How Much Money Did You Save?

Running a business means you wear a lot of hats.  One of the hats covers your cash flow and budget goals.

Since I speak with business owners each day, it makes it easy to see certain patterns and concerns that most owners share with me.

It’s not that you don’t know what you need; it seems that it’s more about needing to make the allotted budget or cash flow to cover what you know you need.

The web design industry is still a huge mystery to most people.  Unless you are in business to understand designers and developers, you can quickly get confused and frustrated with the range of prices that are laid on the table for, what you assume, is the same project.

Unlike other items that we, as consumers CAN understand, like cars, homes etc. (We can see the justification in the price tag of a stripped down Ford Ranger (a heater and key) over the price tag of a Ford F250 Extended Cab with all the bells and whistles, much the same we understand the price tag of a 2 bed 1 bath, 850 square foot home is very different than a 2 bed 1 bath, 2300 square foot home on a lake with an Olympic size pool). 

When it comes to justifying or understanding why one website would be so much different than another is not always so easy to understand.

In a world where everyone you know has “someone” that “can build a site” too many of us go for the price over the product.

Just like a car or a home or most other products you might invest your money in to improve your life, a website needs to be built to get the job done.  A nice paint job over a bad engine will not win you the race, heck it won’t even make it out of driveway.  A great looking home with a bad roof and shoddy plumbing will not keep you dry in the rain …. You get my point.

Now, I know you know you need the best equipment for your business and you are not worried about spending cash on what helps you make your business successful, you just don’t want to be taken advantage of, you paid someone before that made a lot of big promises then, after 8 or 9 months, you got a really disappointing website.  It looked okay but it was just a shell that had no “engine”. 

I understand you’re looking for real numbers that you can SEE justification of what you’re paying for.

I understand that my industry is full of “developers” that say “no problem” to everything until you pay them and all of sudden your emails go unanswered and their “voice mail is full”.

One of the reasons this happens to often in my industry is that you, the customer, don’t know the right questions to ask, and the questions you do ask may not be the ones you should have asked.  As “professionals” it is the responsibility of YOUR web developer to guide you through the process , explain the answers to the questions you didn’t know to ask and to ask you the real questions that will make a huge difference in, not only your overall experience of the design process,  but the all important end result. 

After all, a website is NOT your primary need.  The website is a crucial tool that you need to succeed, grow and thrive in business during this unique time that we live in.

If you approach your web design project with the knowledge the you get what you pay for and that you’re investing in the TOOL that will be used to get to your GOAL then it makes things easier to filter.

You also need to hang on to some basic common sense logic like “if it sounds too good to be true” it usually is as well as on the reverse, if you’re being quoted $40k for a base model Ford Ranger then there is a problem.

So remember – A website is NOT your goal – it is the TOOL that will help you achieve your goal.  These examples may help prove the idea.

Her goal was to look more attractive – the tool she invested in failed

His goal was to give his kids a fun afternoon – the tool he invested in failed

His goal was to win the race – the tool he invested in failed

Their goal was to have security and a nice place to live – the tool they invested in failed

His goal was to make money online – the tool he invested in failed.