Most of the web designers I talk to say that their #1 problem is finding clients. The truth is they can find clients BUT the clients they are finding aren't coming with a budget. In other words, they feel like everybody's looking for very inexpensive work. Here's why this is happening and the three steps you need to take to find clients with a budget.

Are You Really Just Getting Started?

I talk to a bunch of web designers with many years of experience. I literally just got off the phone with someone who had 15 years of experience and was a senior developer. It is not uncommon for me to be talking with someone who has been perfecting their skills for years and years but they present themselves as if they're just getting started.

Who Are You Attracting?

When you present yourself as if you're just getting started, who do you think that's going to attract? Put yourself in your client's shoes for a minute. If you had a serious budget and were looking for a seasoned consultant to help you build your business. Would you hire someone who was just getting started to help you or would you find an expert who specializes in helping people exactly like you?

On the other hand, what if you were tinkering around with a quick idea you wanted to test. Maybe you have been thinking about spinning up a quick side business just to see if anybody was interested. You don't have any clients yet. You don't even know if the business concept is solid yet. Who would you hire to spin up a quick website?

How Much Would You Spend?

We just talked about two very different types of clients.

Type 1: The Serious Client

There is the client who has a serious business and a real budget. They are looking for a seasoned consultant who really knows how to get results.

If you're the serious client, you're willing to pay for the genuine help you need.

Type 2: The Dabbler

There is the client who is just fiddling around with an idea for a little side business. They are looking for a cheap way to spin up a quick website.

If you're the dabbler, you want the cheapest stuff possible.

How Are You Presenting Yourself?

When someone lands on your website, what impression are you giving them? Are you saying the same stuff that someone getting started would say? Or, are you establishing yourself as a seasoned consultant who can help serious clients get amazing results?

If you're competing against people with less than half of your experience then you'll never be able to charge the rates you need to be making. Your leads will just think you're overpriced and that they can “get the same thing for less” (maybe WAY less) from somebody else.

You can't blame the leads. They're just trying to do their best sorting through the options. The problem is on you because you're leaving your most valuable credentials – your experience – on the shelf. You need to leverage your experience to differentiate you from the beginners so your leads and potential clients know who you really are.

Let's Talk

It's time to break out of the cycle of attracting low-budget leads and getting stuck with frustrating work. Let's get you out there attracting serious clients who need your help.

Schedule Your Call ➤

 

 

Most of the web designers I talk to say that their #1 problem is finding clients. The truth is they can find clients BUT the clients they are finding aren't coming with a budget. In other words, they feel like everybody's looking for very inexpensive work. Here's why this is happening and the three steps you need to take to find clients with a budget.

Are You Really Just Getting Started?

I talk to a bunch of web designers with many years of experience. I literally just got off the phone with someone who had 15 years of experience and was a senior developer. It is not uncommon for me to be talking with someone who has been perfecting their skills for years and years but they present themselves as if they're just getting started.

Who Are You Attracting?

When you present yourself as if you're just getting started, who do you think that's going to attract? Put yourself in your client's shoes for a minute. If you had a serious budget and were looking for a seasoned consultant to help you build your business. Would you hire someone who was just getting started to help you or would you find an expert who specializes in helping people exactly like you?

On the other hand, what if you were tinkering around with a quick idea you wanted to test. Maybe you have been thinking about spinning up a quick side business just to see if anybody was interested. You don't have any clients yet. You don't even know if the business concept is solid yet. Who would you hire to spin up a quick website?

How Much Would You Spend?

We just talked about two very different types of clients.

Type 1: The Serious Client

There is the client who has a serious business and a real budget. They are looking for a seasoned consultant who really knows how to get results.

If you're the serious client, you're willing to pay for the genuine help you need.

Type 2: The Dabbler

There is the client who is just fiddling around with an idea for a little side business. They are looking for a cheap way to spin up a quick website.

If you're the dabbler, you want the cheapest stuff possible.

How Are You Presenting Yourself?

When someone lands on your website, what impression are you giving them? Are you saying the same stuff that someone getting started would say? Or, are you establishing yourself as a seasoned consultant who can help serious clients get amazing results?

If you're competing against people with less than half of your experience then you'll never be able to charge the rates you need to be making. Your leads will just think you're overpriced and that they can “get the same thing for less” (maybe WAY less) from somebody else.

You can't blame the leads. They're just trying to do their best sorting through the options. The problem is on you because you're leaving your most valuable credentials – your experience – on the shelf. You need to leverage your experience to differentiate you from the beginners so your leads and potential clients know who you really are.

