers? Has everything been outsourced to India for $3/hr? Does everyone know how to make a website and fix their computer themselves? How can I establish myself as a trustworthy computer products and services business and get people to know about me if I can't even give away high-quality services away for free? Traffic is my main issue I suppose and maybe building trust because I'm an unknown business. I've tried various PPC campaigns to no avail. Just seems like AdWords eats my money up.

The only thing I can think of now that might work is that I have an advantage that I'm in walking distance to a fairly major city. Should I walk up to businesses and try to give them a website for a discount or for free? What about cold calling businesses in the phone book that don't seem to have a website or is that not acceptable anymore?

I didn't post any links because I don't know if that's acceptable on this forum yet. Thank you for listening to this rant. Any advice would be appreciated.

Steve B
02-19-2009, 06:42 PM
Focus. Focus. Focus.

Decide what you want to do and focus on it. Most of owning a business like those comes down to marketing. Make yourself a student of marketing. Contributing to this forum is a good place to meet people that will help you out.

I've got to ask, did you really think the Geek Squad was charging 7$ per hour? You do know that minimum wage is over $5 right? Skilled repair people will get much more than minimum wage. Then, at a bare minimum, they have to pay worker's comp. insurance, FICA and other payroll related taxes and vehicle expenses. Plus, Best Buy would like to make a little profit too!

Dan Furman
02-19-2009, 07:08 PM
A few things:

You mention adwords... so you have a website. Can you post the link? I'd like to see it.

How much did you spend on adwords, and what kind of keywords / clicks did you get?

Computer repair is a dying field, unless you want to do it for larger companies. In my experience, it seems Geek Squad is WAY more a computer / home theater setup service that is sold at the point of sale than a repair service. With computers hitting $400, it makes almost no sense to pay to get them fixed.

As far as web design... well, like Steve said, you kind of need to focus - it seems like you want to be all things computers. That's hard to do.

Post your link - let's see how you are marketing yourself.

cocoy
02-19-2009, 07:15 PM
Just curious to know how many people are actually responding to your advertising. You said you have had some calls, but no customers reigned in?

SteveC
02-19-2009, 07:18 PM
You need to get serious and learn this lesson... the only person stopping you succeeding is yourself... stop being envious of others, stop blaming others and get up and do something.

And I’m sorry to be so blunt, but you need to hear what I have just said and you need to take it in, because the only person stopping you succeeding is you... no one else.
Now work out which of your lines of business you want to do, which out of all of them do you want to focus on?... now, concentrate primarily on this and not the others... this will allow people to associate you with on industry.. . Website design, PC repair... whatever.

Next... stop trying to undercut everyone and most certainly stop trying to give things away for free... your customer’s associate value with the price they pay for something, so if you give something away for free it has no value... and my experience shows that it is actually harder to give things away for free.

Next, get out and sell... you believe you are better than most out there... good now go sell yourself... in business it really doesn’t matter how good you are a website design or at fixing computers... the person that will design the most websites and fix the most computers is the person that knows how to sell... so you either need to learn how to sell or go get a job because you’ll never make it on your own.

Here is a link which might help you... this details how I basically sell websites:

Selling Websites - Cyber Aspect -dot- Com - Online Computer Magazine (http://www.cyber-aspect.com/features/feature_article~art~78.htm)

As to the market being saturated, well it is and it has been for many years... but the cream always rises to the top, so provided you are good at what you do and provided that you can sell, you should succeed.

And don’t worry about the recession, there have been many recessions and good businesses always survive and many businesses actually prosper, you just have to work a little harder than your competitors.

vangogh
02-19-2009, 07:19 PM
elitebiz I understand the frustration. When I first started I felt the same on many days. While I'm doing well in my business now it certainly wasn't the case in those first few months.

It's hard to know exactly where you might be going wrong, but I can offer a few thoughts.

First I'll echo Steve's focus, focus, focus, though emphasize it in a different way. Here's what you mentioned offering clients

web design
pc repair
computer tutoring
computer training products

While there's no question you could be skilled in all, I see different business there. Your typical web designer isn't offering pc repair, especially not at first. I'm sure there are some who did offer both, but it's more typical to see one or the other. It's quite possible that someone seeing everything you do might wonder if you're really skilled in all of them. You may be, but it's a likely question someone might ask.

