Web Design Agency

[chefkueche]

Hello everyone,

I'm a newcomer to this forum, inspired by MJ's book. I've read it multiple times, finding it more impactful than any other success-oriented book.

Currently, I find myself stuck in the slow lane, working in hospital technology with a background in electrical engineering. I aspire to break free from this and pursue a more dynamic path.

Now, onto the topic at hand.

After experiencing several business failures, I'm embarking on a new venture – a web design agency. I've noticed that many restaurants, bars, and similar businesses lack an online presence. My plan is to reach out to them, offering website creation services. Additionally, I aim to revamp outdated HTML websites for clients. Eventually, I may expand into social media marketing services.
What are your thoughts on this approach?

Has anyone taken a similar path and could provide guidance or share the biggest struggles they faced?

Looking forward to your insights.

 

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[DDP]

I am also a newcomer to the forum and also have a very similar background to yourself, I am a fellow Electrical Engineer and also have recently set up a SEO & Web Design Agency.

My initial experiences with trying to get clients through the door via cold calling has not been successful - I have delivered for one client which was my barber (warm lead). The advise from what I have gathered from the forum and MJ is to leverage warm leads and come up with solutions to pain points and then reach out to cold clients.

To be honest, I can't claim that I have reached out to enough businesses but I am finding it very difficult to even get the ear of the businesses - as it seems, the minute they realise I am trying to "sell" they get turned off. Not sure if it is where I am based which is the UK, that do not respond to cold calls very well but the response has been very similar. I have even tried offering free audits to show how much businesses what they are missing. I stand to be corrected but my very limited conclusion over a few months of attempting this, the cold calling tap is non-existent and it may be a slow burner of building up through referrals (unsure can rely on this to support myself and family on let alone build a business).

I am adamant to make this work so will be rejoining the "slow lane" again after an attempt at prematurely attempting to get into the fast lane. My understanding of this type of business, your leads would come through the following:

- Warm leads (dependent on how many people you know)
- Networking (this is more of a slow burner and I am still understanding how this would work in my context)
- Social media (establishing a presence which would also take some time building)
- Cold calling (best method in theory and would allow scaling rapidly but extremely difficult)

I would love someone to shed some light on how to build trust with businesses enough for you to explain what they are missing out as most don't even value their online presence enough to understand the language you are speaking. I find this to be the biggest challenge.

Best of luck at this nevertheless - I am sure more successful and experienced, ladies or gents can shed some more positive light than I have.

 

[chefkueche]

I am also a newcomer to the forum and also have a very similar background to yourself, I am a fellow Electrical Engineer and also have recently set up a SEO & Web Design Agency.

My initial experiences with trying to get clients through the door via cold calling has not been successful - I have delivered for one client which was my barber (warm lead). The advise from what I have gathered from the forum and MJ is to leverage warm leads and come up with solutions to pain points and then reach out to cold clients.

To be honest, I can't claim that I have reached out to enough businesses but I am finding it very difficult to even get the ear of the businesses - as it seems, the minute they realise I am trying to "sell" they get turned off. Not sure if it is where I am based which is the UK, that do not respond to cold calls very well but the response has been very similar. I have even tried offering free audits to show how much businesses what they are missing. I stand to be corrected but my very limited conclusion over a few months of attempting this, the cold calling tap is non-existent and it may be a slow burner of building up through referrals (unsure can rely on this to support myself and family on let alone build a business).

I am adamant to make this work so will be rejoining the "slow lane" again after an attempt at prematurely attempting to get into the fast lane. My understanding of this type of business, your leads would come through the following:

- Warm leads (dependent on how many people you know)
- Networking (this is more of a slow burner and I am still understanding how this would work in my context)
- Social media (establishing a presence which would also take some time building)
- Cold calling (best method in theory and would allow scaling rapidly but extremely difficult)

I would love someone to shed some light on how to build trust with businesses enough for you to explain what they are missing out as most don't even value their online presence enough to understand the language you are speaking. I find this to be the biggest challenge.

