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greenoak
10-18-2008, 09:25 AM
i have a new phrase for you maybe....we learned it from an old customer....slowed me out of the deal....
it happened yesterdsay to me....i am so busy right now, with getting ready for a big store event that really transforms the store parts, and have new people in working , and just a lot going on.
..this man comes in looking for work, he is a laid off carpenter.....my 3 carpenter crews ore older guys and i might be interested in a new guy.. ...i figured i should see what this man was offering and what his price range would be....so i broke away from my work to talk to him...i gave him 3 chances to let me know if he could do what my guys do and what he would charge....roughly....
he had made something that we make....and my question was what would you charge me to make that? we were looking at church pews and i ask him what he would charge to cut one down, he had just cut one down for someone....
he just couldnt answer....he didnt have any clarifying questions.....he wanted to talk about the one he had done for so and so....he went on and on..i tried again on the other example.. ,
he had no imagination he couldnt generalize, he couldnt give me a ballpark idea...he couldnt see that i was kind of interested in his work and was giving him a chance ,,,, and needed him to try and show me what his price range would be........... he couldnt think i can do this in 2 hrs, i need 20 an hr it would be 40$..... and more if i had to pick up and deliver.... and this is a guess...
so i just dropped the idea of talking to him anymore...i wasnt getting anywhere....maybe we would have been a good match...and i have a lot of work for carpenters....but
he slowed me out of the deal........ ...

ive thought of that phrase and the bad situation it describes a lot.....and definitely try not to do it to customers....
ann

billbenson
10-18-2008, 01:04 PM
Different sort of business, but I have done a lot of work to quickly make quotes. I can't always do it, but customer calls, he's looking at the web site, I say click on the contact us link, he gives me some information or part numbers, it takes me 20 seconds to do a quote. Copy and paste and he has a quote in front of him. Doesn't work all the time, but I get a much higher closure rate by getting the quote out fast.

vangogh
10-20-2008, 08:46 PM
I like the phrase Ann. I've had things like that happen to me. Not just with my business, but in general where I've been interested in buying something and asked a question question about it, but never got an answer. It doesn't take all that long to lose interest.

I guess this is the idea behind ABC (always be closing)

KristineS
10-21-2008, 08:58 AM
I like that phrase.

It just goes to show that you have to be attuned to your potential customer. Adjust your style to theirs and you'll probably make the sale.

greenoak
10-21-2008, 09:52 AM
another part of it is being able to generalize.....so often i need a general ballpark answer , if the carpenter wanting a job said , most would be around 80$, that was all i would need.....and i can realize that the exact answer might be a bit different.....
like if im trying to sell something and they want different handles, i know its around 10$ so i would say 10$ more ....that is much better than going away from the customer and getting the real number which would be within 1$....or if i have a store owner on the phone and they want to talk about counters, im going to say betwween 350 and 400, thats the correct ballpark, im sure not going to say i cant answer that ill go get the numbers and call you back....that would be slowing them out of it......
love bills example of giving a quote so fast...wow, i bet they are happy to get that!!
ann

vangogh
10-21-2008, 11:42 AM
Just to throw in the opposite side to the discussion there are times where people don't offer enough information to be able to give them even a reasonable range for the cost of something. I don't think that's your case Ann, but I know some people approach me asking for a price without giving me the information to give them one.

I get emails all the time that ask "how much for a website" I always respond asking for more information. How many pages? What functionality does the site need? Without at least some idea of what's the site needs to be it's impossible to quote a price.

billbenson
10-21-2008, 03:42 PM
Just a thought VG. Have you ever thought about putting up an online quote generator? You could have a form with check boxes for WP, Joomla, custom, etc., number of pages, SEO, copy writing, graphics etc.

I don't know if it would work for what you do or not, but I have never seen it done. You could give a price range and disclaimer as well. Maybe mandate an email address and phone so you can call and close?