Also as Steve pointed out business success comes down to marketing more than anything. You design websites. So do millions of other people. Why should someone choose you? You have to give people a compelling reason to choose you over your competition.

You could for example focus specifically on your local market. While it's true you can work for people living anywhere some people still prefer to work with someone locally. That cuts down on the competition quickly. Another approach would be to focus on a specific industry. Become the web designer for real estate agents or carpenters or photographers. Each industry has specific needs and by focusing on those needs you'll be able to serve that market better than the general web designer.

It's impossible to appeal to everyone. No matter what you do some people will never hire you through no fault of yours. When you try to be everything to everyone you make it harder on yourself to market your business. You'll find it's easier to define a narrower market and do everything to appeal to that specific market. That way you can differentiate yourself from other web designers and stand out for your particular market.

A small business has different needs than a larger business. A carpenter has different needs than a real estate agent. Etc.

As far as price is concerned, being the least expensive doesn't lead to more money. People buy based on value and they often associate a higher price with more value. If I told you two televisions were selling for $100 and $2000 respectively, which would you think is the better tv? Probably the $2,000 one though all we've mentioned is price. Most people will assume that you must be better if you're charging more. That doesn't mean you should be the highest priced person out there. Most people won't be able to afford the absolute best, but it does mean that cheaper isn't the way to success. The less you make in profit per sale, the more sales you need to make.

Based on what you're saying I think the first thing you might want to do is spend a night or two thinking about who your market really is. Think about your skills outside of web design and pc repair and who they might appeal to and look for ways you can use those other skills to differentiate yourself.

By adding value to your basic service you can charge a higher price, because not everyone else will be able to add that same value. If you're the web designer for the carpentry industry you're more valuable to every carpenter looking for a website. Sure you might not appeal to a doctor so much, but again you're not going to sell to everyone anyway. Be something special to a smaller group of people instead of just being like everyone else to everyone.

Know too that building a business takes time. No matter what you do, you probably won't succeed overnight. But you put yourself out there and you get a client. Then you get another and another. Over time a funny thing happens in that those clients start recommending you to people they know. In time you have a pretty good client list.

As far as posting links it depends on the link and why we think you might be posting it. If we think you're posting a link solely to market yourself then yeah, it's getting deleted. On the other hand if your posting a link to something that adds to the discussion it's perfectly fine. Many people here post links when it's appropriate.

One link you not only can add, but should add is in your signature. Set one up through your control panel and if you have a site do link to it. It's one way to start marketing yourself. If you post on the forum and help others, people will want to know more about you and they will click on the link in your signature.

Hope that helps.

billbenson
02-19-2009, 07:47 PM
If you are paying for adwords but not closing any sales, that says to me there is something wrong in your design, seo, or landing pages. If you have been doing corporate sites, they can be quite different than sites that sell services or products.

Post a link to your site so we can look at it.

Patrysha
02-19-2009, 08:31 PM
You've gotten some great input from everyone here so far.

The first thing that jumped out at me was your willingness to work for free.

The only things I've done for free are for myself or for very close personal friends who had businesses and who were willling to let me use them as guinea pigs after we'd already established a relationship. However, well they didn't pay me monetarily there were ways in which I've benefited (including discounts on their products and services, referrals, & testimonials). When you start out free it's very hard to establish your value later on.

In their minds, if you can do it for free why would they pay you or anyone else?

It's as hard (if not harder) to sell free as it is to sell a fee. After all, we've all been conditioned to believe "there is no such thing as a free lunch". When someone says free our defenses go up and we wonder, "what's the catch?"

Keep in mind when you are selling a website, you aren't *really* selling a website you are selling a powerful marketing tool that will represent their business and help them increase profits (well a site done well and with marketing in mind will do that). Establish value in terms they can understand and relate to.

Go for people who are already advertising in other media...they'll be easier to sell to than those who are trying to get by on word of mouth and reputation alone.