Let's Talk

It's time to break out of the cycle of attracting low-budget leads and getting stuck with frustrating work. Let's get you out there attracting serious clients who need your help.

Schedule Your Call ➤

 

 

After personally providing one-on-one consulting and mentoring with hundreds of web designers and talking with thousands more in conferences and meetups it has become clear that there are five things that block most web designers from earning the income they need. This is a very big deal because it's literally your life we're talking about. And, not just your life, but the life of your family, your children, and also your clients.

Not everybody has every single one of these five challenges, but these are the things that stand between barely making a living selling cheap websites and people running their own 6-figure web design businesses.

Before we begin it's important to come at this with the right mindset which includes two important points:

* It's not your fault and it's nothing to be ashamed about (we'll talk about why in a minute)

* You have to get real with yourself and be honest about what's actually going on in your business.

Ok, ready? Let's dive in.

After personally providing one-on-one consulting and mentoring with hundreds of web designers and talking with thousands more in conferences and meetups it has become clear that there are five things that block most web designers from earning the income they need. This is a very big deal because it's literally your life we're talking about. And, not just your life, but the life of your family, your children, and also your clients.

Not everybody has every single one of these five challenges, but these are the things that stand between barely making a living selling cheap websites and people running their own 6-figure web design businesses.

Before we begin it's important to come at this with the right mindset which includes two important points:

* It's not your fault and it's nothing to be ashamed about (we'll talk about why in a minute)

* You have to get real with yourself and be honest about what's actually going on in your business.

Ok, ready? Let's dive in.

I'm not asking what you will do if your client says no. If you get a lead and they decline your offer, what are THEY going to do next?

Answering that question will give you insight into how you've positioned your business and the value they see in you.

* Why didn't they want to work with you?

* Was your price too high so they went with a less expensive alternative?

* Were you not able to get them to see the value of your solution?

* Was your solution overly technical and confusing?

* Did they want to work with you but your price exceeded their budget?

If your client rejects your offer, it's easy to just block out the experience and move on. But, the world doesn't stop when the client says no. It doesn't stop for you and it doesn't stop for them either. So, what happens next?

Answering Unkown Factors

The entire point of a client meeting is to answer the unknown factors. If all the factors were already known your client would either already be paying you or they wouldn't even want to meet. The way you handle the unknown factors can have three different outcomes.

It's A Bad Fit

It's important to keep in mind that not all leads are good clients. There are unknown factors on both sides of the table. You need to discover if the client meets your criteria as someone you feel like you can help. It could be the cast that they need you to do something that's not something your comfortable doing. For example, maybe they need you to manage a SalesForce migration but you focus on building WordPress websites. Sometimes, things just aren't a good fit.

There are factors on both sides of the table. Maybe there's something about the client that is offputting and you just don't want to work with them. For example, maybe their highly indecisive. That would be a deal-breaker because you'll never be able to make forward progress if you constantly have to change directions.

It's All Good Except The Money

Most of the time, the web designers I talk to will tell me everything went great in their meeting until they started talking about the prices. Everything was a good fit on both sides but they just weren't able to see eye-to-eye on the value of the project. We'll talk more about this in a minute when we unpack the two different types of unknown factors.

You Win The Client

OK, great! You won the client. Or… maybe it's not so great.

* Did you have to lower the price and undercut your own value?

* Have you painted yourself in a corner with no way to deliver your best work?

* Do you have the budget required to generate a good outcome for your client?

You don't want to win a client on price. That's unsustainable and burns your out. But it also doesn't deliver the best results for the client either.

Two Types Of Unknowns

The difference between winning clients by lowering your price and getting the client to see the high-ticket value of your solution comes down to the fact that there are two types of “unknowns” in the client's mind.

* Type A: Things the client wants to know (price, how long it will take, when you can start, etc)

* Type B: Things they don't know that they don't know (new revenue streams, new marketing ideas, etc)

Most web designers only focus on answering Type A unknowns and never tap into Type B. That's why client's don't see the value. That's why you have you have to lower your prices to meet their expectations.

Implementation vs Leadership

Only addressing Type A unknowns means you're in implementation mode. Providing clarity on Type B unknowns means you're in the leadership position. This is where you need to be as a high-ticket consultant. Otherwise, you'll be just one out of a million garden-variety web designers all in the price race to the bottom trying to offer the same stuff for less than the other...

I'm not asking what you will do if your client says no. If you get a lead and they decline your offer, what are THEY going to do next?

Answering that question will give you insight into how you've positioned your business and the value they see in you.

* Why didn't they want to work with you?

