Double the Price of your Next Web Design Project
Part of my job is consulting with web designers to help them make more money.
I get to hear about a lot of pain within the web design community.
It never fails. The #1 painful comment that I hear more than anything
else is “we can’t get paid what we are worth.” Do you have this issue?
Business owners are infamous for putting downward pressure on prices for website projects, but its not their fault.
It’s yours.
Prior to selling my web agency, HotPress Web, last year and starting uGurus,
a new venture to help web professionals become more profitable, I
pitched a lot of website projects. I got paid really, really well for
the work I did. And my clients were happy to oblige.
Am I an anomaly? Do I have some secret voodoo magic trick?
Is Everyone Cheap?
No.
When a business owner views a website as a commodity, your chances of getting paid well go out the window.
“The more specific meaning of the term commodity is
applied to goods only. It is used to describe a class of goods for which
there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative
differentiation across a market. A commodity has full or partial
fungibility; that is, the market treats its instances as equivalent or
nearly so with no regard to who produced them.”
(Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity)
More simply said: when your offer looks like all of the others, price is the only thing that matters.
Instead of building value for a unique offer, we fall into the trap
of selling a ten page piece of brochure-ware that will be thrown away in
twelve months because it didn’t solve anything for the business owner.
The problem is most web designers try to sell websites.
It might sound like I’m talking crazy. Why wouldn’t web designers sell websites? Afterall, we are web designers right…?
Wrong.
Websites Are Just One Piece of the Puzzle
For the millions of small businesses
active in the United States, having a website is a requirement. But it
no longer stops there. Websites are the hub for online strategies with
countless spokes springing off of them.
It used to be just having a website was enough. Now businesses need:
- Email Marketing
- E-commerce
- Social Media
- SEO
- Local Search
- Content Development
- Mobile App
- Inbound Marketing
- Customer Relationship Management
- Analytics
- …and so on
I call this the Online Business Ecosystem. Businesses have a physical
bricks and mortar existence, and then they have their online
equivalent. Each business owner needs a point person to help them
navigate these waters.
In my experience, web designers have the premier opportunity to take the reigns.
You Own the Hub
Any kind of Internet traffic and conversion strategy ends at the
website. Rarely do you want to send traffic away from your website to
another medium. If a business owner has a visitor on their website, they
don’t want to send them to Facebook (world distraction headquarters).
But if a visitor is on a Facebook page or reading a tweet, the Holy Grail is for them to follow through to a website.
When a business owner sends an email to their list for a new offer, the landing page will live on their website.
Almost every social, search, and app strategy ties in a business’
website on some level. This puts you at the helm of the Online Business
Ecosystem. The business owner is begging you to take the lead.
Website projects are much more powerful when they tie into other
elements of an online strategy. There is no such thing as “build it and
they will come” for web projects.
Yet every day web designers are pumping out proposals for website
projects void of any mention about traffic or conversion strategies to
tie in the other online components.
Time to Double Your Prices
“You are the most expensive company we are looking at, but feel we must move forward because no one else is offering what you are.”
- Quote from every client that signed a contract with me in the last three years
I stopped selling website design services and created online business
solutions that solved real problems for business. On average, I would
have eight meetings with a prospective customer before signing a deal.
I spent a lot of time deep diving into the business to find their
root concern: usually the problem of getting more customers. Even though
most businesses had the same concern, it was packaged differently.
I couldn’t just exclaim on my first meeting, “I, BRENT WEAVER, WILL
HELP YOU GET MORE CUSTOMERS.” I would have been a fraud. Instead, I
worked to understand what was holding them back from getting more
customers. After I understood their issues, I could draft a plan to
solve their problems using my skills as a web professional.
My average project went from $3,000 to $5,000 and then to $10,000.
Then the average went to $15,000. I started closing deals that broke the
$20,000 mark, and eventually $30,000.
Not only that, but I was slam dunking almost 90% of the deals I would draft a proposal for.
Some Pruning is in Order
Going from being a mere web designer to a full-fledged online
business consultant will take some work. You will have to acquire the
skills necessary to speak a language with your prospects that goes
beyond HTML, CSS, and WordPress.