And to those who say my nephew (kid, neighbour, pet chimpanzee) can do that. Agree with them. Yes, anyone with computer skills can create a website, but it takes experience and expertise to create a website that produces results. And tell them when you're serious about getting a return on their investment and profiting from a website, here's my card...call me.

huggytree
02-19-2009, 09:00 PM
the web designer i chose does all the websites for the 2 local builder associations...they specialize in contractors..

im sure they gave the builder associations free websites in return for the publicity....they go to all the meetings and sponser some of them...they have a booth saying 'they are the associations web designer'

thats why i used them....they know their stuff.

you need to learn how to sell your product to your customers....first you need to figure out who your customers are...then target them somehow.

with my business my customers are 'the public' and 'contractors'...since the public is everyone and i have 200 other plumbers to compete with for that business i chose to go after 'contractors' as my main customer base...it was a fixed number of customers -500 of them.....i can call and mail over and over to 500 people...thats how im building my business....i dont really know how to advertise to 'the public'....every time i have tried it has failed.

kml9870
02-19-2009, 09:23 PM
There is great advice in this thread, I will just emphasize two points.

1) Decide which specialty you want to pursue. A lot of people have multiple skills. The way to succeed is to focus on one of them and be the best you can be at that one skill. You can offer other services to your established clients, but be known for your specialty and advertise your specialty. Chances are once you have gained them as clients for your chosen specialty, they will come to you for the other talents they know you have.

2) Choose who you want to market to. It is impossible to market to the population at large. Spend some time writing a list of the type of customer you want to have. Then do some research to find what that target base is looking for in the type of service you want to offer. Emphasize those qualities when you do your marketing.

elitebiz
02-19-2009, 10:25 PM
Thanks for the input guys. The URL is hxxp://www.beyond***original.com (take out the *** and change xx to tt, i dont want backlinks here so people see inside information about my business if they search for me) Any constructive criticism would be appreciated. I guess I have no one to blame but myself and I have to keep trying. Since I first posted this thread, the following has happened:

1) I have someone who owns several small businesses that I talk to regularly ask me to design a custom website for him. I do not know the details and I think I have to sign an NDA. It will be paid work but I do not know how much really to charge since right now since I was having trouble giving stuff away for free. I'm used to the companies I worked for handling all of these details you know?

2) I actually have someone who wants a free website done and is not being too picky or taking advantage of me (yet). I am having difficulties with this person because they are very non-technical. They have picked out a design type and domain name etc. and I just need to get them to sign a contract, you know basic liability stuff. What do I do if the person is hesitant to sign the contract or hesitant to give me their login info so I can upload the website for them?

CraigFLA
02-20-2009, 08:09 AM
I'm not a SALES person and I found that out when I went into a sales job and took months of training. What I did find out was that for every 100 cold calls in that business, you could expect 1 or 2 that might lead to something. In the end, less than one would actually lead to a sale. The figures were pretty well documented for that particular business. What it actually meant was that you we going to talk to 99 people that would not be interested in your product before you found a "real" customer. It was important that you analyzed and worked your way through these 99 people quickly to get on to the real customer without getting discouraged.

Steve B
02-20-2009, 08:31 AM
Nobody else commented on your thought that the Geek Squad guys might charge $7 per hour. This comment indicates to me that you may need to do quite a bit of research just to get an appropriate feel for what things cost to operate a business. Without some basic level of knowledge for expenses your business will be doomed for failure even if you successfully get some customers. As a matter of fact, getting customers could be the worst thing to happen if you're going to lose money on each one of them.

I'd like to pump you up with enthusiasm, because that is very important, but there are some basics that must be applied also.

billbenson
02-20-2009, 10:08 AM
If anything, your site is optimized for "beyond original" That and you have a ton of keywords in the meta description and keywords. Nobody is going to search for "beyond original", meta keywords are useless, meta description should concentrate on a description for that page and reenforce the title or H1. In short, you have no SEO on the site. Nobody is going to find you. You need to do some research on SEO.

elitebiz
02-20-2009, 10:49 AM
Nobody else commented on your thought that the Geek Squad guys might charge $7 per hour. This comment indicates to me that you may need to do quite a bit of research just to get an appropriate feel for what things cost to operate a business. Without some basic level of knowledge for expenses your business will be doomed for failure even if you successfully get some customers. As a matter of fact, getting customers could be the worst thing to happen if you're going to lose money on each one of them.

I'd like to pump you up with enthusiasm, because that is very important, but there are some basics that must be applied also.

