Journey of the German - Building a web design agency

[goodguude]

Thank you!
It's revenue, but since I am doing most of the stuff myself, I have profit margins of about ~90% (for most of the projects). So, I am building custom wordpress websites and organize the content creation (text, video, images).

Also, I've specialized a bit in Google Analytics, always offering clients to implement it for them and, if they wish, to track & report specific events using Google Tag Manager and Google Data Studio.

 

[goodguude]

Hey Andy, thanks for the reply!

I will look into your mentioned resources in the evening. I've already read through the threads of @codo3500 and @eekern. Great stuff!
Your thread is on my list.

I didn't even start with the Gary Halbert challenge after realizing that I will not really profit from it yet. Instead I worked through another web design course and a web development course on Udemy. The benefit fromt these ones seem to be bigger than the ones of finishing the Gary Halbert challenge.

 

[goodguude]

If you are local, show up before service. I work in that industry and this is common. They will forget to call wine reps, food distribution etc back as they are used to them coming into the restaurant.

Also, selling anything to restaurant owners (small business owners in general) is a bitch. One good tactic I use is to try and get a customer to use my demo site vs their existing site.

"Make a reservation." If they fumble around on the site to do this simple task, it needs to be updated. If the owner doesn't get it after that. Walk away.

Hey DaRK9!

Thanks for sharing your experience regarding this industry.

Yeah, it seems like this sector isn't the holy grail at all. But before I can take on bigger projects, I need to get a bit more experienced and I need to build a portfolio. With every completed website I get better and better - and whenever I get better I am able to provide more value to potential clients and therefore charge a higher price.
@Fox and @codo3500 are like idols for me - providing massive value to their clients and working on 5 - digit - deals.

I will try your mentioned tactic. It seems like a lot of small business owners just don't really care if they have a useful website or not.

 

[Andy Black]

4. Always. I've never walked into an appointment without a demo site made.

If they approach me first, then its 3. Then I lock them in on agreeing to a demo.


Another real life "lead magnet" is to setup and optimize their Google Business page. Use https://moz.com/local/search and manually fix the main errors, add images and correct hours categories.

Haha. You replied before I fleshed it out with level 5!

(We're on the same wavelength. )

 

[goodguude]

But to conclude, there is no better way to learn than trying and failing.

If you want to help a restaurant owner I would suggest to him that you run some ads for him for free, he only pay for adspend.

That way you become warm with facebook/adwords (both?) with no money down. When you get result you can start charging residual.

I already have someone in mind with whom I can try this.
He owns a local driving school and definitely wants some more customers (who not? haha). That would be a great experience, but I have to do some homework before approaching him.


Thank you for the rep!
If I think about where I would be now if I started learning about business or coding or whatever instead of wasting my time playing Call of Duty and FIFA while age 14 - 18 ... wow

 

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[goodguude]

Having been there, done that and got the T-Shirt, in both my own agency and other people's agencies, I would do the following:

• Don't be a generalist, offering all types of services to any type of local company.
• Pick a niche market to work with
• Productise your offering - find things that you can replicate and stamp out
• Specialise on a platform / service area - could be Wordpress, membership sites, shopify, adwords, seo, direct marketing etc - but pick one.
• Once cash flow is good, start to look at how you can work within your chosen niche to create long term assets, such as website rental, recurring memberships etc.

I hope this is useful.

If I had to start again, with a web agency, I'd try this (not saying it'll work, but I did something kinda similar):
- Go to an event like the ones by ClickFunnels or Digital Marketer (i.e. Traffic & Conversions Summit)
- Meet heaps of 'consultants', they love going to this stuff.
- None of these guys have decent web developers, they struggle so hard with it.
- I'd find someone with a 'big fish', a client that is a household name. Offer an insane (but believable) commission to the consultant if they can sell them on a new website. I'm talking 40%. They'll sell it for you. Only caveat is - you get to put your name on the bottom of the site. Odds are this consultant already manages their 'digital strategy', such as Adwords etc.

These types of consultants have been awesome for us. I just had another one drop me a 5 figure deal I can't say no to, despite how busy I am, it's just TOO good haha. This all happened yesterday, he'll sign the documents Monday - he's moving fast, because I'm making his life easy. If you want to know how to sell to these consultants and get them to refer to you, they really only have 3 motivations, and they are:
1. Look good to the client
2. Make extra money
3. Not have their time wasted - they want you to just 'take care of it'

Look at it from this perspective, if they can make some extra bucks from a client they're already spent hundreds of hours grooming to trust them, PLUS they look like they provide a more comprehensive service, then they have a huge win.

