Internet Magic

There is a Taoist story of an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit.

“Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.

“We’ll see,” the farmer replied.

The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses.

“How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.

“We’ll see,” replied the old man.

The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.

“We’ll see,” answered the farmer.

The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.

“We’ll see” said the farmer.

This story reminds me about what’s going on with my business right now. We might say that it’s great that we have a big sale, but then the end up not making much money on the project.

Or we bounce a check, but then we pull a full scale change in our sales system, pricing structure and financial system. I might even get rid of the salesman because we can’t afford the high fixed cost associated with him and him not getting the sales to support that higher cost.

What have been some bad things that have turned into something good for you? Or what is a good thing that turned into something bad? I’d love to hear your story.

I look at a lot of web sites every day. One of the things I’m noticing lately is that web sites either have too little or too much text  on their site. And I’m guilty of it myself but I’m working on changing that.

I talked with a woman the other day who is an accountant. I thought her site had too little content. She works in a very specific niche and there was a lot of information that she could add about the services that she offers. I think visitors to her site need to read more specifics about what she does and how she can help them.

When you look at your site, would you say that you have too much or too little content? I’d like to hear your perspective.

Have an interesting quote hanging on my wall – “Cut your costs to the bone – stop leaking money, you many need it!”

I read recently that businesses have started to see more profits lately and one of the reasons this has come about was because companies have been cutting out the fat in their budgets. I’m sorry to see people laid off. Often the other people in the department have to pick up the slack for the person who has been lost.

I’ve cut quite a few expenses over the last year. I moved my office into my home and save several hundred dollars a month. I found I rarely used my office for client or sales meeting because I like to see what a business’ environment looks like.

I also reduced my mobile wireless from $60 per month to $15 per month, and I got rid of services that I no longer use.

One client I’m working with now is reducing his Yellow Pages expenses from $8000/mn to $3,000/mn starting in January. By doing this he will free up more money to do online marketing, which reaches a greater number of people at a lower cost per lead. And there is more accountability because I can show him in his web site statistics the leads directly attributed to online marketing.

What are some marketing expenses have eliminated or shifted to more effective marketing? I’d like to hear what you’ve learned.

As a small business owner you can sometimes feel that you have to know everything and do everything yourself. This can be tough since we all have limited time to become experts.

That’s why I rely on experts to come alongside me to help on projects. I was amazed today by my programming partner, Matthew. This morning Matthew and I finished up some lingering details on a project he worked on for me. He had come up with some very creative solutions for multiple contact forms.

Matthew has his own company but works directly with my clients. Most of the clients know that he doesn’t work directly for me.

Over the last month I’ve used two different designers, a copywriter, and a team of search engine marketing experts. I have done all these things in the past but they are excellent at what they do. And I rely on them to help my clients get great results.

What are things in your business that you can partner with an expert and still make a decent profit? I’d like to hear what kind of people you’ve partnered with.

We’ve been doing things lately with our business that have actually turned away potential business. But these things have also brought better clients into the fold. I’m talking about creating Web Plan’s for clients before giving a hard price for a web site.

I get calls all the time where people ask how much a web site will be. This is a natural question that someone would have but when you compare it to other industries it doesn’t make much sense.

What if I called a mechanic and told him my brakes were squeaking and asked how much it would be to fix them? Or what if I called a contractor and asked him how much it would be to add an addition to my house? My neither of these people could give me a good price because they don’t have the information to make an intelligent guesstimate.

I have dabbled with the idea of having flat pricing on web sites but I find there are too many variables to give an accurate estimate. I have to look at the end product and work back from there, in regard to both pricing and timeline.

I could have two people give me the same description of the site they want and one project could be $500 and the other $5000. I just don’t know until I’ve gone through a series of questions to find out what kind of functionality they want on the site and how sophisticated of a design.

So, if you call and ask for a price on a site you won’t get it. But I can give you a range. If you fit in that range I am happy to meet you in person and go through a questionnaire in person. I can give you a narrower range, but still can’t give you a definitive price. If you pay for us to develop a Web Plan for you then I will be able to give you a hard price.

So, get in touch with us at 720-922-3124 to have initial talks. I’m certain we can develop a site that you will love the design and will have all the functions that you need to be effective in business.

If you’ve had a site developed in the past, why do you think other companies don’t do a Web Plan? I’d love to hear your thoughts.