41:5 Why you need to stop selling websites

Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is your host, Lee. And today you’re joining me, Mr. Lee Jackson, and my friend and your friend, the one and only, Beth Livingston. How are you?

Beth:
I’m good. I’m happy to be here. Happy to talk to you.

Lee:
I’m happy. You’re happy. We’re all happy. And actually I say your friend and my friend. I think we all have the same friends. We were just name dropping earlier, weren’t we? Rick and [inaudible 00:00:25] and Michael and Tom. Hey, guys, if you’re listening, it’s me and Beth, we’re hanging out. Folks, if you don’t know who Beth is, please check out wproadmaps.com/join us to join her wonderful community and check out all of the incredible content that she has. And also yours truly, that’s me, I also make a little appearance in there, so it’s always worth going and checking that out. But before you do that, I’d just like to thank our sponsors Cloudways for sponsoring a yet another episode. You can find out why they’re cool on trailblazer.fm/cloudways. So Beth, that was quite a long and wordy introduction. But hi, how are you?

Beth:
I’m good. I’m good.

Lee:
How’s the kitchen refurb going?

Beth:
Very well. I’m very happy with it. My house was built in 1932, so I still had aluminium cabinets and a very unworkable kitchen. Because back then the kitchen wasn’t really the centre of the home like it is now. So I’m changing that.

Lee:
Oh, my word. It sounds phenomenal. We have a galley kitchen here in the UK, which is very small and cramped, but me and my wife have kind of gotten this really good system going where we know who needs what, and when, and we actually look like a graceful dance as we float around the kitchen.

Beth:
You should video that. I’d love to see that.

Lee:
I thought the very same thing. When I said it does sound like something worth going on the Internet. But today we’re going to talk about a highly controversial topic. And that is why you shouldn’t be selling websites. And folks, Beth will also be going live about this very topic of which we will make sure we link in the show notes so you can go and see and listen to Beth on this topic. Now, Beth, you have a wonderful history in project management. So before we hit that all important topic about why people shouldn’t be selling websites, and we’re talking here to people who sell websites for a living, can you first give us a little bit of background into who Beth is and what WP Roadmaps is all about? Then we’ll get into the controversy.

Beth:
Sure. I started life as a first grade teacher, and later on moved into corporate training. And then that kind of morphed into becoming a business analyst, or an IT business analyst and project manager in the corporate world. Mostly in the financial area. And that’s where I cut my teeth, learned all I learned about project management. As I left corporate and became a WordPress agency, a solopreneur pretty much, that’s when I started going to word camps. And I started hearing people talk about struggling with scope creep and struggling with getting content from the client on time and all of those things that slow down your project and eat up your profit margin. And that’s when I decided I can really help. So I started talking at word camps. And then I thought, “I need to put this into a course.” So I created WP Roadmaps. The WP Project Managers Academy, and there’s a free version and a premium version. And I try to answer all of those gotchas about getting your projects done on time within budget. Okay, let me give you the whole one minute elevator thing.

Lee:
Do it.

Beth:
WP Roadmaps, the WP Project Managers Academy is the only place on the web where you can learn to consistently get your projects completed on time within budget with features that meet the client’s business requirements without sacrificing profit.

Lee:
Wproadmaps.com/joinus. We just need a jingle.

Beth:
Yeah, really.

Lee:
That’s fantastic. And like I said earlier as well, I got to contribute some content to that, which was wonderful. And you also helped me out with my event last year and came and shared some of those gotchas as it were for project management. Now let’s look at websites. And you are going live shortly with the title, Why You Shouldn’t Be Selling Websites. And I’m guessing you’re not about to tell us to not sell websites, but I’m wondering what you have to say.

Beth:
Okay. So yeah, you mentioned rant earlier. It is a bit of a rant because I get really frustrated when I go in these Facebook groups and I hear… Let me back up. We’re all geeks, right? We love the technology and we love creating beautiful websites and that’s what we’re focused on. But when you’re approaching a client, that’s not what they need to be focusing on. Not that I just need a website. Troy Dean talks about asking why, and then when they answer, you ask why again. And then when they answer, you ask why again. And that’s so important. It’s not profitable to just be a button pusher, to just be a website builder. It’s not a sustainable kind of business. What you have to become is a solution provider.

Beth:
And sometimes the solution includes the website, but it’s not the only part of the solution. And even if you can’t provide what the client needs to solve their problem, they need the website and you can help with that. But if you don’t have the skills to help with the other problems that they have, you can find those people and outsource and you can be so much more profitable and charge so much more for your services when you’re actually solving the client’s business problem. So that’s what I mean by you shouldn’t be selling websites, should be selling a solution.

