Business Strategy

I just read a great article from Adage about the importance of a company's website.

Your website is ostensibly your biggest office or storefront. Think real estate: Would you cheap out building your headquarters, manufacturing plant, distribution center, customer service center, or store? And yet, a website can be all of these. This piece of property is available to customers and prospects all over the globe 24/7.

Read that paragraph again. The importance of a great website in this day-and-age should be your number 1 priority. Your website is where your customers go first... before calling you. Trust me.

An interesting thing happened to me the other day. I needed to order some light-bulbs for the office last week. I went to Google and searched for my light-bulb guys. Nothing. Searched again, same result. I searched a couple more times, could not find the phone number. Then I looked down at my feet, there it was: the telephone book. I looked up the number, made the call and got my light-bulbs.

Ordering light-bulbs is not very interesting. What IS interesting is the fact that I searched Google first instead of opening up the Yellow Pages.

Trust me, this is happening all over the world. Your website is where your customers go first!

If you're not spending money on quality website design and development and on online marketing (what you need to do to drive customers to your website) you are missing a huge shift in consumer behavior.

I'm a bus dev guy. That is my passion. I currently own two businesses and am working on a third. Being an entrepreneur is hard. In addition to the long hours and hard work, there is a lot of ups and downs! And, (in most cases) when you first start out, you have to do--and learn--everything: accounting, marketing, sales, operations, legal, fixing the toilet... et cetera. Is it worth it? Totally!

When I first started my web design and development company Bullsprig I didn't quit my day job. Let's face it, I needed to pay the bills somehow. What I did was work on the business at night, after my "real job". I would come home from work and spend time with my wife (girlfriend at the time) then, when she went to bed, I would get to work. This is what it takes guys. Hard work. Period. No other way about it.

I have a lot of entrepreneur / start-up business clients at Bullsprig. I love it because I love helping people achieve their dream of financial independence. Over the past couple of months, I have taken a good, 360 degree, look at my business. What are my clients really looking for? What do my clients want from me?

There is obviously a lot of answers to these questions, but I think I have really narrowed it down.

So, what's the point of this post? Well, I want to tell all my beloved readers and clients I'm taking Bullsprig in a new direction. Yes, we will continue to provide web design and development services and online marketing services. But, we're going to go a step further and provide more consulting services regarding their online and social media presence. We're going to help our clients build brand equity online.

We are currently developing a new product to help business owners, individuals and other web designers build and publish websites. We're really excited about this new product... the ease of use, the functionality, low cost, etc.

The design and development of this project has been a lot of fun! From the beginning, we've asked a lot of hard questions: Why do we need this? What problems are we solving? Will customers purchase and use it?

I think the answer is yes! Of course, we hope customers will adopt our new product at a fast clip. Only time will tell.

We will go live with this new product soon. I'll keep you up-to-date!

Most companies have a lot of paperwork. Paperwork is NOT a key business indicator. It's "stuff". It's busywork.

This stuff takes a long time to do... time that could be spent doing other things. It's time to take a step back. Look at your business. What are your key business indicators? That's what you need to focus on. Not the stuff.

If you're in business, you should know what your key business indicators are. If your KBI's are not measuring up to your standard, it's time to make a change.

Not getting enough hits to your website? No leads? No new clients? Revenues are down?

Dig deeper. Find out why. The answer is usually right in front of you.

This post is about Meetings. Everyone knows what they are. Some love them, some hate them. I personally hate them. Meetings get nothing accomplished and waste everyone's time.

Every week we will get 2-3 calls requesting a meeting, usually lunch. Every time I say no thanks. I don't have enough time in my day to go to lunch and talk about nothing. Not that I don't eat lunch, it's just that if I go to lunch, I want to go with my wife, or with friends.

A huge red flag for us is a client who wants to meet. We've learned this from experience. The prospective clients who actually want work done don't ask for meetings. The majority of clients who want meetings aren't serious.

Currently, we have 6 clients I have never met in-person. Ever. Would I like to meet them? Sure. Do I want to drive to San Francisco or fly to LA to meet them? Not really.

With these clients, we get projects done over the phone, via email and other communication devices. It's a huge time-saver. And, it actually gets things done.

