Ideas/Opinions on this idea?

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brokemofo

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Feb 10, 2011
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So I design and build websites from the ground up as well as other design services for clients. But I don't really have many clients at the moment and so I'm thinking of doing the following:

  • Build a website offering my services for local businesses
  • Calling small businesses that aren't yet online and see if they'd like a website and be branded on the internet
  • Possibly offer SEO and other services to get them rollin
  • Charge them a cheap price of $50-80 a month to include: their website, banners/creatives, seo services, updates on the site/site maintenance and stuff like that.
  • Use an affiliate link to buy hosting for each of their websites (eventually get a reseller account)
  • Try to get a minimum of 100 clients and keep growing and then begin outsourcing (100 @ $50/80 = $60k/96k/yr) I could possibly charge them more as well as up selling them after baiting them in.
  • Maybe charge $30 extra a month per every additional website someone may want (if I decide to work with people/companies that need more than one)
Okay, so that's my basic idea and was thinking what you guys think about doing this? My problem would be getting the 100 businesses interested but it shouldn't be THAT difficult, I hope. Should I go with this and see what happens? I know a lot of you may say to just do it, but I don't have much time on my hands and am trying to build something that will ultimately work without split testing for months. Also please give your opinion on a good price per month I should charge them.

Thanks to anyone who can give me some advice!
 


1. You will be there "web guy" at this point so expect non-stop calls you won't be able handle to change a link, change a banner and other trivial stuff as well as everytime they have a new brainfart about how their websites could be better. I did this for way too long when I was younger. Have a plan to outsource this or something going in because otherwise it can become hell quickly and with more than 10 clients you won't have any chance of handling it yourself anyway.

2. Don't put them on shared hosting and collect a little affiliate payout monthly, instead pay for one dedicated box and put all of them on there and keep all the profit. I did this for a long time and was charging ecommerce sites about $600 a pop and had 12 of them so I had $7,200 a month coming in on autopilot and one dedicated server which cost me about $300 a month for them all.

Good luck! Go in with a solid plan to handle every need of the client as they will come to you for everything since you are now their "web guy". That's the part that became a pain in the ass for me and made me move on from it and walk away from the hosting $$.
 
So you were charging $600/month for each client that had an ecommerce site? What would you charge a client a month if they just wanted a nicely designed site with all their info and shit on it without it being an ecommerce? I'm trying to find a decent price to charge - one that's cheap for them but also good enough for me.

A dedi would be the best way to go but I'd need a couple clients first to cover the fees as I can't afford that right away.

And for handling everything I will have a back end to my site where the people I outsource to can log in and check what needs to be done and the clients can see the progress of everything and keep track of what's done as well as creating new tickets for the outsourced workers to take care of. But then I need to figure out how to pay the outsourced work and how much to pay so I still profit, if I do outsource and have to pay them hourly I need to make sure I'm making enough money from my clients so I can afford them as well as profiting. Possibly limit the labor hours each client gets each month and then charge them extra for more work over the set amount of hours.

Thanks for the info!
 
Do not charge cheaply, either work for free or make them pay well, because as soon as your customer will use his wallet, no matter how much he's paying, he'll expect the best service on earth.
 
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numerouno said:
Do not charge cheaply, either work for free or make them pay well, because as soon as your customer will use his wallet, no matter how much he's paying, he'll expect the best service on earth.
Click to expand...

I agree. When buyers pay, even if it is 1 cent, they are expecting top-notch services.
 
Yes, I agree with you. But I don't want to scare away any potential clients with sky high prices. I should probably figure out the bare minimum I'm willing to do it all for, and then charge them a lot more and if they don't like the price then I'd be willing to go as low as the bare minimum price (go high first and then wheel n deal).

Should I do this, charge them the monthly price and include only so many hours for labor with their site/services and then charge them more once they go over the set amount of hours?

So far I'm looking at something like this:

Package One:

  • Upfront cost of $200 for their site (includes their website + one month free, doesn't include eCommerce), site will be relatively basic and no more than 8 pages
  • $150 a month after first month
  • Include 7 hours labor for making/editing website and creatives
  • $20 each extra hour over 7
  • Basic SEO/Search Engine Submission
Outsource Info:

  • Pay $10/hr @ 7 hrs = $70 - Netting me $80/mo
  • Plus Netting me an extra $10/hr/mo for the extra hours

Package Two:

  • Upfront cost of $300 for site, up to 16 pages, 1 month included, no eCommerce
  • $250 a month after first 2 months
  • include 15 hours labor
  • $20 each extra hour over 15
  • Basic SEO/Search Engine Submission
Outsource Info:

  • Pay $10/hr @ 15 hrs = $150 - Netting me $100/mo (even more if they don't use all their hours)
  • Plus Netting me an extra $10/hr/mo for the extra hours

Package 3:

  • Upfront cost of $600 for site, unlimited pages, 1 month included, includes eCommerce (limited amount of products for said price)
  • $400 a month thereafter
  • Include 25 hours labor
  • $20 each extra hour over 25
  • SEO/Search Engine Submission
Outsource Info:

  • Pay $10/hr @ 25 hrs = $250 - Netting me $150/mo (even more if they don't use all their hours)
  • Plus Netting me an extra $10/hr/mo for the extra hours

Each package will include custom solutions to satisfy each customer, so prices will vary depending on what the client is actually looking for. I don't think I will be using the prices and hours said above, just an example of how I'm looking to build this. If anyone can help me come up with better prices and hours, please feel free to (I'm not sure if those are expensive prices or not for the clients?).