* Was your price too high so they went with a less expensive alternative?

* Were you not able to get them to see the value of your solution?

* Was your solution overly technical and confusing?

* Did they want to work with you but your price exceeded their budget?

If your client rejects your offer, it's easy to just block out the experience and move on. But, the world doesn't stop when the client says no. It doesn't stop for you and it doesn't stop for them either. So, what happens next?

Answering Unkown Factors

The entire point of a client meeting is to answer the unknown factors. If all the factors were already known your client would either already be paying you or they wouldn't even want to meet. The way you handle the unknown factors can have three different outcomes.

It's A Bad Fit

It's important to keep in mind that not all leads are good clients. There are unknown factors on both sides of the table. You need to discover if the client meets your criteria as someone you feel like you can help. It could be the cast that they need you to do something that's not something your comfortable doing. For example, maybe they need you to manage a SalesForce migration but you focus on building WordPress websites. Sometimes, things just aren't a good fit.

There are factors on both sides of the table. Maybe there's something about the client that is offputting and you just don't want to work with them. For example, maybe their highly indecisive. That would be a deal-breaker because you'll never be able to make forward progress if you constantly have to change directions.

It's All Good Except The Money

Most of the time, the web designers I talk to will tell me everything went great in their meeting until they started talking about the prices. Everything was a good fit on both sides but they just weren't able to see eye-to-eye on the value of the project. We'll talk more about this in a minute when we unpack the two different types of unknown factors.

You Win The Client

OK, great! You won the client. Or… maybe it's not so great.

* Did you have to lower the price and undercut your own value?

* Have you painted yourself in a corner with no way to deliver your best work?

* Do you have the budget required to generate a good outcome for your client?

You don't want to win a client on price. That's unsustainable and burns your out. But it also doesn't deliver the best results for the client either.

Two Types Of Unknowns

The difference between winning clients by lowering your price and getting the client to see the high-ticket value of your solution comes down to the fact that there are two types of “unknowns” in the client's mind.

* Type A: Things the client wants to know (price, how long it will take, when you can start, etc)

* Type B: Things they don't know that they don't know (new revenue streams, new marketing ideas, etc)

Most web designers only focus on answering Type A unknowns and never tap into Type B. That's why client's don't see the value. That's why you have you have to lower your prices to meet their expectations.

Implementation vs Leadership

Only addressing Type A unknowns means you're in implementation mode. Providing clarity on Type B unknowns means you're in the leadership position. This is where you need to be as a high-ticket consultant. Otherwise, you'll be just one out of a million garden-variety web designers all in the price race to the bottom trying to offer the same stuff for less than the other...

Have you ever thought about trying to generate leads by offering free services?

For example, have you posted in Facebook groups or cold emailed somebody offering things like:

* Free site audits

* Free consultations to review your website

* Free web site + paid monthly services

To get clarity on why offers like this are generally a bad idea, let's take a look at three things:

* Why you made the offer in the first place

* What you want to happen

* What actually happens

Then we'll take a look at how to create a free offer that works great for generating leads for high-ticket web design.

Why make the offer in the first place?

Obviously, these offers are intended to generate leads. This is an example of a three-step funnel, right? You try to think of something of value that you can give away for free with the hope of making an introduction, building trust, and winning some new clients.

Let's take a closer look at what's going on in this three-step funnel. Here are the three components:

* Introduce yourself by offering something of value (like a free site audit)

* This builds trust by offering value upfront

* Turn some percentage of these leads into clients

So, what you've done is you have made is simple funnel for yourself. The important thing to understand is that the offer is the compass that sets the direction for the rest of this funnel. The “thing of value” sets the polarity of your magnet – so to speak. The offer decides who you are going to attract and who you repell.

Now that we've looked at the structure of this basic funnel let's compare what you want to happen with what actually happens.

What you want to happen

The goal, of course, is to generate leads for web design clients, right? Simply cold calling or cold emailing people doesn't tend to work very well. People just ignore you. So, in an attempt to improve the chances that someone takes you seriously, you decide to offer a free service.

Create a good introduction

Offering the free service is a strategy web designers use so cold contacts won't think you're just spamming them. Hopefully, they will see you're trying to genuinely help them. That will create a great first impression. So, if all goes as planned, the free offer will set the stage for a good introduction.

Build trust

Now that you've made a good first impression with your introduction the next step is to prove your value and build trust by doing the free thing. Sometimes web designers will just do the free thing upfront. For example, they might just do a free site audit and include that audit in their introduction email. Other times web designers will just put their offer out there and wait for people to respond. Then they will do the free thing for people who respond. Either way, the idea is to build trust upfront by doing a good job… for free.