Lee:
I absolutely love that. And it’s a great title because it will make everyone’s ears prick up. I think that we are in a world right now where the cost of entry for web design is for ever plummeting. Page builders, for example, mean that everybody and anybody in theory can build a website. So people find themselves, don’t they, competing on site price or trying to show previous work that was freaking awesome. Could you kind of help people understand how they might want to approach clients in future rather than approaching a client as a, “Hey, we are a full service web design agency and look at all these wonderful sites we’ve made.” How could they start that sort of conversation to find out what people’s problems are?

Beth:
Well, I’m going to answer that sort of.

Lee:
That’s fine.

Beth:
I teach my students that in order to be considered a professional, you have to show your client upfront that you’re able to get these projects done on time and within budget. So many people are fond of these online proposal tools like Better Proposals. And they’ve done studies where they have found out that clients tend to spend the most time on how much it’s going to cost when they’re looking at these proposals, because Better Proposals can track that, so they spend the most time on how much is it going to cost. They spend the second amount of time on the timeline and they spend the least amount of time on the actual solution. So one thing is to set yourself apart as a professional with good project management skills. The other thing is part of project management is being able to be really good at defining the requirements.

Beth:
And so that is a lot of those questions. What do you ask? And I never start a conversation with which websites do you like and which websites you don’t like. Because that doesn’t really matter. What matters is, what is your business problem? What are you trying to solve with this website? What is the purpose of the website? Now sometimes the website is just a five-page brochure website and they just want a website presence. When you say, “Oh, I just want a web presence.” Well, that’s not limited to just a website. You’ve got to consider Google My Business and you’ve got to consider social media. It’s kind of like a trifecta of if your client’s desire is to establish a presence on the web, just having a website is not enough. And just in website with good SEO is still not enough. You have to marry it with those other things that the people see every day, like Google My Business.

Beth:
When anybody searches on anything, especially for local businesses. You search on anything, you’re going to get that Google three pack or who’s on the first page of Google. I chose my contractor from my kitchen project because his website was stellar and he came up on the first page of Google, even though he hasn’t been in business all that long. Because I figured he knows what he’s doing and he, and he’s a professional. And that’s what you need to do for your clients is, and I didn’t do his website by the way, but that’s what you need to do for your clients is show them how important it is to present themselves as a professional. And you can’t just take one piece of that trifecta and expect results.

Lee:
I’m encouraged by this. However, someone listening to you might think, “But that sounds so much. I’m not an expert in X, Y, and Z.” But you can encourage that conversation, can’t you? Of why do you need this website? And are you a way you also need a social presence? And are you aware you also need Google My Business, et cetera, et cetera? And if you can’t provide it, like you said earlier, that doesn’t matter. You can still deliver the web portion of that. That’s your skill and your expertise, but you’ve had that conversation. You’ve developed a relationship with a client and you can actually start to recommend other people. My own agency over the years has grown massively through referrals. And most of those referrals are referrals I’ve given because we have that exact conversation. We find out what the problems are. We recognise where our services fit into that. But then we start to connect people with others to ensure we help the client. And of course we get those sorts of referrals very often reciprocated back.

Beth:
Exactly. I have Trisha Clemens. So Lee teaches a lesson in the WP Project Managers Academy. And so does Trisha Clements, and she’s a Google My Business expert. So if you need that from someone and you don’t have the time or the skills to do that, you can also hire people on a temporary basis for a specific project, sort of like outsourcing, wrap that into your proposal and solve the problem. The whole point is the more you can help your client solve their business problem, the more they’re going to respect you as a professional and the more you can charge.

Lee:
What are some good ways of establishing that credibility up front? Because often we’re not working with the client yet, how can we prove we have those chops? Is that case studies online, for example?

Beth:
It can be. The reason that this topic has bubbled up to the top of my mind and that I wanted to talk about it is that when I was developing the WP Project Managers Academy, I offloaded most of my clients. I’m still maintaining some and I wasn’t taking on any new clients. So I recently took on a client that, by the way, was by referral. Actually it was a girl I met, a friend of a friend that we met, in a what we call a bar, you call a pub, and we just chatted. She’s a marketing person. We just chatted about marketing. So when one of her clients needed help, she called me. And it started out to be, “We just want to reorganise our categories on our website.” It’s a furniture store, but they don’t have e-commerce. “We want to reorganise our categories and structures and we want to start selling. We want to start doing e-commerce.”

Beth:
Well, it turned out to be much bigger than that. They have all kinds of issues with messy data. And when you have messy data, you can’t find out anything about what’s happening on your website or what’s happening with your inventory. So it turned out to be much bigger. And so, because of the way I teach the project management in that we don’t give the final estimate until after we’ve done the first phase of the project, which is the deep dive discovery. I actually ended up increasing the cost of that project by over $5,000, because what turned out to be the problem wasn’t the real problem. What they said was the problem was not the real problem. The real problem was much bigger and there was no way we could find that out in just an hour and a half meeting until we got down into the deep and dirty details about what’s going on in their company. That’s when we found it out.