Best of luck at this nevertheless - I am sure more successful and experienced, ladies or gents can shed some more positive light than I have.

I am very thankful for your comment. Would you like to share the pricing you offered your customer with me? For me, this should be more of a side hustle to earn more money to start other businesses like real estate.

 

[Bounce Back]

To both of you put yourselves in the businesses' mindset: why is listening to your pitch even for 30 seconds worth their time? You've got about 5 seconds to say something to catch their ear (and they have to be in the right mood) before you've made them space out or go into defense.

When I owned my service business I would get SEO/web design pitches weekly and they were always awful at explaining why them out of the 300 I've heard over the years should get my attention.

Might need to quote a case study finding or some recent success. If you don't have one maybe you need to start a personal project to get that win under your belt etc. Or just find someone who is doing none right now (maybe no website at all just a local business) and ask if you can do it for free for them.

(Funny thing is I am actually considering letting someone take a shot at using a new site I am going to launch as a case study for SEO / content building but even in that which would be them doing it for free I would be grilling them on why them? how are they going to do it? etc. because its my reputation and business on the line - you get what I am saying here?)

 

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[chefkueche]

To both of you put yourselves in the businesses' mindset: why is listening to your pitch even for 30 seconds worth their time? You've got about 5 seconds to say something to catch their ear (and they have to be in the right mood) before you've made them space out or go into defense.

When I owned my service business I would get SEO/web design pitches weekly and they were always awful at explaining why them out of the 300 I've heard over the years should get my attention.

Might need to quote a case study finding or so.

Thank you for providing such valuable insight. Your perspective serves as a great catalyst for reflection. I genuinely appreciate the advice and will take it to heart. I'm optimistic about implementing these suggestions effectively. Your experience with SEO/web design pitches resonates with me, and I'm committed to ensuring my approach stands out. Incorporating case study findings sounds like a prudent move, and I'll definitely consider that in my future pitches. Thanks again for the thoughtful advice!

 

[DDP]

I am very thankful for your comment. Would you like to share the pricing you offered your customer with me? For me, this should be more of a side hustle to earn more money to start other businesses like real estate.

In terms of pricing it depends (in my case I was willing to charge very low to get clients through the door), I think the best way to approach which I found enlightening to say the least. Reach out to all the web design agencies in the area and ask for a website similar to the ones you are thinking of offering ie pretend to be a real estate customer (might not be the most ethical), get a price but ensure you ask on everything they are offering for the website typically: 1. actual design 2. domain set up 3. Google Analytics 4. SEO (basic set up) etc etc. Write it all down somewhere.

You will then be confident offering your price to customers especially considering you can almost guarantee your 50% below the market price. Call up businesses in your area (qualify them) ie ensure you are improving on either their current site and you can sufficiently explain why and how this is. If they don't have a website, explain how a website would help them with their business ie helps built trust and help bring real estate clients in. I would also think about how much each customer they are brining in would be worth to their business in comparison to the actual website price for example.

As a side income, I think it can easily be done as long as you concentrate on what business problems their website is likely to solve etc. Definitely, get a case study that is worth quite a bit and take time to understand the typical problems faced by this industry. That is worth a ton from my point of view. I am also inclined to think establishing an online presence helps with getting word out there in terms of what you are offering.

F*** it. Do it in this order:

1) Figure out your offer, onboarding and how you are going to to deliver to the customer. (take pressure off yourself and do this for free but ensure you have everything in place to do for a payign customer next)
2) Once, you understand the problems you are solving, make a social media account and make content surrounding your offer.
3) Reach out cold to customers and try and secure them by offering value up front in the form of a website audit etc.

That should get you going.

 

[DDP]

To both of you put yourselves in the businesses' mindset: why is listening to your pitch even for 30 seconds worth their time? You've got about 5 seconds to say something to catch their ear (and they have to be in the right mood) before you've made them space out or go into defense.