Any other info is much appreciated as well.
 
numerouno said:
Do not charge cheaply, either work for free or make them pay well, because as soon as your customer will use his wallet, no matter how much he's paying, he'll expect the best service on earth.
Click to expand...

+rep

Thank you for this. I am about to kick off some SEO service and have been wondering how much to charge.... this really put some things into prospective.
 
you can actually charge a higher price for the exact same service and based on the vertical and the difference in prices people will actually buy more at the higher price (not just more total revenue - you'll actually sell a higher number of products) because they think the higher price equates to a better level of service. if you're approaching big businesses and selling them a service like you described, they'll probably brush off the $50 a month guy and opt for the $1000 a month guy just because he's more expensive so he "must know what he's doing"

i do this a lot when i outsource jobs and i usually dont even look at the lowest bidders because i'd rather just pay a little extra and have a better shot at getting it done right

another thing i'd do (especially if you're going the cheap prices route) is create a single generic template ahead of time and use it for every single site. and like wayne said get your own dedicated server (they usually start about 200 a month and its easy enough to upgrade if you need to) and put everything on there. shared hosting is terrible, slow, and i even had a site put on the firefox block list once because someone else on the same shared host put up a warez site. better believe your clients will drop you real fast if they see that shit
 
I have been doing something kind of similar to this in the last year. I was pretty disorganized with it (hence why I am winding it down slowly) but man, I hated it. Worst year of my life.

Its good that you are planning this out like you are, but there has been some awesome advice in this thread. As soon as some one is paying you (no matter how much) they think they own your ass. You're going to come across great clients, and some really problematic clients as well. Have systems in place to deal with this.

Personally, if I was going to get into this full-time again, I'd be looking to charge premium prices and go after high-value/high-net-worth clients.

One thing I would say is, I contacted many small businesses who didn't have websites when I started out. Like you, I thought logically they'd be the best kind of people to go for. However, I found that usually 80-90% of these people didn't really understand or want a website, or didn't think they needed one. A few of them were quite fed up of web design companies ringing them offering services. Lol.

What worked a bit better was doing a search for a keyword you know that gets traffic. E.g: "New York Gyms" (this might be a bit generic, but you get the idea).

I'd then go on to Google and look for all the New York gyms with websites. I went to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th pages of Google. I contacted those website/business owners and explained to them that they were missing out on some exposure for a keyword that was getting a lot of searches and traffic. I then explained with a little bit of work they could really increase the traffic to the site (only tell them this if it's true after you have run the numbers on the keyword searches).

Usually, this would interest them. Because they owned a website, they understood the benefit of having one, and also understood the benefit of getting more traffic and getting it ranked higher in Google. They were more willing to talk to me and find out more. I send them a small SEO report showing weaknesses in their rankings and potential keyword opportunities and I schedule a meeting with them. You could also offer to improve their websites for them (if their site needs it). I found quite a few websites that looked like they had been designed in the early 1990's.

I am sure you can start a great business doing what you are doing. For me personally I really haven't enjoyed the experience at all, but I think thats more a reflection on me and my personal tastes, rather than the business model. But good luck with it man, I hope it works out for the best. Make sure you come back to this thread and let us know what you decide on and how it goes!
 
brokemofo said:
So you were charging $600/month for each client that had an ecommerce site? What would you charge a client a month if they just wanted a nicely designed site with all their info and shit on it without it being an ecommerce? I'm trying to find a decent price to charge - one that's cheap for them but also good enough for me.

A dedi would be the best way to go but I'd need a couple clients first to cover the fees as I can't afford that right away.

And for handling everything I will have a back end to my site where the people I outsource to can log in and check what needs to be done and the clients can see the progress of everything and keep track of what's done as well as creating new tickets for the outsourced workers to take care of. But then I need to figure out how to pay the outsourced work and how much to pay so I still profit, if I do outsource and have to pay them hourly I need to make sure I'm making enough money from my clients so I can afford them as well as profiting. Possibly limit the labor hours each client gets each month and then charge them extra for more work over the set amount of hours.

Thanks for the info!
Click to expand...

I wouldn't do a "web presence" site because there wasn't enough money in it for me, unless it was an existing ecommerce client and I would still charge them 5k to build it for them but then maybe $300 monthly. This point brings me back to the point made by numerouno, don't do anything for free and don't do anything cheap. No matter how you slice it your clients will be a major main in the ass even if you outsource everything you can think of, they will still call you and want to talk sometimes and there will be back and forth problems that you must be in the middle of. So knowing this going in, follow the 80/20 rule and charge high premium prices. Basically only chase the 20% of people who will pay high prices, you will often find they will have less "issues" all the time as well.

I was charging $600 each ecommerce store but these people could have gotten a do it yourself yahoo store or other ecommerce solution for $100 a month if they wanted. These were the people who would pay my premium price and still they became a pain in the ass eventually and I got rid of them, but at least I was making some $ dealing with them. I think my hourly fee on top of the hosting was $125 or something, so nothing was cheap. This is the advice you keep hearing in this thread and for good reason, CHARGE PREMIUM PRICING and don't worry if you get less customer, as I said before you aren't handling 100 customers anyway no matter how well you set it up with outsources etc.

About the server, put the first few guys on shared or semi-dedicated and tell them you are charging them so much for hosting because they are getting a top of the line dedicated server bla bla bla. They won't have enough traffic to even know the difference and as soon as you get a few you can switch them all to a dedicated machine.

Charge hourly, and again NOT cheap either. If you can get an outsourcer for $8 an hour then charge them $80. Again trust me when I saw you will be in the middle much more than you think so make it worth it.
 
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