A lot of our biggest deals have come from these types when I think about it. It's so much harder to sell a 15k site from a 'cold lead' than to have it sold as part of a bigger strategy by someone they already trust to manage their Adwords/Facebook budget every day.

And also, I'm not talking about 'agencies', I've never gone to PPC agencies. It might work, it might not. I'm talking about one-man-band consultants that typically outsource everything anyway.

Hope this helps. Happy to answer any questions on it.

Haha. I'm moving that way as a one-man PPC consultant. This would work for plenty of AdWords consultants OP. Their client's websites suck.

EDIT: OP, you couldn't pay me to attend one of those events, so try figure out how to find guys managing big budgets but with low profiles.

I've literally had clients ask me to take over management of their website, SEO, content marketing, etc. To date I've turned them all down, but it shows the power of getting in the door as a specialist and delivering more revenue to a business.

Wow guys, there is massive GOLD in your posts here. Thank you so much for this.

I am a bit overwhelmed now and need to process all this input. Then I need to form some kind of strategy out of it.
I need to learn so much haha.

Again: THANK YOU!
Your posts are also gold for all the other members of this forum.

 

[ApparentHorizon]

Unfortunately, I have no clue about PPC and direct mail at the momemt. Nevertheless I already thought about getting into this, because I think within there lies the real value one can provide to business - acquiring customers, making real money for your clients.

You don't have to.

Become extremely good at providing websites in your niche and then partner with others to do PPC, SEO, SMO, etc.

If you stick with restaurant websites, for example, you'll have an easier time getting the contract over the guy providing every initialism under the sun.

 

[goodguude]

I also tend to trade websites a lot to remove bills. I'll reduce or remove up-front costs for services/items. Just use a pretty informal contract.

Part of my rent is from running my apt complex's adspend. $300/mo
My hair is taken care of. 1 hair cut a month for myself and girlfriend. $120/mo
I have around $400/mo in food from 5 restaurants each month.
Get $80/mo in gas from the construction company near my apt for doing their site. They have their own pumps.

Don't do anything crazy complex or time consuming for trade though just in case it goes sour.

That's a cool idea! I think I will have a talk with the owner of my boxing/kickboxing - gym. I build a website for them and therefor I am allowed to train there for free.

Little thought for today: 60% of running your own web design company is sales. Lock sales down and everything else will fall into place.

I am starting to realize this. At the moment I am leveraging my whole network to get contracts - with success.
You would be astonished if you would know how many friends have somebody who needs a website haha.

Become extremely good at providing websites in your niche and then partner with others to do PPC, SEO, SMO, etc.

If you stick with restaurant websites, for example, you'll have an easier time getting the contract over the guy providing every initialism under the sun.

That was my plan. I just need to search a good niche where companies are willing to pay more than like 400€ for a website.
@Fox mentioned in one of his posts that he is focusing on clients like doctors, dentists, construction companies instead of restaurants or cafes.
Seems promising!

 

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[Fox]

@Fox and @Thiago Machado is there a way to create a mockup website to show potential clients that you don't need to purchase hosting and have it up on the live web? Or is hosting it the only way?

Do you have any hosting at the moment?

If so you can make a subdomain/folder for free. Something like demo.yourdomain.(com)

If not you will need to get something unless you want to just send it as an image (not recommend).

 

[goodguude]

Update after quite a long time.

The digital marketing agency is, as of 2019, consistently making $10k+. I've built a strong network in my local area and realized projects for bigger companies (Yearly revenues of $50 million and more), that I now use as case studies. I also hired my first employee (just a working student for now).

It was and still is quite a lot of work. While knowing that I've obtained a skill & network through which I can make a decent living provides a feeling of "security", the past few months were crucial for my realization that the agency will have a tough time scaling past the $15k mark without niching down. Thus, I partnered up with a sales guy I've got to know through our coworking space and will start a new sub-agency for a specific niche with him.

The original agency will persist, but I will take on only projects with a bigger magnitude ($6k+) and not the time-consuming smaller projects anymore.

Additionally, and probably even more important: I have the opportunity to found a completely new venture in the elderly care market. Especially here in Germany this market has lots of potential. The company will be technology-focused and will have, including myself, 3 co-founders.

 

[Andy Black]

I landed another deal for a website, which will go through.
Profit: 400€

And I managed to get a deal that includes multiple websites for a single person.
The volume will be around 2.000€. That's really sweet.