You will have to carve out some of the time you spend on web design
to line up some expert subcontractors that can help you with certain
services that are a requirement in an Online Business Ecosystem:
- Search marketing
- Email
- and so on
But it will be worth it. You will spend less time competing with
other web designers, your clients will tell more people about you, and
champagne will rain down from each of your deal-winning celebration
parties.
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What’s the Difference Between a Web Designer and Web Developer?
Almost everywhere you look someone is talking about or calling themselves either a web designer or web developer. But what does it all really mean?
Who really is a designer or developer? Can you be both?
While this can be a topic of hot debate, we help break down the terms, what they mean and how they relate to each other.
A Designer’s Job
First, it is important to really think about each job on it’s own.
A web designer uses graphics and graphic design software (think Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) to create a look for the web. This design is then married with coding to bring it to life online.
The designer may not always be the person writing the code and in
some cases can work independently of the team who will take a website
design live.
Much of a designer’s job is creative and uses both intuition and
imagination, often characteristics of people who are considered
right-brained. People in this field may continue their educations in a
variety of fields but are most commonly drawn to graphic design and the
arts. Designers collect work portfolios to showcase their projects for
potential employers.
The best designers have a strong grasp on a variety of concepts
including color and typography, spacial relationships, audience and user
experience.
A Developer’s Job
While aspects of a developer’s job may resemble that of a designer, it can be quite different as well.
A web developer builds the backbone of websites, typically from the
ground up, and knows languages specific to the web. HTML, Javascript,
JQuery and CSS are among the tools in their kit. Developers,
historically, don’t focus on making something look visually appealing
but create websites with clean code and that are technically sound.
Web developers are often thought of as left-brained workers. Skills
from technical ability and thinking to logic are an essential part of
their repertoires. Web developers may have degrees in a variety of
fields such as computer science or programming. Most employers will
require a portfolio during the hiring process.
The best developers are often detail-oriented and are keen on specifics.
Two Jobs, One Goal
At the end of the day, both web designers and web developers are
working toward a singular goal – to create a website or app that entices
and attracts users.
To do this, both the design and development must be sound. A site
needs to look good and function properly. The colors and imagery need to
reflect the brand and the interface needs to encourage visitors to take
a desired action.
The defined lines between designers and developers are becoming more
blurred as more designers are learning to code and more developers are
paying close attention to design theory. (Just one of the reasons why
design and development articles and tutorials are so popular.) We are
all beginning to see that the future of the field includes the title web
designer/developer.
Working Together
One of the toughest parts about web design and development can be
working together and communicating in a way that everyone understands.
There is so much jargon on each side that it can make working together
hard if you don’t consider your words carefully.
Here are a few tips for bridging the communication gap:
- Avoid jargon.
- Show, don’t tell, people how things should look or work. If you
don’t know how to explain something, bring a working sketch or example
to meetings.
- Be open to ideas. Designers should accept design concepts from
developers, and developers should be open to user experience ideas from
designers.
- Learn more about how the other part of the web creation process
works. Read up about things you don’t know a lot about and ask
questions.
Can You Be a Designer and Developer?
All of these differences seem to imply that designers and developers are two very different jobs or roles.
But they don’t have to be.
You can be a designer and developer at the same time. More people are
beginning to label themselves in this way and it is becoming an
in-demand skill-set. Design and development are converging for a number
of people and even for designers who never considered learning
development and vice versa.
I am even one of those people. A bit of a personal story:
I came up as a designer working in print design. I had no idea how websites worked or why, nor did I consider building them.
That all changed a few years ago when I realized that websites could
and should be just as beautiful as printed things. And I would be more
valuable as a worker and more satisfied in my job if I could learn both
skills.
So I started learning to code. I won’t admit to knowing a lot about code. I do know enough to be dangerous.
But I can talk to developers and understand the language. It has made
it easier for me to work with developers on projects and hopefully it
has made developers appreciate working with a designer who gets where
they are coming from.
Now just think if I had learned design and development simultaneously like many of the people just starting their careers.
So … the answer is yes. You can be both a designer and developer. You
will probably always be better at one, but your goal should be to have
some aptitude in each.
Conclusion
So how do you classify yourself and your work? Share it with us in
the comments. We love to know about the people who are part of the
Designmodo community.
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