Beth:
So case studies will work. And anything you can do that indicates that you have certain skills. For example, we have in the WP Project Managers Academy, the ability to become certified as a certified project manager level one. And we will eventually have the level two certification as well. And just having badges like that on your website is going to set you apart, having some of your processes and things on your website, explaining why you do things a certain way, because we already know that there’s typically a content collection bottleneck, and here’s how we address it. We already know that most projects, the scope continues to grow, and here’s how we control that change and make sure that you get everything you want and that everybody gets paid for what they’re supposed to get paid for.

Lee:
That’s great advice. And with regards to putting that process out there, you’re going to encourage people because they have that feeling of safety. They can see that you are somebody who, yes, will build their website, but you have a process to build that website that you will do the relevant due diligence. And that sets their expectations. Now there’s something that you touched on there that I’d like to carry on going down with. And that’s discovery. You were talking about that website where it was clear that things were so much further than just a standard typical e-commerce build. That there were data issues that need to be resolved and so on. How do you encourage a prospective client to pay for discovery? Because let’s face it, and we’re in this world where a lot of people expect a lot of things for free, or they expect you to be quoting. And if you’re in quote or estimate mode, then surely you need to ask me questions and that should all be free. How can you change that narrative?

Beth:
Well, we do that initial discovery. I call it the pre-proposal meeting, right? And we have a huge checklist that we use that we go down and ask the questions. But then it’s important to realise that a checklist is not the answer. You don’t just stick with the checklist and those are the only questions you ask. Sometimes the answer to a question leads to the next question. So let’s just say that pre-proposal meeting is maybe an hour, an hour and a half. You’ve at least got the basics of what you need. What we use, what we call a two-step proposal process in our first proposal. And we never use the word quote by the way, because a quote implies preciseness and you can never be 100% sure that this is the final amount and it will not change. The guy who builds a fence for you can do that because your yard is a certain size.

Beth:
He measures that. He knows exactly what, how much the materials are going to cost. He knows exactly how long it’s going to take him. In our world, things pop up. People have an idea later that changes things or this deep dive discovery when you find out what the client really wants, is where we find out where things change. And so that’s why we do the estimate. Okay. So I’ll get off my soap box about the difference between a quote and an estimate. But what we use is the two-step proposal process. So we do the proposal and we give a range estimate of cost and a range estimate of time. And we make it very, very clear that this is based on what we know right now. And phase one is our deep dive discovery. So they’re already under contract. Then when we get to the end of phase one, we’ve developed a complete websites at that point.

Beth:
Let me back up and say that we get a deposit to make sure that we cover all of that first phase, all of that deep dive discovery. Then at the end of the phase, if that second estimate comes in within that range, we just continue on. They’re already under contract. And we say, “It’s going to come in between these amounts.” And then we also use a change budget, which is like a whole nother podcast. We could talk about nothing but the change budget in a podcast. But at the end of that phase, we do the second estimate. If it comes in over the range we gave them in the first place, I give the client the option to cancel. Now they’ve paid me for that website specification. If they decide to cancel, I just hand it over and they go on their merry way. They can try to find somebody to do it for less money.

Beth:
And I’ve gotten paid for everything that I’ve done up to that point. So it’s a win-win for everybody. It hardly ever happens that way though, because during this deep dive discovery, the client has been shoulder to shoulder with you. That’s the other thing is you can’t just go off and do this deep dive discovery by yourself. You’ve got to get the client heavily involved, but they’ve been shoulder to shoulder with you. They’ve seen the things that came up that weren’t considered in the initial proposal. And so that’s why in the case of my most recent client, they didn’t even blink an eye when I increased the cost of the project by $5,000, because they realised that, “Hey, we had a bigger issue here than even we realised we had.”

Lee:
That’s a real good example because very often we will have some form of discovery and we’ll recognise that we actually can’t do our job, our work until something else has been resolved. Perhaps that’s getting hold of the content in advance, perhaps that’s dealing with, like you said, the data. I remember one project we had, there were actually legal issues that they had to sort out and ensure that they had the rights to use particular brands and the right to use particular frameworks before we could even start the particular project that also though did significantly increase the cost. So we were glad that we had gone through that discovery phase. I think I’d underline as well. You mentioned that you would hand that over. I think you meant the discovery documentation rather than handing back the deposit, I presume.

Beth:
Oh, yes. Very clear. No, I’ve gotten paid. I’m handing them what they paid for, which is the website specification. And we break it down into, it’s a site map. It’s the content specification. It’s the layout and branding. It’s the functional requirements. It’s all of that together so that if they think they can get it done for less money and they want to try that they’ve got everything they need in one place. But the key is you got paid for it.