When I owned my service business I would get SEO/web design pitches weekly and they were always awful at explaining why them out of the 300 I've heard over the years should get my attention.

Might need to quote a case study finding or some recent success. If you don't have one maybe you need to start a personal project to get that win under your belt etc. Or just find someone who is doing none right now (maybe no website at all just a local business) and ask if you can do it for free for them.

(Funny thing is I am actually considering letting someone take a shot at using a new site I am going to launch as a case study for SEO / content building but even in that which would be them doing it for free I would be grilling them on why them? how are they going to do it? etc. because its my reputation and business on the line - you get what I am saying here?)

To be honest that is what I am trying to figure out. I only have one client as a case study which is my barber, I have set up a booking system for him but in terms of SEO results, that wasn't part of my offer to him as I have given him a website probably 70% below market rate.

Essentially, I am focusing on web design & to get the SEO part off the ground, I am offering 6 months complimentary best practise SEO to service based businesses. The issue I have is now not necessarily the case studies, but getting a consistent stream of cold clients to start justifying a full time focus on it.

If you need SEO guidance and help, more than happy to help out but @chefkueche if you can answer those questions that might be a case study for you right there! Love this forum

 

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[Vntonio]

To both of you put yourselves in the businesses' mindset: why is listening to your pitch even for 30 seconds worth their time? You've got about 5 seconds to say something to catch their ear (and they have to be in the right mood) before you've made them space out or go into defense.

When I owned my service business I would get SEO/web design pitches weekly and they were always awful at explaining why them out of the 300 I've heard over the years should get my attention.

Might need to quote a case study finding or some recent success. If you don't have one maybe you need to start a personal project to get that win under your belt etc. Or just find someone who is doing none right now (maybe no website at all just a local business) and ask if you can do it for free for them.

(Funny thing is I am actually considering letting someone take a shot at using a new site I am going to launch as a case study for SEO / content building but even in that which would be them doing it for free I would be grilling them on why them? how are they going to do it? etc. because its my reputation and business on the line - you get what I am saying here?)

My barber also gets those types of calls and he instantly hangs up.

I'm curious, what type of business do you have now and do you get those types of pitch calls anymore?

I forgot to mention, that I helped him modify some errors on google maps which placed his barber shop in another county (and some other edits). And he said that he would cut my hair for free for a few times and I helped him more than those websites/local SEO calls.

 

[Fox]

I've noticed that many restaurants, bars, and similar businesses lack an online presence. My plan is to reach out to them, offering website creation services.

There aren't great niches because:

- They don't have amazing margins

- There are already a lot of other apps and ways to search and get information (like google maps)

- There isn't so much a website can do to massively boost sales

- They are unusually not the type of business to drop a lot of money on their website.


You would be better off to pick a different type of niche where you would be impacting their sales/systems in a much more direct way. It will be easier to show the value of your work - and to get paid more.

 

[DDP]

There aren't great niches because:

- They don't have amazing margins

- There are already a lot of other apps and ways to search and get information (like google maps)

- There isn't so much a website can do to massively boost sales

- They are unusually not the type of business to drop a lot of money on their website.


You would be better off to pick a different type of niche where you would be impacting their sales/systems in a much more direct way. It will be easier to show the value of your work - and to get paid more.

Hi @Fox how do you identify the right niche, especially if you have no clue on the industry?

Thanks

 

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[Fox]

Hi @Fox how do you identify the right niche, especially if you have no clue on the industry?

Thanks

Every niche can work but to get paid more there has to be a strong reason.

Look for business with a funnel (or system) that will get a huge boost from a good website.

Also, profit margins matter too.

Helping someone sell 10 more pizzas a month isn't much.
Helping a movie production business land one new client a month could be massive.

Fastlane 101 but the more impact the website can have, and the more relative results you can get a business (compared to their baseline), the easier to get paid a lot more.