Steve, I thought this because I remember at one point in the 1990s, people were making $75,000 a year plus benefits to work for a company as a computer repair technician. They I remember in early 2000s and on, the rates went down for A+ certified people down to like $10/hr etc. Maybe $7/hr was an exaggeration on my part but when I saw that the value of a pc repair person went from 75K + benefits to $10/hr it just made me wonder.

elitebiz
02-20-2009, 10:50 AM
If anything, your site is optimized for "beyond original" That and you have a ton of keywords in the meta description and keywords. Nobody is going to search for "beyond original", meta keywords are useless, meta description should concentrate on a description for that page and reenforce the title or H1. In short, you have no SEO on the site. Nobody is going to find you. You need to do some research on SEO.

I'm having trouble finding good pure whitehat SEO resources. I've heard some good things about lynda's SEO course and I will be looking into that later today.

billbenson
02-20-2009, 11:18 AM
Vangough has some good blog posts and other resources. He has them in prior posts, but maybe he'll put them up for you again.

Dan Furman
02-20-2009, 01:03 PM
A few things jump out at me:

Your Website: It looks ok, but I have to be honest - the layout/colors (blue on blue, large font, etc) remind me more of a personal home page than a professional business website. Again, it's not terrible (I rather like the ease of use - well done), but it really could look more business-like.

What you are saying on the site vs reality: You say you did "tons of websites" - well, can a web visitor see a few? The fact that you do not link to professional samples that you've done kind of tells me that you don't really have any. Is that true? Believe me, saying something like this without samples is a HUGE turnoff.

In addition, you say you are an expert at SEO and PPC, yet I can't find you on any of the terms you specialize in. So how exactly are you an expert if you can't do SEO for yourself? Now I don't say this to be mean (I realize that's a tough, "backed into a corner" type of question) - it's a reality check. You simply can't call yourself an SEO expert if your own site (where you are selling these SEO services) doesn't rank.

No way around it - your site screams "I'm just starting out". Not that there's anything wrong with this - everyone starts somewhere. But if I were you, I'd focus on one thing, and do it really, really well.

When I started, I didn't have any client samples, so I made my own - I wrote a few letters and made a few brochures and put them up as samples of my work. I didn't say that the companies depicted were fictional - I didn't say anything. I just said "here are some samples of my writing" and linked to a PDF brochure, a sales letter, etc. Plus, I honed my site until I felt it was the best-written copywriting site online (much like you should make sure that your own design is jaw-droppingly good). My site's writing sold me, much like your site's design will sell you.

As far as samples for you, heck, if you were really ambitious, you could buy 2 or 3 domains, get them hosted for a year, make five page microsites for each, and use those as samples. We're really not talking a lot of money there (likely less than $300 for the whole thing), and it would be a GREAT way to look bigger than you really are (because the domains you point to will have their own unique URL / Hosting).

Lastly, your reluctance to have a backlink here is silly. Trust me - nobody is obsessed with searching you and finding out the inside scoop :)

Best of luck.

KristineS
02-20-2009, 01:08 PM
I would have to agree with those who have said that PC repair is probably a dying field. The likelihood is that PCs are only going to get less expensive, so having them repaired probably won't make financial sense.

Right now it appears you're focusing on two different groups of customers, those who buy your tutorials and those who might want a web site designed. Your marketing would need to be different for these two groups, so that's one thing you should consider.

Also, you say that people are currently buying your tutorials, so you know there is at least some interest there. What can you do to jump start those sales? Can you give some seminars? Can you write some articles? People tend to buy from those that they perceive to be experts, so start working to set yourself up as an expert.

I also have to ask how much of the attitude you show in your post is bleeding through to your potential customers? This is a safe place to vent, and I know that's what you're doing, but frustration has a way of being visible even when we don't want it to be. So you might want to examine the way you interact with potential customers as well. Are you sending signals you really don't want to send?

Dan Furman
02-20-2009, 01:23 PM
Also, you say that people are currently buying your tutorials, so you know there is at least some interest there. What can you do to jump start those sales? Can you give some seminars? Can you write some articles? People tend to buy from those that they perceive to be experts, so start working to set yourself up as an expert.

This is really good advice.

vangogh
02-20-2009, 03:24 PM
I'll echo a lot of what's been said above. I do think your design looks nice, but to me it seems like there are two distinct things happening with it. Your background images are leaning to the artistic which is entirely appropriate for a web designer, but then inside the content area I think that gets lost and it becomes more blocky. I'd either carry through the artistic a little more or make the whole thing more business like.

