Let’s say, you’re shopping for a new web provider. You’ve seen their portfolio and you like it. The next step is to schedule a sit down meeting, but you need to know what questions to ask.
I’ve been part of this process hundreds of times! Unfortunately, I have clients that have been ripped off by other providers, and I don’t want it to happen to you. So, below are three question that I want you to ask your potential provider so that you don’t make an unfortunate mistake.
1: Do you have a standard, published way to estimate website projects?
The wrong answer: “Every project is different so we have to put a proposal together for you.”
What they are really saying: “Let’s go back to the office and figure out what you will pay for a website and we’ll bring back a price that we pulled out of thin air.”
The right answer: “We have standard, well-defined way to estimate your costs. We can give you a copy of our standard estimating procedure if you would like.”
2: What are you going to do after the site launches to make sure I’m going to get to the top of the search engine results?
The wrong answer: “We can do whatever you want!“
What they are really saying: “We don’t really have a plan or a standard procedure for delivering results after the launch of your website. But, if you tell us what you want, we’ll throw it in our estimate and make sure we charge you extra for the false-belief that we will get you to the top of Google. In actuality, we are going to design your site and the leave you high and dry because we make the bulk of our money off the initial design.”
The right answer should be: “The hard work starts after the launch of your site. We have a standard, repeatable process that we perform on regular intervals to make sure you get to the top and stay there.”
3: What if we fire you? Who owns everything?
The wrong answer: “You won’t fire us because we will keep your phones ringing with new customers!”
What they are really saying: “I hope my corny sales line works because we do not have a standard for that, and if you try to leave I will keep everything because I created all it!”
The right answer should be: “We have been in the business long enough to know that IT needs to be both portable and well documented. If we cannot bring you results, you can fire us and all of our work is transferred over to you. It’s just like hiring an employee.”
If you are looking for a provider for your web marketing needs, you can skip asking these questions by giving us a call or email Scale. The answers to the questions above are our own policies and we’d love to discuss them with you further.
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