The worst thing about meetings is they almost always get off-track. The conversation turns to something totally unrelated to the original topic.

Before I started Bullsprig, I worked for a company with about 100 employees. This company loved meetings. At the time, I actually liked the meetings. I was fresh out of college, so didn't know any better. I was that guy. I would sit through the meeting... act like I was taking notes, contribute here and there, and leave. With nothing done.

I have a completely different perspective now. If we have a meeting that we absolutely have to attend, I don't send any of our designers, I go. Our designers have way more important things to do. When I go to the meeting, it's time to take charge. I don't want to dilly dally. Let's get to the point, find a solution, and put someone in-charge of implementing the solution.

Here's a perfect example of how to get things done without on-site meetings. Currently we're working on a website for a very successful entrepreneur and business man who lives in Arkansas. We are almost finished with his website, and have done everything over the phone and via email. It's been very fast and efficient. Once we get the final copy from him, we'll go live. The entire project time: 2 weeks. I love projects like this!

So next time you're confronted with a meeting, don't go. Try something different. You'll be surprised what you can accomplish.

We just went live with a new website for St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School.

The St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School is a private Preschool, Elementary and Middle School located in Carson City, Nevada. The School was founded in 1957, and has a great reputation for academic excellence.

St. Teresa School contacted Bullsprig about redesigning their current website. They wanted a fresh look and feel, more functionality, and a website they could manage themselves.

The web design goals for this project was to give parents, students and faculty a website where they could interact with the school, download documents, check schedules, read news and announcements and much more.

In addition, the St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School website had to function as marketing tool for future students and parents. The School has a lot of fund-raising activities throughout the year. They wanted a website where they could advertise these great events easily.

This was a great project for the team at Bullsprig to work on! I grew up in Carson City, and actually went to school at St. Teresa. I have fond memories of playing football in the dirt playground, and not-so-fond memories of being called to the Principle's office for discipline. I'm happy to say the playground is no longer dirt, and I haven't been to the Principle's office in years!

The St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School website was built entirely on the Bullsprig Platform, integrating numerous key business indicators, including:

• Custom Web Site Analytics - Custom website reports are generated weekly, and sent via email to St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School every Sunday. The custom website reports illustrate top performing pages, most popular website content, searches, web form submissions and more. Our custom website statistics provide everything St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School needs to know to improve their online business and stay on track.
• Lead Management Systems - We built custom web forms that capture every inquiry, seamlessly updating the customer database in real-time.
• Workflow Notifications - We built multi-step work-flows to notify the St. Teresa staff of new web form submissions, verifying steps as they are completed, and remind and escalate to management if need be.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - We put special effort into making sure St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School can get found on the web. Every 24 hours, we automatically generate the sitemap.xml file for St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School, ensuring maximum visibility in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
• Content Management System (CMS) - Utilizing the Bullsprig Platform, the staff at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School can maintain every aspect of their custom website. The staff at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School can update web pages and edit content, upload files and communications, add and change photos with a click of a mouse.

About St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School: Founded in 1957, St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School has established a reputation for giving parents exactly what they desire when it comes to their children's education. St. Teresa's provides exceptional education in a faith‐based environment.

Click here to view St. Teresa of Avila Catholic School's website.

Search engine optimization is a never-ending job. All the time and money you spent designing and developing your website means nothing if people can't find you!

It's important to make sure your website design company optimizes your site during development, but there is always room for improvement. To get those precious leads coming in, you must ensure your prospects can find your website via search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Tip 1: Write Better Page Titles
At the top of your browser, on every web page, there is a title. Make sure each title is very specific, and is different than any other web page on your site. Search engines scan this data when indexing your site. Being specific counts! Do not use generic page titles like "About Us". Include targeted keywords in your titles.

Tip 2: Use Keywords Generously
Incorporate top phrases you want associated with your website. Do your keyword research, find out what keywords you want to target. Try to have your keywords appear a few times on your site. But, do not "keyword stuff". Keyword stuffing is putting A TON of keywords on a single page. This is a red flag.