Lee:
You got paid for it, but also you’ve set yourself up as the expert in their eyes anyway, haven’t you? So if they’ve already been with you through that process of creating the document, then they already have that trust. They’ve already been able to test the relationship as it were. And they also know that you know more than somebody else who’s going to read that document because you created the documents. So we’ve found in most circumstances, that sort of discovery process is ridiculously helpful.

Beth:
And another thing that I do a lot of times is, especially if I know the client is shopping around after I present my first proposal and they’re not ready to close that day, then I will give them a list of questions to ask the other guy. And then you really do come off like you’re helping them. “Look, I just want you to find the best provider possible. So be sure that you ask these questions.” And it’s things like, how do you control scope creep? Who pays for change? How does that get handled? And most providers, especially in the WordPress arena, don’t have answers for those questions.

Lee:
It almost feels like the secret sauce here is being able to sell the website, but selling how you service the client more. By you saying those things, you are setting yourself up as an expert. You’re setting yourself up as clearly somebody who understands the build process, what is important and how to deliver it. And also by adding that content to your website, you mentioned earlier of, this is our process. This is how we deliver things. Perhaps you should be selling consultancy or project management for digital builds rather than the site itself. Is that kind of where you’re going or at least is the why you be selling websites tagline really just to help people get into that mindset?

Beth:
Exactly. What you need to be selling is the solution to the problem and your self or your agency, and how you can best solve that problem. That’s what I mean by you shouldn’t be selling websites.

Lee:
I like it.

Beth:
Don’t be a button pusher.

Lee:
Don’t be a button pusher. Don’t sell widgets, show people you know what you’re talking about, show them that you’re interested in them and what their problems are. And also educate them as to how you go about as an agency solving those problems and delivering what will probably be a website at the end of it. Because most of you listening are, of course, web developers and web designers. So as we’re coming in to land, I’d love to hear a little bit more about WP Roadmaps. You’ve got a free membership and a premium membership. Can you tell folks what they will find if they hop onto your free membership over on wproadmaps.com/joinus.

Beth:
If you join the free programme, you get access to WordPress Project Management 101. It is mostly focused on WordPress people, but anyone can actually benefit because you know what? Project management is the same, no matter what kind of project, whether you’re managing a kitchen renovation or you’re managing a web development project. And so that gives you all the basics about project management and we give you templates and checklists and things that you need to create these processes and things on your own. But if you want to take it a further step and get more of those templates and downloads and sample language and all that stuff that’s already done for you, then we have the premium programme, which gives you not only access to WordPress Project Management 101, but also the complete project management roadmap for WordPress. And in that programme, we’ve broken it down into problem solving roadmaps and delivery roadmaps.

Beth:
And we’ve also brought in guest instructors, like you Lee, to talk about all those things that surround project management. Because look, you can’t manage projects if you don’t have any, right? I’m not an expert on lead generation. I’m not an expert on selling things. I know what works for me and I try to share that with my people and how to grow an agency. How to deal with problems when you’re stuck. That’s kind of like what you talk about in your lesson. All of those things are super important. So I’ve brought in people from all over the world, actually. These are experts that I know personally, that I’ve consumed their content.

Beth:
And most of them I’ve met in person that teach all the things about care plans and how to sell and how to be more productive, client management, all of those things that surround project management. But I wanted to make it clear that if you go through the free programme and you get to the end of Project Management 101, that’s where you can get that certification. The programme is free. There’s a small charge to take the exam for the certification. And then you get the opportunity to put that badge on your website and set yourself apart as a professional.

Lee:
That’s awesome. So folks, you can find out more information on wproadmaps.com/join us. If you would like to put together some processes and then be able to share that with your clients to help you win those website projects, but also to add immense value, and if you’d like to also do that exam to get the badge, then that’s all part of the free membership with a small fee. But there’s all the extra done for you stuff as well, which I always like, because let’s face it, done for you as a hell of a lot quicker than doing it for yourself. You can check out the premium membership. That’s wproadmaps.com/join you.. Beth, thank you so much for your time. I can’t wait for your live stream. We’ll be checking that out later and we will make sure to pop a link into that so people can go and find that, which will be wonderful. They can go and watch you in your natural habitat as you blow people’s minds. Where can people connect with you? And then we shall say good-bye.

Beth:
We do have a Facebook group on Facebook. It’s called WordPress Project Management. All you have to do is search on that. And anyone can email me anytime bethatwproadmaps.com. I’m happy to answer any questions that anybody has.

Lee:
Awesome. Folks, we will make sure we pop a link to the Facebook group in the show notes, as well as a link to wproadmaps.com and that live stream. Beth, you’ve been a star. We will sell websites, but in the new way that you have taught us. Have a wonderful day.

Beth:
Thank you, Lee. I so much enjoyed talking with you and spending time with you.

Lee:
Thank you. Cheerio.