This global pandemic has put the final nail in the coffin of freelance web design. The industry has been slowly fading away over the last few years and now I believe it's totally dead in the sense that it is no longer possible to make a sustainable full-time living if all you're offering to do is build websites for people. It had a good 21-year run.
People no longer buy “web design” for the prices you probably want to be charging. Many web designers, however, are still trying to generate leads for traditional, old-school web design.
You are competing against the entire world
(Upwork, Fiverr, crowded Facebook groups, everyone on LinkedIn, etc.)
Paid ads are prohibitively expensive due to the saturation of the market
(so you primarily – if not entirely – rely on referrals)
It's almost impossible to differentiate yourself from everyone else offering the same services
If you do manage to generate a lead, it is usually for low-ticket, one-off projects
Then you're back looking for more leads
(repeating this sequence of problems)
This sequence is the underlying root cause of the price race to the bottom for web design.
When most people start their web design businesses they position themselves as a resource for any business to get a website.
The problem is, you quickly run out of friends and family to build websites for. Then you're basically relying on referrals while you exhaust and devalue yourself sending cold emails and reaching out to random people on LinkedIn.
So, here are three strategic steps you can take to make significantly more money as a web designer while giving yourself more stability and job security at the same time.
Each step will give you some strategic and super practical ways to increase your revenue and upgrade the quality of your clients.
In less than 20 days Robyn and Nathan landed over $20,000 worth of new business. Since then they've continued to land high-ticket clients including one immediately before we started recording this conversation! Join in and hear how they did it!
Watch the video above or catch a summarized version below. Read more
Does it feel like you're only attracting clients with tiny budgets? How do you reach high-paying clients? The answer is very simple. It's not easy, but it isn't complicated. Here's how.
Have you ever wondered how to price your work? You want to offer good value but you don't want to undercut your own prices.
What do you do when a client shows up and they have a budget that's way lower than what you want to charge?
One of the most common problems I hear from web designers, especially in the WordPress community, is that their clients are showing up with very low price expectations. For example, you might want to charge at least $2,500 but the client is looking for something under $1,000. So… how do you bridge that gap?
Most web designers are stuck in an outdated mindset walking their clients through the same old tired 5-step process everybody else is using.
Discovery:
Figure out what the client wants
Strategy:
Put a plan together to achieve the goals that were just discovered
Development:
Implement the plan
Review:
Make sure the client likes what was created
Launch:
Launch the site (and the client) out of your life so you can go do it all again for the next client.
The problem comes down to the difference in how web designers and clients value the problems that are getting solved. Web designers tend to think from the bottom up starting with the technical challenges that need to be overcome. Clients start from the top down with the life and business problems they are facing. This creates the value gap.
If you've ever felt like you just can't get the client to see “the value” even though you know you're capable of great work, it is because you're not bridging the value gap.
In this session, you'll discover the hierarchy of the “pyramid of problems” so you can bridge the value gap between the technical solutions most web designers focus on and the end results clients want to see in their lives and businesses.
This is for web designers who can do great work and they are ready to upgrade the quality (and value) of their clients.
Discover the new approach to high-ticket web design.
Most web designers all say the exact same things on their websites. They market themselves by listing the same set of skills that everyone else lists and then they wonder how to stand out from the crowd. Usually, they end up relying almost exclusively on their portfolio to set them apart. So, at the end of the day, most web designers feel stuck when it comes to figuring out how to market their business without sounding exactly like everyone else.
This results in a bevy of bad things:
You're positioned as a garden-variety web designer
You're forced to compete on price
You're attracting random, cheap clients
You're working on small, one-off projects
You're stuck doing work you don't really like
The solution is to shift your marketing away from simply listing your services. Instead, use your skills and create something your ideal clients want and then talk about that. Give them something to want.
Let's Talk
If you want some help figuring out how you can combine your skills, your business experience, and your passions into a high-ticket solution that drives results for your clients. Hop over here and schedule a time for us to talk.
Are you building a business that will give you the stability and financial freedom you need? Or, are you just job-hopping without benefits?
I'm going to ask you five questions.
Answer these questions honestly and you'll see a clear picture of whether you're building a solid business or if you're just job-hopping but without the stability and benefits that come from getting a “real” job.
Join me to make sure you're on the right path that's going to give you the future you want.
If you're ready to put your business on the fast-track to build the life and financial freedom you want, schedule a time for us to talk.
Over the last 18 years in web design, I have recognized that there is one shift that will open the door to a vastly more successful business for you and dramatically better results for your clients.
The shift is to get your clients to hire you for your vision, not just your technical skills.
Once you make that shift, all the other problems that tend to plague garden-variety web designers disappear.
When clients hire you for your vision…
Scope creep goes away because YOU provide the scope
You can charge 10X more than everyone else because your selling results (not services)
You generate recurring revenue because your clients work with you forever
You break away from the low-budget, frantic competition because you're not selling what they sell anymore
You don't have to constantly hunt for leads all the time because you keep the clients you already have
I could go on, but I think you get the point. There are a bunch of details that pertain to how to make this shift, but if you're serious about actually helping your clients and you want to build an awesome business for yourself in the process, this shift is my #1 recommendation.
Making this shift doesn't cost you anything and you have everything to gain. I'll even go a step further… if you do NOT make this shift your business is going to dry up. Wix, Squarespace, Upwork, Fiverr, etc. are going to eat your lunch.
It may be a slow and exhausting death as you fight to stay afloat. You will notice that your leads are going to have lower and lower price expectations. You will never reach a 6-figure income if you stay stuck in the crowd where everyone is in the price race to the bottom.
