|
Nicole -> Shonksters . . . (4/23/2007 7:20:27)
|
It's funny, I've been living here about 3 months and I'm just starting to get enquiries from local people. This is the third place I've lived inside 9 months and the time it takes to establish one's business seems to be pretty consistent. Needless to say it takes about a month to actually feel comfortable in a new house and get organised, but I've done some basic marketing here and it's still taken about the same amount of time for the locals to find me whereas in my last two locations I didn't do any marketing except to optimise my site for the location I was in.
Thanks Thomas & Jaybee among others who have consistently told me in threads I will find and link here about ways to market a web design business in a small town and also how to market a web design business on a very limited budget, I'm trying to implement all things I've learned from those threads and it is working.
Things as simple as talking to people, not going door-to-door or giving some unwanted sales pitch, but being served in a shop, whatever shop it doesn't matter, striking up a conversation with the person serving you, dropping into that conversation that you're new in town, you work from home doing web design, going into computer stores and introducing yourself (still not a sales pitch) and asking if you can leave them a few of your cards. Buy something from them, even if it's only a mouse pad and you already have 20, go back occasionally and browse their store, go in and buy batteries, just keep the raport going, it'll work, it already is.
Go into other stores that you think people running businesses will also go. I went into the local office supply shop the other day and just enquired about something I didn't really want necessarily, and now he knows me too.
Give your business card to everyone, everyone who comes to your home from a pest controller to an electrician, it really is too easy, but I don't want to speak too soon.
I've only been contacted by two locals so far, one got my card from a computer store and the other got my card after leaving it at the pet store when I went in to enquire about boarding my cat. One site I didn't get, the other I'm only quoting on at the moment but I'm sure if I persist with these methods they'll work.
So what has this post got to do with "Shonksters", what has it to do with anything? Well, both of these enquiries have come my way, and therefore I assume designers in neighbouring towns are also receiving them from clients of two design firms based in another neighbouring town who's main focus it seems appears to be on signing as many local businesses up, providing them with a cheap and nasty site, and leaving them to flounder with the consequences. Non existent customer service that entails only a once a year visit to collect the next years hosting fees - these people, these businesses have been had and now they're looking at the alternatives.
It's funny, I had done some research into my local competitors, not easy as some don't even rank well for their own locale, but having heard of these two shonksters in particular, I noticed that both of them list probably hundreds of site design in their portfolios, their attention is obviously focussed on quantity and not quality. But Alas! I've found another one who boasts about being in the web design business since 1998, listing every site he's done and from what I can see, he's still using the same techniques to design his sites 9 years on.
So besides the poor customer service, the poor site designs, lack of standards and accessibility and the fact that these businesses clients seem to be running as soon as they can, I had reason to call another local designer today to discuss another matter and the topic of where these clients were coming from arose - so other designers are even finger pointing and laughing.
So, the point of this post was to thank those that have helped to bring me out of my shell a bit as far as being confident in marketing my business, and to prove to others who might be starting in this business and think that signing 100 clients up for $200 websites is better than 10 x $2000 clients and offering them the courtesy of good customer service - think again.
The damage you'll do is immense. A lot won't even renew their hosting and won't want another website ever, some will but they'll run from you, and other, more competent designers / business operators will be waiting in the wings to accept these clients with open arms and repair the damage you've done to this industry and the clients in question.
|
|
|
|