Woohoo! One in a row!

Well done.

 

[Andy Black]

I will look into your mentioned resources in the evening. I've already read through the threads of @codo3500 and @eekern. Great stuff!
Your thread is on my list.

This thread might be worth reading too.

 

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[Andy Black]

@goodguude

I'm an AdWords consultant and @The-J is a Conversion Rate Optimization consultant.

We recorded a chat we had last night and dropped it here:

• https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/andytalks-with-the-j.69742/

 

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[Fox]

@Thiago Machado Some excellent posts recently. Rep sent. Ya web design and copywriting is a great mix. Best of both worlds for your client.

 

[goodguude]

Thanks for your replies! You are really helping me with this.
Also sent you some Rep, @Thiago Machado .

I already thought about a generic website to show in emails but thought that the potential client may thinks that he isn't something special haha.
Regarding the efficiency when using this for hundreds of emails to hundreds of clients it would be extremely useful.
I will accumulate a list of emails of some lawyers and eventually try this.

Nonetheless, I think warm leads are far superior compared to their cold counterparts. Therefor I need to get my name out to as many lawyers and people who know lawyers as possible. So, the free website for this renowned law firm seems to be a good step.

 

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[Thiago Machado]

Thanks for your replies! You are really helping me with this.
Also sent you some Rep, @Thiago Machado .

So, the free website for this renowned law firm seems to be a good step.

Awesome. Try it out and let us know what happens.

Be sure to bring so much value to him, that he'll want to keep you around forever.
This is what will land you on-going projects and monthly retainers.

Think of it this way: a free website is basically like giving him $3,000.

Now, strangely, in the client's mind, (in a unconscious sort of way), if you're giving him something that costs $3,000 for "free", just imagine what the returns would be like for something that requires a financial investment?

He's going to happily want to invest in your services.

P.S. I finished reading my life in advertising by claude hopkins last week. Mind-blowing. So much value in that book. Golden nuggets everywhere. I higly recommend it if you're looking for something to read. His pinciples can easily be applied to a web design agency.

 

[gebu]

Hey goodguude,

do you have a portfolio? I'm looking for someone who can do some design work for me.

Cheers

 

[goodguude]

Just had a meeting with a specialist who will help us getting registered, so we can beginn selling our product for pets.
I (probably) was able to sell him a website for his business, too. (unintentionally)
Seems like my in-person selling skills become better, haha.

 

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[goodguude]

Lol... I get this all the time when I'm chatting to other business owners. I'm naturally curious and interested in how they're getting leads and sales, and can't help but make suggestions. One thing then leads to another.

Exactly. Just asked him how he got into this business and how he is getting clients at the moment since he has no website at all. It's only word-of-mouth at the moment. That was really interesting.

 

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[Andy Black]

Invision App is okay, but in my experience, clients need to see an actual working demo of their site to give decent feedback.

I once had a client get upset because his site was 'broken.' He couldn't grasp that I had sent him an image, not an actual website =\

Really... when dealing with your typical business owner that knows nothing of the web, send them the real deal. Invision would be fine for the tech savvy corporate exec, but it's far too complicated for your average mom and pop business owner.

We put an image of a landing page up on a URL as our first iteration. We tell the client it's just an image, but then our dev guy can start coding it up while we get feedback about copy etc from the client.
It's working well for us.

 

[PatrickWho]

If clients are responding well to it, that's cool.

Do you find you're catching problems early enough with just an image, though?

Much of my revisions were concerning interacting with the site -- something that is obviously better captured in a working version.

I suppose it would depend on the clients. With mine, I saved time by coding out a working prototype they could play with. Then again, I'm faster with coding a site than with using Photoshop to design one, so I was more efficient doing it that way.

 

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[Andy Black]

If clients are responding well to it, that's cool.

Do you find you're catching problems early enough with just an image, though?

Much of my revisions were concerning interacting with the site -- something that is obviously better captured in a working version.

I suppose it would depend on the clients. With mine, I saved time by coding out a working prototype they could play with. Then again, I'm faster with coding a site than with using Photoshop to design one, so I was more efficient doing it that way.

We're just doing a landing page... two CTAs max. We pretty much have templates for this now.
Catching the design and "angle" of the offer early is very important.

 

[goodguude]

I agree. Amazing things have happened since I did even more for free.



Also, where are you on this sliding scale of percieved value?