I don't know if that makes sense for you or not; just a thought.

greenoak
10-21-2008, 05:45 PM
or maybve a sample with a price...and another higher....
i can do this for you for this$$$$ and this better one for this$$..
it might save you some time on your emails....
my dh is great at details and he can hardly ever talk ballpark or generalize....luckily im the buyer and seller and he does the books....he cant brainstorm either...he needs all the info...its so good to have someone like that do the books or look at the final idea and say it sounds good....but i need someone to brainstorm with too!!! its just too squishy for him.....

vangogh
10-21-2008, 08:53 PM
Bill I used to see those, but not much recently. I don't think people filled them out much. The hard part is you can't really price things based on simple form questions. Price isn't really about number of pages. When you design a site the majority of work goes into the first page, which becomes the template. It's more about the functionality of those pages.

I still see people pricing based on a rate per page and then add additional for a form on the page. But even with a form is it a simple name, email, comment, or is it something complex that ultimate is reading and writing to a database.

Ann when people send me the quick email without much detail I send them back a quick email asking for details along with a low and high price. The range is pretty large, though. Experience has taught me that anyone emailing with the question "how much for a website" is probably not someone who's going to turn into a great client. Still I don't like to assume so I respond as best as I can. I ask a few simple questions to get the details from them and give them as good a range as possible.

I describe how I price on my design rates (http://www.vanseodesign.com/design/rates.php) page. On the old site I did the math for people and displayed a table with prices, but no one ever looked at it. At least no one who ever contacted me for work.

I'm not complaining about any of this by the way. I don't see it as much of a problem for me or my business. Those quick question emails actually help me sort out serious inquiries from not so serious inquiries. I just wanted to offer a counterpoint to the idea of being able to give out a quick estimate for how much something will cost. For some products and industries it's easy to quote a price, but for others it can be hard without knowing the details of the project.

I can tell you my hourly rates before you finish asking for them, but in order to tell you how many hours something will take that often depends on the details.

billbenson
10-21-2008, 10:18 PM
I would think, Steve, that a web designer is either hired on price by someone who doesn't really know what they are doing, or on reputation / recommendations by someone who has either done their research or knows something about web design and web marketing. Probably not a lot of middle ground. Especially a one man show such as yourself. It doesn't surprise me that you don't think a form would be effective in your business.

Just as a footnote, the place I have bought my last several pc's from is a clone shop with a pc builder form on the site. It's nice to be able to select the configuration you want and get a price now. I think certain businesses can close a lot more business using that approach.

vangogh
10-22-2008, 12:45 AM
I like being able to buy computers that way too. I won't knock a form. I remember I used to see them all the time on web designer's sites and I think I may have had one too way back when. They didn't seem all that useful to me, though that could simply have been my experience. The forms were usually a few pages long with questions and I think that kept them from being filled out.

Who knows. Maybe they can be useful.

I guess for the designer it depends on how they want to brand themselves. I'm not looking to brand myself as cheaper than the next guy. I wouldn't call myself expensive, but I'd rather build a brand based on good work. I'm more than happy to lose the people shopping only on price while picking up the clients who are more interested in having their site designed and developed right.

Steve B
10-22-2008, 05:34 AM
I agree that a form quote wouldn't make sense for VG's business. It would allow the prospect to walk away without getting to know the intangibles that VG offers. I.e. - easy to work with, offers suggestions but remains customer focused, responds quickly to e-mails etc. It also just gives the prospect a number to go shopping with elsewhere.

The form works well for a piece of hardware that is a one-time transaction.

In my business I get e-mails that asks "how much per foot" for a Derby's Pet Fence. I always ask for more information etc. I don't think I've ever gotten a job when a request started like that.

vangogh
10-22-2008, 06:05 PM
I would think the answer to "how much per foot" also depends on details. What's the landscape like? How hard is it to dig to set the fence? Certain questions in regards to services are easy to answer, but some require more details.

Thanks for the compliments too.

Ad-Vice_Man
10-24-2008, 03:32 PM
VG,

you know, for a "quick quote" to the generic "how much does a website cost" you could always just give them a range of between your minimum and an outrageous number. For example " I charge between $4,000 and $232 Million... Depending on the details" This at least gives them an answer, and one that will eliminate those who don't meet your minimum.