Win new clients

At this point, you've done something free and valuable for the client. So you've made a good first impression with your initial connection, built trust, and the lead/client is presumably happy. The next step is to convert this lead into an actual, paying client by offering them something that's not free. Since they saw that you are a genuine person who can do great work, the next step of becoming a paying client is logical and easy.

Or, at least that's the mainstream idea for how all this works. Of course, anyone who has tried this knows that it doesn't work this way. Instead, you end up frustrated, working for cheap, and running fast towards burn out.

What actually happens

If the above sequence of events still worked then web designers would have far more clients than they do. The truth is this is not an effective way to generate leads because the offer isn't something the client actually wants.

Have you ever thought about trying to generate leads by offering free services?

For example, have you posted in Facebook groups or cold emailed somebody offering things like:

* Free site audits

* Free consultations to review your website

* Free web site + paid monthly services

To get clarity on why offers like this are generally a bad idea, let's take a look at three things:

* Why you made the offer in the first place

* What you want to happen

* What actually happens

Then we'll take a look at how to create a free offer that works great for generating leads for high-ticket web design.

Why make the offer in the first place?

Obviously, these offers are intended to generate leads. This is an example of a three-step funnel, right? You try to think of something of value that you can give away for free with the hope of making an introduction, building trust, and winning some new clients.

Let's take a closer look at what's going on in this three-step funnel. Here are the three components:

* Introduce yourself by offering something of value (like a free site audit)

* This builds trust by offering value upfront

* Turn some percentage of these leads into clients

So, what you've done is you have made is simple funnel for yourself. The important thing to understand is that the offer is the compass that sets the direction for the rest of this funnel. The “thing of value” sets the polarity of your magnet – so to speak. The offer decides who you are going to attract and who you repell.

Now that we've looked at the structure of this basic funnel let's compare what you want to happen with what actually happens.

What you want to happen

The goal, of course, is to generate leads for web design clients, right? Simply cold calling or cold emailing people doesn't tend to work very well. People just ignore you. So, in an attempt to improve the chances that someone takes you seriously, you decide to offer a free service.

Create a good introduction

Offering the free service is a strategy web designers use so cold contacts won't think you're just spamming them. Hopefully, they will see you're trying to genuinely help them. That will create a great first impression. So, if all goes as planned, the free offer will set the stage for a good introduction.

Build trust

Now that you've made a good first impression with your introduction the next step is to prove your value and build trust by doing the free thing. Sometimes web designers will just do the free thing upfront. For example, they might just do a free site audit and include that audit in their introduction email. Other times web designers will just put their offer out there and wait for people to respond. Then they will do the free thing for people who respond. Either way, the idea is to build trust upfront by doing a good job… for free.

Win new clients

At this point, you've done something free and valuable for the client. So you've made a good first impression with your initial connection, built trust, and the lead/client is presumably happy. The next step is to convert this lead into an actual, paying client by offering them something that's not free. Since they saw that you are a genuine person who can do great work, the next step of becoming a paying client is logical and easy.

Or, at least that's the mainstream idea for how all this works. Of course, anyone who has tried this knows that it doesn't work this way. Instead, you end up frustrated, working for cheap, and running fast towards burn out.

What actually happens

If the above sequence of events still worked then web designers would have far more clients than they do. The truth is this is not an effective way to generate leads because the offer isn't something the client actually wants.



This web design pricing calculator is for web designers who want to know how much their work is worth when pricing their projects. It will tell you if the project is a good financial deal for both you and your client and if so, will give you a price range for your work taking into account your costs as well as the projected value for your client.

There are three main goals behind this calculator:

* Make sure you are covering your costs and making a profit

* Make sure your client is seeing a positive return on their investment

* Make sure you are thinking about both the initial build as well as your monthly retainer (recurring revenue).

How It Works

This is not intended to be a comprehensive financial model for your business. It's a quick way to get clarity on your pricing. As such, there are a bunch of heavy assumptions made in the process.

Calculating The Cost Of Building A Website

The first section collects the numbers to figure out what your costs are to build and deploy your client's website including baking your profit into the mix.

Hourly Rate

This is the raw amount of money you'd like to make per hour while working on this project.

Estimated Pre-Launch Hours

How many hours do you think it will take to do everything you need to do BEFORE launching the website? Do not pad the hours. Make this your absolute best, honest estimate for how much time you believe you'll need to spend working on this project.