Tip 3: Develop an XML Site Map
Site maps are a major component for search engine indexing. There are many tools that generate xml site maps for free... use them! Websites designed by Bullsprig submit an xml site map to all the major search engines every 24 hours. You need to do the same.

Tip 4: Broadcast Your Links
There are many ways to get your content out there to the world. Focus on social networks and trusted websites within your industry. Tell the world about your business, products, services, employees... everything!

Tip 5: Tweet About It
Twitter is a wonderful tool that has become an important part of search engine optimization. Tweets are now indexed in Google! If you have a Twitter account, include Tweets about your business and useful tips that your customers would like to hear about. If you don't have a Twitter account, get one!

These tips will help you get better traction with your search engine results. SEO is a never-ending job! The sites that rank highly in Google are there for a reason... you can be too.

In business, nothing happens until a sale is made. Leads equals sales. Without leads, your business will not survive long.

We consult our clients often about the importance of conversion rates. A conversion can be many things... a product purchase, information gathered from interactive forms, a contract signed, and so on. Your conversion rate is the percentage of people who actually do what you want them to do. For example, if 10 people visit your online store and three people buy something, your conversion rate is 30 percent.

Tracking conversion rates on your website is a very important key business indicator.

Your ultimate goal is to convert clients, make a sale and keep your business growing. After the initial conversion, you need to make sure you keep getting repeat sales from your customers. The way to do this is to create marketing and sales systems that work.

With our website design clients, we first determine what their business goals are, then create conversion funnels to support these business goals.

Too many business owners focus on getting their "look" right before they start to generate leads. At the end of the day, leads are far more important than your brand. Again, leads equals sales, and without leads, your business will not survive long.

If you're in the market for a website redesign, or brand-new custom website design, make sure your website design company focuses on your business goals first, website look and feel later.

I live and work in Reno Nevada. I think it's the best place in the world to live. There are so many options and fun things to do in and around the Reno area. This fits me perfect because I really enjoy spending time outside doing the things I love. One of my passions is skiing.

I am 45 minutes away from the best ski resort in North America: Squaw Valley USA. For the past 5 years I have been a dedicated pass holder and lover of Squaw. I consider myself an expert skier... although, nowhere near as good as some of the guys ripping it up at Squaw.

Recently, I found a website that offers everything I want to see and read about Squaw Valley, and other things skiing. This website is: Unofficial Squaw.

The team behind Unofficial Squaw are doing an incredible job of online marketing and delivering a website people love and visit quite often (myself included).

So what's their secret? Well, first, the layout and design of the site is really nice. They spent some time putting everything together, and either have in-house designers, or they hired a great web design company. The website is visually pleasing and has a nice grid-based layout making navigating the site very easy.

They've also incorporated some really great technologies in their website, including: weather widgets, Twitter, Vimeo video technologies, Slideshow Pro, Flickr and others.

But what really makes Unofficial Squaw so popular among ski fanatics is the content! They are delivering exactly what their visitors want: great content!

I am sure you've heard, "content is king." Make no mistake, this is absolutely true! If you want to have a website with tons of traffic and visitors... deliver great content with an easy to use website. Give your audience what they want!!

At Bullsprig, we consult business owners and individuals every week about how they can get more traffic to their website. Besides having a custom designed website, you must give users what they want. What are you selling? Do you have products, services, ideas? What about those products or services makes them "sellable"? Talk about it. Help your audience see the benefits of your offerings.

You started your business because you were passionate about it. Tell the world why and success will follow!

The video below outlines why Steve Jobs is such a captivating speaker. The video is about 7 minutes, by Carmine Gallo.

In watching the video, I kept thinking back to our recent client presentations. I think Bullsprig is an awesome web design company! I think we do great work... our clients tell us we do great work! But sometimes, we get lost talking about "techie" subjects that--as a company--we care deeply about, but often times, our clients don't.

Carmine Gallo illustrates some great points, including: If you're enthusiastic and excited about your product or services, your client will be enthusiastic and excited about your product or services as well. Have a theme to your presentation and stick with it. (Don't let lost in "techie" stuff).

The tips and techniques in the video below will help anyone trying to sell products and/or services. Enjoy!