Or if you think it's really just a lost cause you could just say. $232 Million. It will at least get the price shopper to call elsewhere, but it might be just a big enough/ludicrous enough figure that you'll get their attention.

greenoak
10-24-2008, 06:38 PM
i think a great ad or way to show the customer what you are offering would be to show a picture of the fence on an average site and say this one runs about -----....or vangogh showing a certain website and a price....that would tell me a lot....and i could decide if i wanted a real quote....you gotta generalize a little..
and i sure wouldnt appreciate a web site designer saying between 50 and 5o,000....that would just sound very unhelpful.....
...but if his prices were from 5000 to 100,000....i would want to know right from the start....and not waste my time...
i want to know a general price before getting too involved.......isnt that normal? thats how my customers act...and especially my big ones....
back to my potential carpenter ...i finally said i dont know if you would charge me 50 or 200 and he acted like 200$ would be way more than he would want....well!!!! i would need to know...
ann

vangogh
10-24-2008, 08:05 PM
I do give out a price range to those questions with a minimum and a high end maximum. The maximum is there to cover me and the minimum is there to weed out the people who were looking for free or close to free.

Ann that's an interesting idea to point to another site and mention it's price. There are two stumbling blocks I see to it. One is sharing how much one client paid for a site. I'm not sure if they'd all appreciate if those details were made public. They might not care, but it's possible they might. Also what one client paid for a site 3 years ago isn't necessarily what a client today would expect to pay for the same site.

I can see ways around that though, but simply pointing to the site and saying how much I would charge to deliver a similar site.

The other issue is that you can't always tell by looking at a site why it would cost a certain amount. One site could be very expensive, but the expense could all be on backend development that only the client can see since they're behind login pages.

Again I can think of ways around this by the choice of sites.

Ad-Vice_Man
11-12-2008, 04:04 PM
VG,

AS for pointing to another site you've done... you don't have to quote the price your client paid... quote them the price you'll do it for them. IE... build in an escalation.

For instance lets say you built XYZ.com for $10,000 tell your prospect you can do it for $12,000 if it ever gets back to XYZ.com, A) it won't have been proprietary because it's not really their information and B) if they hear what you're charging now... they'll feel like they got a great deal.

vangogh
11-12-2008, 05:11 PM
I never tell people how much another site cost to build. I tell them what their site will cost to build. I'm really not worried about different clients finding out how much another site did cost, though. My prices have gone up over the years as prices in general have gone up and as I've become better at what I do. I wouldn't build some of the sites in my portfolio for the price they originally cost.

greenoak
11-13-2008, 09:34 AM
i love a situation where they can throw out a ballpark number...i know it isnt perfect....just kind of a hint .

back to slowing a customer out of it....i have been on several websites where i was slightly interested and had a question for them before proceeding....i try and contact them and they dont offer simple email...they want all my info first....name address phone email etc etc........ i dont usually do it..i dont actually care why they want all my info....ann

vangogh
11-13-2008, 12:33 PM
Ann I've noticed that too. The general rule of thumb in form design is to only ask for the information that's absolutely necessary. The contact form on my site asks for your name, email, and your comment, which is pretty much the minimum so I can at least reply. And of course there's a contact page with an email address for anyone who prefers to email directly.

Some business want to collect every possible piece of info they can without understanding it just leads to less information since no one wants to fill out the form.

Anytime I'm filling out a form and I'm required to fill out some info that I know isn't necessary I either leave or give some phony information.

KristineS
11-13-2008, 03:48 PM
I think a lot of the sites that require you to fill out a form do it thinking they're building an e-mail list. What they don't realize is that they're actually probably turning more customers away than they're capturing. They're also most likely going to get a lot of refusals if they do try to contact the people they forced to sign up for their list.

The only way an mailing list is useful is if it's opt in. Any other way is just a waste of time.

Steve B
11-13-2008, 04:37 PM
Good point. As soon as a website forces me to "register" before I find out more information ... I'm gone.

vangogh
11-14-2008, 12:33 AM
And yet sites will continue to try to get us to force us to hand over information they don't need. Collect the info you absolutely need to complete the action of the form. You can collect more info at a later time.