A Little About Me
I’ve been working since I graduated college in 1989. Lucky for me I was accepted into a prestigious Wall Street training program where I became a broker who specialized in working with truly high net worth clients, many of whom were holders of large blocks shares of publicly traded companies. This type of job is known as “Concentrated Stock Management.” Doing this at, then, three of the most prestigious firms in the world: Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, and Salomon Smith Barney gave me an interesting perspective into how wealthy business people managed their lives and their financial affairs. Here’s what made them different from everyone else:
The first question they asked was never about price.
Why not?
Because it was about working with trusted advisors who leveraged the correct tools for the job, and were able to deploy a strong suite of services that not only helped the client achieve very specific goals, but who were also professional in their delivery.
So, what did they ask?
They wanted to know how what we were doing could help them. Then they wanted to know the high points, and if they liked what they heard, they would move on to review the details. And often, price was never in brought into the discussion.
Don’t Ask This One Question
After starting my own media company that built websites for businesses across the country, I noticed that, initially, instead of seeking to understand the totality of services and professionalism that were brought to bear by our company, most business owners we spoke to asked the same question: “how much do you charge?”
And while this is understandable, margins are thinner than ever before and people don’t want to throw away revenue, here’s one piece of advice that I can offer: don’t ask “how much” first.
It’s a Trap!
Why?
Because it will trap you. Every professional I know, lawyer, broker, or web developer will not engage in a “race to the bottom.” There will always be a lower quote, a lower price, or friend who says, I got my website built for free! Even as we pull away from the “everything is free” marketplace of the last decade, what is so important to remember is that free, is never free.
And what happens when you pick the lowest price? Usually you’re building a website again within a year, because:
- Your site is unfinished.
- Your site and its look is not representative of your company
- Your developer has disappeared.
Sound familiar? Almost each one of the sites I’ve built recently has been because the business owner can no longer reach their developer, or their developer just does not return their emails or calls.
How Important is Your Business to You?
As I continue to work closely with business owners not only to build them websites that often turn around their businesses, but to council them as a trusted advisor, what becomes evident is that once they get past the question of price, they quickly realize that growing their business is the key, and that by investing in a product or service that can help them do that is priceless.
To a smart business owner, a “cost” is expected to yield less than the price, an investment is something that will yield a higher reward than its price.
The question is, was your website a cost or an investment? And what has it done for you lately?
What Does Webvantix Do?
Simple: We build websites that help business grow their bottom lines by capturing more leads through strategically placed Calls to Action.
And we’ve never abandoned a customer. Ever.