WildBill wrote:speedsix wrote:" ...You're just full of ideas. " that's a definite upgrade!!!
Thanks!!!
Do not use lower prices to attract students. I don't think that a "price-war" works or benefits the students or the instructors. I don't know of any CHL instructor who is living a life of luxury from the income from their CHL classes.
"Price wars" is what killed off the traditional printing industry—combined with technological changes which required capital investments for digital technologies just when people were starting to devalue their own products and reduce their revenues.
Your industry is in danger of heading in the same direction.
1) Stick to your pricing structure. It conveys value to your students. If the vendor is telling his students that his services are only worth 50% of your fees, then that is the value the student will impart to the service, and that is the value he will expect from
your services. DON'T indulge that tendency. Let the other guy go out of business if he wants to, but you stick to your guns.....so to speak.....and justify your prices by superior performance. Don't get complacent. There are always people out there who are willing to pay more for better quality........or else Apple Mac computers would not have a market.
2) Hire professionals to do those things which you suck at, and don't be afraid to admit that you suck at them. I suck at accounting. Therefore, I pay a bookkeeper and a CPA. The businessman who fools himself into thinking that he is qualified and/or possesses the skills to do all things is headed for bankruptcy or jail. Take your pick. And by doing so, you contribute to the economy.
So, with regard to your current websites, and please take this in the spirit in which it is offered, whether or not you choose to hire me or some other professional: your website is pretty bad, and could stand to take advantage of much better technologies than the one you are using, and for not a huge investment in capital. And WildBill was right: It's OK to have a link back and forth between the two websites, but delink the content of one from the other....otherwise, what you've got is two identical webistes with completely different names. It's confusing to the viewer. What does "this 'n that" have to do with CHL? Not much. Also, that Microsoft product you're using stinks. I have another client that I migrated off of that service onto a regular hosting server (GoDaddy) and we rebuilt their site using an open source content management system (Joomla) connected to an open source database (mySQL). Similar hosting packages do not cost very much money per month, and both the software and the database are generally freely included as options in those kinds of hosting packages. So, my client's investment in the website consisted of the contract fee for my time, and one or two stock photos they purchased from iStockPhoto.com for $50-$60 for use on the site.
So, the thing about these open source content management systems is that it is very easy to set limits on how much you're going to spend. Basically, your choices consist (unless you know what you're doing) of hiring someone to install the software and then train you on how to use it, and then
you develop the site, at the cheaper end, to hiring someone to install the software, develop the site, and turn over a turn-key solution to you, at the more expensive end. The cost of the latter is going to depend entirely on how much you want the site to do. For instance, adding a shopping cart capability would generally cost more than simply adding editorial content and some pictures. But, I can gaurantee you this, and I know it sounds self-serving coming from a guy like me, but the fact is that you are going to be much happier with the final product if you pay someone else to do it, you will be far less frustrated by the process, and you will have the time to devote to running your business instead of trying to build its website.
Go with the person who offers you a contract for a set price, rather than the person who says "my rate is $X per hour, and I don't know how many hours it will take to finish your site." A contract benefits both parties to the transaction. My contracts benefit me because they guarantee my compensation, with the power of the courts to enforce it if the customer is skootchy, and they define the
customer's responsibilities to the process as well as my own. And they benefit the customer because they guarantee the quality of the product, the timely delivery of the product, and the price of the product—all things you need to be able to rely on so that you can make concrete plans for your business.
Finally, understand that the website designer hasn't been born who can and will write your content better than you can. I am typical of a lot of website designers in that I have had a number of years in the newspaper publishing and the graphics/printing industries in my background, and I am comfortable proof-reading a customer's copy and suggesting wording changes, but
nobody knows your business as well as you do! Virtually every single one of my clients over the years has been in a business like none of the others. They have included an oil-field equipment/vehicle maintenance corporation, a commercial plumber, a roofer, a CPA, a Lawyer, an online seller of "blinged out" spirit wear, a baseball fan site, an online kitchenware seller, a CHL instructor, a bed and breakfast, a die-casting foundrey, a teachers of singing trade group, a gun-rights advocacy group, etc., etc., etc. There is no way on God's green earth that I can possibly know anything about any of these businesses going into the process, outside of whatever might be the sort of common knowledge that one acquires along the highway of life. And then, no two customers in the same industry are necessarily going to run their business the same way. So sit down at a computer and type up all the different things you can say about your business. This will become the core of the website's content. If you do this part diligently, the development and delivery of your website's final product will be half of what it otherwise would be—the single biggest stumbling block to timely delivery of a website being the customer's failure to deliver content to the developer.
SEO (search engine optimization): Having a website is pretty much worthless if people don't go look at it. That is where SEO comes in. Don't spend a fortune on it. A lot of those companies are scam artists. There are far less expensive alternatives—not
free, but definitely affordable—out there that can help you to promote your business effectively within the region in which you work. There is no sense in spending SEO dollars to promote your business in El Paso if your classes are held in Lufkin. On the other hand, you can locally promote your business on the web without spending a fortune.
But the bottom line in all of this—and it is the same for all people regardless of what industry they're in, including website designers—you're going to have to spend money on growing your business. Don't freak out about it. Just spend it wisely, but be willing to accept it as a cost of doing business.
All of the above is offered free of charge and is worth exactly what it cost you. If you would like additional information that may, or may not, be free of charge, feel free to PM me and we'll see if I can help you.
Best of luck in your endeavor.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
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