This should encompass ALL of your time including:

* Site design

* Graphic design

* Revisions

* Client meetings

* Client communications (emails, phone calls, etc.) not during official meetings

* Writing documentation

* Provisioning hosting

* Setting up backups and security

* etc.

The pricing calculator will pad your hours for you. For projects totaling fewer than 40 estimated pre-launch hours, your hours will be padded by 50%. Projects over 40 hours will be padded by 33%. There are always unexpected things that pop up during a project. Maybe the client has a quick new idea. Maybe something weird goes wrong trying to provision the live hosting account. Stuff happens. You have to account for scope creep. You want to be in a position to be able to absorb those issues without having to renegotiate the project price and without having to just eat it.

In my experience over the last 18 years of managing a very wide variety of web and software development projects, I've found that scope creep, as a percentage of the project, is significantly greater in smaller projects than in larger ones. This is somewhat counterintuitive because it's tempting to think that if the project is small, so too will be the scope creep. But the problem is that if you budget 10 hours for an entire project even a small unexpected problem that might only take 2.5 hours to deal with is 25% of the whole project. That's why we pad the hours for small projects at a higher percentage than for larger projects.

Outsourced Development Costs

These costs are what you pay to other people you bring in to help you with the project. For example, maybe you hire someone to help you write copy, or design a logo. Or maybe you need to hire a professional photographer. Or, maybe you design the website in Photoshop but then outsource the development of a custom WordPress theme based on your Photoshop design. This is where you enter the sum total of all the things you need to outsource to get this website launched.

Cost of Materials

In addition to hiring other people, you might need to buy certain things for the project. For example, you might be stock photography, a software license for the client, a WordPress theme, or WordPress plugins. These are the one-time costs you incur to get the website launched.

Calculating The Costs For Your Monthly Retainer

This web design pricing calculator is for web designers who want to know how much their work is worth when pricing their projects. It will tell you if the project is a good deal financial deal for both you and your client and if so, will give you a price range for your work taking into account your costs as well as the projected value for your client.

There are three main goals behind this calculator:

* Make sure you are covering your costs and making a profit

* Make sure your client is seeing a positive return on their investment

* Make sure you are thinking about both the initial build as well as your monthly retainer (recurring revenue).

How It Works

This is not intended to be a comprehensive financial model for your business. It's a quick way to get clarity on your pricing. As such, there are a bunch of heavy assumptions made in the process.

Calculating The Cost Of Building A Website

The first section collects the numbers to figure out what your costs are to build and deploy your client's website including baking your profit into the mix.

Hourly Rate

This is the raw amount of money you'd like to make per hour while working on this project.

Estimated Pre-Launch Hours

How many hours do you think it will take to do everything you need to do BEFORE launching the website? Do not pad the hours. Make this your absolute best, honest estimate for how much time you believe you'll need to spend working on this project.

This should encompass ALL of your time including:

* Site design

* Graphic design

* Revisions

* Client meetings

* Client communications (emails, phone calls, etc.) not during official meetings

* Writing documentation

* Provisioning hosting

* Setting up backups and security

* etc.

The pricing calculator will pad your hours for you. For projects totaling fewer than 40 estimated pre-launch hours, your hours will be padded by 50%. Projects over 40 hours will be padded by 33%. There are always unexpected things that pop up during a project. Maybe the client has a quick new idea. Maybe something weird goes wrong trying to provision the live hosting account. Stuff happens. You have to account for scope creep. You want to be in a position to be able to absorb those issues without having to renegotiate the project price and without having to just eat it.

In my experience over the last 18 years of managing a very wide variety of web and software development projects, I've found that scope creep, as a percentage of the project, is significantly greater in smaller projects than in larger ones. This is somewhat counterintuitive because it's tempting to think that if the project is small, so too will be the scope creep. But the problem is that if you budget 10 hours for an entire project even a small unexpected problem that might only take 2.5 hours to deal with is 25% of the whole project. That's why we pad the hours for small projects at a higher percentage than for larger projects.

Outsourced Development Costs

These costs are what you pay to other people you bring in to help you with the project. For example, maybe you hire someone to help you write copy, or design a logo. Or maybe you need to hire a professional photographer. Or, maybe you design the website in Photoshop but then outsource the development of a custom WordPress theme based on your Photoshop design. This is where you enter the sum total of all the things you need to outsource to get this website launched.

Cost of Materials

In addition to hiring other people, you might need to buy certain things for the project. For example, you might be stock photography, a software license for the client, a WordPress theme, or WordPress plugins. These are the one-time costs you incur to get the website launched.

Calculating The Costs For Your Monthly Retainer
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