1) I'll show you how to do it.

Buy my eBook and learn how to build a great website for your pizza restaurant that will have hordes of hungry students beat a path to you - before your competitors do!


2) I'll help you do it.

Hire me to coach you in the fine and lost art of building a website for your pizza restaurant.


3) I'll do it for you.

Hire me to build a website for your pizza restaurant.


4) I've already done it.

I've built a fully functional website for your pizza restaurant. Do you want it?


5) F*ck websites. You want sales don't you?

I've an order for twenty 12" pizzas for the local Dell factory. Can you deliver for 9pm?



(Out of interest, which do you think needs to be "sold" the hardest?)

Probably 3) and 4) for me.

HAHHhahah, yes. For me website is just a gift I use to start a relationship, as Andy pointed out, if their impression of a website is "I have manage to live without a website for 10 years, and you need to convince him to invest in one, F*ck it - focus on what he really wants... customers."

Big agencies are good at linking web design, SEO, to customers, but PPC and direct mail is your real upsell that will get him results.

Use the website as a relationship builder, not only will the project be super easy aka. "WordPress theme", but he won't ruin your month with "small changes" since he got it for free.. now you can talk real business. And when you produce tangible result for him, you can charge 10x more than what you could for a website.


But all tips aside, you are young and I think you should get the projects for reference, experience and some pocket change, good luck developing your skills !

Hello eekern! Thanks for participating in my thread and sharing your knowledge.

Unfortunately, I have no clue about PPC and direct mail at the momemt. Nevertheless I already thought about getting into this, because I think within there lies the real value one can provide to business - acquiring customers, making real money for your clients.
How useful is a beautiful website, if it doesn't help to "convert" the users visiting it? Or worse: if nobody even visits it?

Can you recommend some resources for this?
@Andy Black posts are probably really good for it.

 

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[goodguude]

I am thinking about doing a dedicated thread on my web development journey. Maybe some recorded interviews with other guys on here, cold calls, breakdown my business set up, easy ways to code good sites, pricing etc. While I don't consider myself hugely successful yet there has been a lot of PMs regarding stuff I know I can add a lot of value too. I will try get something up in the next week.

That would be awesome. I always wanted to know how you got where you are now.

 

[goodguude]

A webagency I knoe here in Germany doubled their prices to seem serious to lawyers.. They told me those people expect a higher price - Good luck with that!

Gesendet von meinem XT1032 mit Tapatalk

Hey, thank you for this hint!
I will implement this.

 

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[GuestUser155]

Thanks for your replies! You are really helping me with this.
Also sent you some Rep, @Thiago Machado .

I already thought about a generic website to show in emails but thought that the potential client may thinks that he isn't something special haha.
Regarding the efficiency when using this for hundreds of emails to hundreds of clients it would be extremely useful.
I will accumulate a list of emails of some lawyers and eventually try this.

Nonetheless, I think warm leads are far superior compared to their cold counterparts. Therefor I need to get my name out to as many lawyers and people who know lawyers as possible. So, the free website for this renowned law firm seems to be a good step.

Most of my thoughts you seem to have had already. Personalized products are great, people don't know what they want until they see it -- and their name on it.

Also, please don't use a template. I know it can save time by shotgunning everywhere, but differentiate with different styles and personal-flair. You're adding value to someone's life, not trying to muster up bail (unless you are ). Make a personal connection and tether yourselves. Ex: You're both from so-and-so city, you both played handball, etc. I'd imagine you're going to maintain your relations with these firms, yes? They'll help you with getting more customers (in areas where they're not competing, i.e colleagues from yonder over), so it's pertinent that you have some connection.

I've searched through the thread and I couldn't find your letter. Would you mind sharing it with us so we can critique it?

 

[MakeItHappen]

Any updates?

 

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[Inuc]

though know I am not goodguude, but can do a good design for you. Have portfolio you can check out

Hey goodguude,

do you have a portfolio? I'm looking for someone who can do some design work for me.

Cheers

 

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[Andy Daniels]

@Fox and @Thiago Machado is there a way to create a mockup website to show potential clients that you don't need to purchase hosting and have it up on the live web? Or is hosting it the only way?

 

[Andy Daniels]

Do you have any hosting at the moment?

If so you can make a subdomain/folder for free. Something like demo.yourdomain.(com)

If not you will need to get something unless you want to just send it as an image (not recommend).

Makes sense, thanks! I have a few sites hosted, so I could make it a subdomain folder.

 

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