I think your secondary navigation looks good on the right, but it's hard to notice quickly. Even knowing it's there I'm still finding myself missing it when I'm looking for those kind of links.

This next bit might come across as harsh so let me apologize in advance. You've mentioned a few times you think you're better at web design than most. In a word, no. I can tell by looking at your source code that you don't really know development (I mean building the web page, not the programming) as much as you'd like me to think and as Bill pointed out your SEO knowledge is close to nada. Now you don't need to do either better than anyone to be successful, but you shouldn't be offering seo or marketing services right now, because in truth they aren't in your skillset at the moment. You can offer them later, but I would focus now on the things you do well. Again, my apologies if that came across as harsh.

I'll be happy to help you learn seo as best I can, but I think it would be more appropriate to have that conversation in the in the search engine optimization forums (http://www.small-business-forum.net/search-engine-optimization/). Feel free to ask questions and myself and others will gladly do our best to answer

I agree with Dan about the 'tons of websites' I see a 2009 copyright on your site. I don't know anyone who's done tons of websites yet in 2009.

I'd do away with your html product. I don't know what your html product comes as (PDF?) but I do know that the information is so readily available online it's unlikely someone is going to buy it from you. Also when I see $49.95 marked down to $9.95 it tells me it's not going to be worth anything. The markdown tells me you don't think it's valuable so why I should I think it is.

Give it away for free as a way to market your site. I'll assume you have good info there. Build a free tutorial on your site. It'll help with search engines and show potential clients you know what you're talking about. If other designer/developers think it's good we'll link to you further helping with SEO.

Overall I don't feel like I learn enough about you or your skills to know whether or not you can help me. I'm looking at your web design services page right now. The only useful bit in the first section is the link to your contact form. The rest tells me nothing. The second section is good in concept. Part of what you need to do is convince people they should have a website. However keep in mind that anyone looking at this page probably already agrees with you so you likely don't need to convince too much here.

The last part is fine and describes what I can expect from you should I hire you. Still nowhere on the page are you giving any reason why I should specifically choose you over the hundreds of thousands of other people that offer the exact same service.

I could write a quick paragraph or give a 30 second elevator pitch to any potential client why I'm a better choice to hire than you. Your job is to be able to write a paragraph or give the 30 second pitch as to why you're the better choice than me. I guarantee there are things you can offer a client that I can't. Figure out what they are and use them as selling points. And of course I don't mean you're trying to show people why you're a better choice than me specifically, but rather the many other web designers out there. You do bring something to the table that others don't. You have to figure out what that is and start tailoring your services to those people that want it. But do make sure you can back up the claim. I use SEO as a selling point and I can back up the claim that I can build a search friendly site. You need to be able to back up whatever claims you make about your services.

Your Support link takes people to a page that makes them click before getting to any real information. Just make the main navigation link go directly to the FAQ page and call the link FAQ.

Mostly you need to figure out what you do better than other web designers. Think about what extra value you can add. There are thousands of places where people can get a free website. Most everyone has a niece or nephew who can design a website. You and I both know those sites aren't going to work as well as the ones we design. The average person doesn't. So you have to work hard to convince people why the website you design is better than the one their 12 year old nephew can design. Then you have to deliver on that promise.

Many of us mentioned this before, but remember it's about value and not price. If most designers are charging $1500 for a site and you're charging $200 an obvious question is going to be why. Why is your site so inexpensive. An obvious answer is it's not as good as the $1500 site. Regardless of whether or not that's true, it's how many will perceive it.

elitebiz
03-03-2009, 01:54 PM
Thank you all for your honest input. I will take all of this into consideration.

vangogh
03-03-2009, 02:49 PM
Glad we could help. Do let us know if and when you make changes. I know we'll be happy to look again and offer more thoughts. Also feel free to ask more questions as they arise. Most of us have been in the same situation you're in now and will be happy to help any way we can.

greenoak
03-03-2009, 05:25 PM
i know some web developers selling ready made sites with people waiting in line.....you can see them online and buy them..i know happy buyers of them.... they are targeted to a very specific market.............seems like you might have the skill to do that for some industry..or for kids , or fishermen.etc....its pretty hard to find....and might sell to some small businesses, lotsofthem need a simple billboard website....but they need to see one first....see my daughters www.bellachicinteriors.com nothing fancy.........see here for a popular designer.http://theavalonrose.com/. im hoping to get one from her someday
ann