 

[Cojo]

Every niche can work but to get paid more there has to be a strong reason.

Look for business with a funnel (or system) that will get a huge boost from a good website.

Also, profit margins matter too.

Helping someone sell 10 more pizzas a month isn't much.
Helping a movie production business land one new client a month could be massive.

Fastlane 101 but the more impact the website can have, and the more relative results you can get a business (compared to their baseline), the easier to get paid a lot more.

Would the real estate niche be a good one?

 

[Fox]

Would the real estate niche be a good one?

If I did this niche I would aim for sites that don't get adjusted a lot. You don't want to be trying to code up 1,000 houses that are getting switched out every week.

But if you can aim for a more "stable" website that can sell a real estate related service - then that could do super well. Like always think over what is related to the niche also - real estate insurance, appraisals, maintenance, lawyers etc.

 

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[Cojo]

If I did this niche I would aim for sites that don't get adjusted a lot. You don't want to be trying to code up 1,000 houses that are getting switched out every week.

But if you can aim for a more "stable" website that can sell a real estate related service - then that could do super well. Like always think over what is related to the niche also - real estate insurance, appraisals, maintenance, lawyers etc.

I want to get international clients now and I have 3 past projects in my country. A real estate website, solar/electrician website and a travel agency website. I am not sure if any of them have gotten sales or results from the websites but which niche among them do you think I should target?

 

[Stargazer]

I want to get international clients now and I have 3 past projects in my country. A real estate website, solar/electrician website and a travel agency website. I am not sure if any of them have gotten sales or results from the websites but which niche among them do you think I should target?

Haven't you asked?

Dan

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Haven't you asked?

Dan

Honestly, asking is usually a waste of time in these situations. Most business owners are too busy to think too much of their website. (To clarify, this doesn’t mean don’t ask, just don’t expect too much out of it)

So unless you’re building essentially a sales funnel, most business owners will just look at it as something that they have to get done, regardless of what their web developer will say.

Larger businesses, say venture capital funds, will spend $40K-50K+ per website, but it’s largely a matter of prestige and brand, and they’ll want to work with a big name, with a strong track record.

The best web design clients imo are those who are looking for brand and prestige, not sales. Websites aren’t critical sales assets (well, maybe they are, for stuff like eCommerce. But aside from that). Even for a business like mine. I would never pay a developer $10K for a website, except if I had money to waste, then, why not? I’d want a website that positions my business as #1 in the field. I wouldn’t care about sales from it. Since it’s not what drives sales to begin with. But sure, it will predispose people to think well of me. It would impress them. That’s enough.

Most of the successful web design businesses I know are local. They work with local clients, largely referral driven, and they struggle to scale. The way out of that is to start working for large B2B businesses — but you need to learn to build websites for prestige with them. I worked with an agency that built 3D websites for funded startups. Hell yeah, that scaled really well. That’s the stuff you need. That’s how you can get to 7-figures.

But if you do essentially what Indian guys do except that you dress it up in “you’ll get more sales” which most often is a lie, you won’t make much progress. To get spectacular results, you need to deliver spectacular service. For most their skills doesn’t permit them to deliver spectacular service. Just basic wordpress themes.

I sit here and I ask myself… if I wanted to sell a $10K website to myself, what could I do? And the answer is honestly nothing.

 

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[Canadoz]

Currently, I find myself stuck in the slow lane, working in hospital technology with a background in electrical engineering. I aspire to break free from this and pursue a more dynamic path.

This really stuck out.

Why are you not exploiting this?

The web design agency space is really competitive.

Visit one of those "technology for healthcare" exhibitions. Find a product that you think might sell well. Be the exclusive distributor for it in your area. That way you can benefit from your experience of electrical engineering, healthcare and not be in a crowded market.

Seriously, way more people become millionaires selling to the healthcare sector than they do owing a webdesign agency.