Design To The Finish Line

As a business owner who likes to see businesses succeed, I like to share more than Here is a Method That Helps Business Owners Have Better Websites and 8 Basic Website Development Expenses And What They Mean with business owners. This week I am sharing some business success tips I have learned from Brian Tracy.

Brian Tracy is one of the world’s leading authorities on success and personal achievement, addressing more than 100,000 men and women each year in public and private seminars. He has studied why some businesses are more successful than others. He’s the author of, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, a practical guide that covers every aspect of work life, from leadership and money to negotiating and time management, which states, “Your ability to set clear and accurate priorities on your time determines the entire quality of your life,” “The experience of resistance and frustration is often an indication that you are doing the wrong thing.” “Before you start something new, you must discontinue something old.”

In the following video, Brian Tracy offers a few of his best tips for selling, which is a big part of business success -

Some of the points he covers in this video are -

1. To achieve results you have to get off Someday Isle.

2. One major difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is successful people launch, they start, the get on with it – they just do it.

3. Listening builds trust.

4. There are no sales without objections. Objections mean interest.

5. Use seeding in sales by using the term, “By the way, our customers say . . .”

6. Use a directive close, “Mr/Mrs Prospect, does this make sense to you?” (They say yes) “Well then, the next step is (explain what needs to be done next).” Close with “And I’ll take care of all the details.”

7. You are probably only one skill away from doubling your income, and you know what it is.

8. Successful people do the things that people who fail don’t like to do.

These are just some of the many different ways to help make your business more successful. By applying any one or all of the above points you are almost guaranteed more business success.

Stop, watch the video again and see how you can apply the techniques to increase your business bottom line.

Are you thinking an eCommerce website to support your sales efforts?

Call us at 707-578-1390 today to set an appointment to show you the different eCommerce solutions we have available.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios -
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.

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When clients come to Forward Motion Studios looking for a website redesign or a new website, they are often surprised by one of my first questions:

Who are your target customers and how well do you know them?

Say what?

This first question is usually followed by my second: who will be visiting your Website and what will they gain by doing so?

Say who?

One of the biggest mistakes I see from business owners is not being able to tell me who their customer is and why they need to come to their website.

Business owners seem to know what colors they prefer (not what their customers like) and what design they think they want based on their own likes and dislikes – not from any market research from their customers or potential customers.

I think it can be difficult for people to receive feedback which differs from their own – especially when it’s a creative endeavor like building a website. The process can produce strong feelings.

However, we typically don’t buy cars because they look pretty sitting on the car lot, we buy cars because of the features and benefits a certain car will bring us.

A smart business website needs to address the features and benefits for a particular customer need.

And in order to build a website for that customer, you need to know who that customer is. Right down to how old they are and what they like to buy.

A “pretty” website doesn’t automatically translate to immediate sales.

Really.

A website needs to provide for the needs of the reader viewing it: your customer. The “prettiness” is secondary.

Let me use a case in point.

Let’s say you are a hip, young 30-something business owner selling Sports Memorabilia/Fan Apparel and Souvenirs. You want a new website to bring more business into your small store in a local mall.

At first glance, you might think your best customers are teenagers that are into sports and their parents.

You might be tempted to build a visually bright and busy website to target that customer.

Here at Forward Motion Studios Web Design, we could just go ahead and build that website. I mean, if it is what our client wants – right?

But what if through questioning and research we find that this hip business owner’s best customers are actually retired men?

Wouldn’t this mean a completely different kind of website? We would want something more simple in design, easy to navigate with larger fonts.

We’d also want to watch the load time and how the site appears in older browsers, in case this particular customer doesn’t update their computer very often.

We’d build a website with this best customer in mind. We wouldn’t worry about the teenagers and their parents because they will naturally come for the products.

But we don’t want to lose hip business owner’s best customer because the website is too frustrating to use and the information they need isn’t readily available.

We want to keep them happy while attracting more customers just like them.

This is why it is important to be able to answer the question: who are your target customers and how well do you know them?

Next, we’ll want to know your budget, but I’ll save the budget discussion for another post.

Not sure of your website plan? Heather Montgomery, CEO of Forward Motion Studios is happy to walk you through the process by asking the right questions. Call us at 707-578-1390 today and let’s set an appointment to build you the right kind of business website.

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.

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There seems to be a false belief by many businesses that a website is an expense.

While it is true that a properly built website can cost a sizable amount of money, but so does adding cubicles and hiring staff for your business operations.

A well built, search-engine friendly website is more like having the top performer from your competition come to work at your business. Does it cost money to bring this peak performer on?

Of course it does.

But what he offers in return on your investment is an increase your business sales, which leads to an increase the value of your business. The same can be said about the right website.  You should consider a web development budget equal to what you would pay a high level salesmen for a month of high volume sales at your business.

What are the basic web site expenses and what do they mean?

1. Domain Name

A domain name is the online web address your customers use to find information about your products and services.  It’s what follows the www. on the Internet address.  We can help you chose your domain name and the purchase of it, or advise you where to go to purchase your domain name. This is usually paid once a year.

2. Hosting

Web hosting is a service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own websites accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are the companies that provide space on a server they own for use by individuals and organizations for their websites and website data. This can be a monthly or annual cost.  Forward Motion Studios also offers an affordable web hosting plan for our clients.

3. Graphic Design

Graphic design is working with drawn, painted, photographed, or computer-generated images and typefaces. People often forget that they are paying for the time it takes to create or work with a design – not the design itself.  Yes, we do Graphic design work too.

4. Stock Photography

Stock photography is the supply of photographs licensed for specific uses. The images come in various resolutions that are needed for use in print and on the web. We like to encourage our clients away from stock photography, and use professional real-life photographs for their images. But every now and then a stock photograph is needed. The price for the image is based on the quality and type of shot.

5. Code

Code is a collection of statements written in computer programming language. Everything you see on the Internet is driven by code. If you are ever curious about this, when you have a web browser open go to View / Page Source to see a sample of code. Coding takes time and with this expense clients are paying for the time it takes to work with code to create the desired effect on a website. This is where most of the website cost will come in.

6. Content

Content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations. (Thanks Wikipedia!) Text content needs to be written with the viewer in mind, highlighting the keywords and marketing plan of the website owner. Images need to be adjusted for web viewing. Sound must be edited for quality. Again for this service, you are paying for the time it takes to complete the content.

7. SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of improving the volume of traffic to a web site from search. There are many tactics used for SEO, which start with your web address, your competition, your content, marketing plan, keywords and site submissions. It is typically a flat fee service unless you are running an ad campaign.

8. Web Maintenance

The ongoing updates and maintenance of a website once it is live. You should update your website at least once a month. If this is too difficult, you may want to consider having a blog where you can add fresh content on a regular basis. We charge a flat fee for this service with a monthly contract.

Websites can cost as much as you want to spend. What we mean by this is a quality website can run anywhere from $3,000 – $100,000 depending on the level of quality and the size of the site.

Is your website highly developed and customized just for you and your particular clients? Or something more generic? Will you be selling products on your website and need a high level of security? Think about the differences (and the work involved) that a WalMart website would need compared to your dentist up the street.

We discuss all of these options with you, as part of the process of outlining your site and determining its proposed cost. So what kind of budget have you allowed for your business website? Is it enough?

Our continued success to you,

About Forward Motion Studios
Forward Motion Studios™ is a Santa Rosa Web Design company that builds, hosts and supports custom websites for businesses. This includes simple, brochure-like web pages to highly complex, software and database-driven eCommerce websites with B2B shopping carts. You can catch their Tweets at twitter/forwardmotion.