alright, so I went in, shook hands with the doctor. so he has a laptop set up there, and he is like "come here, I wanna show you something"...he had a website up and he is like "I want my website to look like this. I made this website that I have a long time ago. I just downloaded a template and filled in the text" Now I am thinking "fuck, he knows we dont actually design the site" so I nod along and he is like "this is just an informational site, so if someone visits the site, they could read about our services" and I am like "so do you know how much traffic it's getting?" he is like "not much. I dont get clients from online. most of my clients, I get by word of mouth." I am like "well, you know, you could market your site in the search engines" he is like "yeah, I know about SEO" now I am thinking "fuck #2" and he continues "and you do like link building, my wife is really into that, she is on the computer 24 hours a day. but right now I can barely handle all the patients that I have, maybe I will make that your next project" so I am thinking: "then why the hell are you paying me if you can do this yourself?" anyway, so he paid me a $100 deposit, and he is supposed to pay $400 after the job is done. I guess it was nice to get my feet wet, but this won't be a profitable client? he was a really cool dude, he said "i dont believe in contracts, I just shake hands and that's it" I love doctors, they see so much nasty shit all day, they dont give a fuck what you are wearing or if your pants dont match your shirt. I would imagine lawyers are the opposite. PS bastard is making a gazillion dollars, when I was there, 2 people came in and each one paid $1000 cash, just as a deposit, and they are supposed to bring more cash the next time they come in!
Everyone has to start somewhere so well done. This is what I would have to say in regards to you feeling potentially short-changed for what he is paying you. What it's all really about is your confidence and what you feel you are worth. I remember I pitched this person about making a site for them, I didn't think they would have much money. I was the one that made the first offer because I knew what the work was going to entail so I told the person I would do the site for $600. And they said, "deal" pretty much straight away. When they gave me some documents for their site I saw that they had budgeted $4,000-$8,500 for the website which I was giving them for $600. It's all about you knowing how much you are worth and you controlling that. Secondly, just because he's not profitable on the front end doesn't mean you can't turn him into a profitiable client. Think about starting him off with an HTML site for your $500 and then immediatley start putting plans to convert it to a wordpress site for $3,000. Think about SEO and SMM on top of that and all of a sudden you've got a client who's worth $5,000+ a year. This is how I got started. Why was I willing to do it for $600 first? It's called a loss leader (that said I still made a profit). Take Gillette for example, they sell their Razors for pretty much cost-price (i.e. they don';t make a profit) to acquire customers but then they mark up the blades by 100's of % and that's where they make their money. Well done and good luck in the future, You have to start somewhere and don't be afraid to hold your ground. I've turned away potential customers who valued it at less than I did and I said you know what I don't tell you how much I would charge if I was you because I don't know what it takes to be a dentist. These are the clients I don't want. Again well done and think about turning him into a profitable long term client, Sampler
$400 a month isn't bad for your first customer. And if he's the type that has a hand shake contract then it probably means he'll be good to you if you're good to him. Get him some good rankings and you'll make him a customer for life most likely. Good job man. Now try to find 10 more
Why don't you propose him with some neat ideas to get him and his clients into the new era ? For example: * being able to make online appointments with his clients * have online information about patients that can be accessible via his smartphone * Have a Q&A about his services and/or things that can happen or that he helped people with ofc these are just some ideas you could go a lot more extreme with the ideas and if he bites on it you would make a lot more money with him
cgimaster, I did suggest an online appointment thing, but he said there is this company that he has been talking to implementing something like that, and the day before an appointment, the patient gets a text message reminder. But he said something about how he doesn't want to do it, i dont remember why, was it too costly? was it because he doesn't need it? I dont remember. but the thing is, i felt like he could see that I was trying to sell him extra shit...he kept rejecting additional offers. PS: I was going to sell him a mobile version of his site, but again, I felt like he didn't like additional shit so I didn't mention it.
Congrats mate on your first web design client! Let me know if you need any help with your design stuff .
Congrats on your first client, over deliver and make him a happy client! Soon referrals will come in, good luck!
