Greetings graphic design, web design freelancers and small companies. I have been in business for 22 years, since 1993, and over the years I have had to get really creative to make the business work, keep the money coming in or make deals that saved me money I would otherwise need to spend or borrow.
I have done this many times in my 22 years, so I thought I would illustrate a few to give you ideas on what can be done!
CASE STUDY ONE
I own a few apartment buildings and recently one of my furnaces kicked the bucket! The repair was going to cost me $3200 which I did not have. So I put on my thinking cap and made the following WIN-WIN-WIN Deal.
The first thing I did was get on craigslist and find a furnace guy to check out my broken furnace. I found a guy quickly, and he went over and checked it out. He said it was probably a thermocouple so he put in a new one. This would have cost $180. This did not fix the problem so he looked deeper into the issue. To make a long story short, the furnace was toast and needed to be replaced to the tune of $3200!!
This got me thinking… let me check out his website and see if it is any good… and does it show up in the search engines? It turns out the web site was terrible and had zero results in the search engines! Perfect! I could solve both these problems!
IN SUMMARY: I wrote the letter below and he accepted my proposition and my $3200 bill went down to $1330!! and he will be taking care of all my service needs for the next year and beyond saving me thousands of dollars!!
Here is the email I wrote that went a long way to closing this deal!
I can definitely get you a ton more business, and 15 miles of Derry NH is very competitive, but I can make you rock in your market
My plan would be to create a new website for you using the latest web standards…
A big one is that your website will be mobile friendly, which means it will look and work great on any digital device..
from small iphones and smart phones, to tablets to big computers…
The new website will also be very SEO friendly, which means you will get better results in google and bing and yahoo search
I will also do a monthly SEO marketing campaign to get you great coverage and track results, and modify each month to keep getting you top results each and every month…
In other words, this is a 2 Part project…
1) create a kick ass website that makes you look even better than Heritage!! (and the others in the area like, LeBlanc, Pierce, Trombly, etc…)
2) SEO (search engine optimization) campaign that targets all your business keywords that people search on…
I did a bunch of searches in and around derry, and you did not show up, but the above companies did, so we need to FIX THAT!!! and WE CAN!!
Here is what my company charges for this work
ONE) Website design: $2500 to $4500 is typical for small business like yours… and my large clients are paying $4500 to $10,000
My goal for you would be to make a website that is on par or better than Heritage website. (They use the same web design system I use, which is called WORDPRESS, which is a CMS system (content management system)
It is kind of complicated to explain what it is, but if you are interested, I have a link here than explains the benefits 😉
* WordPress powers 25% of the worlds websites!!! That is a powerful endorsement!
TWO) My SEO Campaigns go for $200 to $700 per month
The goal is to get your website on page one and two so you show up on top with Heritage, LeBlanc, Pierce, Trombly, etc… so you can compete and get a chance to throw your hat in a competitive field!!
This package for you after analyzing your competition and geographic area covered totals $3700 for website and $3,300 for SEO for 12 months or a total of $7,000 plus hosting fees which run $420/year for wordpress
As mentioned, I like bartering and have done quite a few successful deals in past 22 years, and would like to propose this…
You would be my heating/ac guy and take care of my 2 apartment building and my home (Burnham Propane)
Each apartment is 8 units and has various systems like Oil and propane and NG
I will do the job proposed above valued at $7,000+ for year one…
You will take care of my heating/ac systems for a year
I would hope this being a win-win deal, we would continue working together for years to come helping each other out!
As to your out of pocket parts and equipment costs to take care of me, I would pay your wholesale costs for these items since you are a small business, and paying for large items could hit you hard…
I would also expect you to source good deals on craigslist when appropriate to save me money on big ticket items 😉
You or I find them, you check them out, I pay for them…
In other words, you don’t have to worry about large outlays of $$$, you would mostly do labor, research, annual services, etc…
The bottom line… I take care of your marketing, help you succeed even more, and you take care of my energy needs ;-))
talk soon
Svend
ps, here is a recent website design I am doing for Don Willet… who is also from southern NH and a small business like yours…
If you would like his number so you can talk to him, be glad to give it to you… we have worked together for more than 9 years on many different ventures…
