How to Sell Websites to Small Businesses in 5 Easy Steps

If you’re looking to grow a successful web design business, you need a scalable website building platform like SiteSwan. You also need an effective and scalable sales process that will allow you to consistently and quickly take on new clients. Below we outlined the 5 exact steps we used to successfully grow our own web design agency using the SiteSwan platform.

1. Book a Discovery Call
Start by scheduling a 15 – 20-minute discovery call with the client so you can learn more about their business, the services they offer, and what they are looking for in a new website. It’s important to make sure their expectations are both reasonable and that you are able to meet them. This is also the time to introduce yourself, gain their trust, explain your process, talk about the benefits of having a website, mention other services you might offer, and most importantly review your pricing to make sure they are financially qualified.

If all goes well and they are comfortable with your pricing, offer to build them a FREE no-obligation homepage design to show them what you are capable of.

2. Create a FREE Homepage Design
A free homepage design allows a business owner to preview what their new website can actually look like before purchasing. Seeing a live, fully-functional website of their own is far more compelling than seeing someone else’s site in a portfolio. This is also something nobody else in the industry is doing, because it’s way too time-consuming with any platform other than SiteSwan, so it will immediately make you stand out. You’ll instantly gain their trust and show them that you are willing to earn their business by doing some work upfront before getting paid.

Building a beautiful and persuasive homepage design with SiteSwan is fast and easy. Start by choosing one of our themes and customize it for the individual business by uploading the company’s actual logo, tweaking colors to match their brand, and editing the content if necessary. These small changes will go a long way in winning them over and will look like you spent days designing their custom site when in actuality, it only takes minutes.

Here are some tips: If you don’t see a theme for a particular industry, use one of our “Blank Canvas” themes and follow our suggestions for adding content. Always hide any content that’s on the interior pages before presenting the site – only make the homepage content visible.

3. Present Your Design to the Client
Now that the homepage design is complete and ready to show the client, schedule a time to present it to them. Make sure you schedule it in advance so you can be sure that they are able to dedicate their undivided attention. If you are presenting the site in person, make sure you bring a laptop and there will be an internet connection. If you are presenting it over the phone, make sure THEY have a laptop/desktop computer and internet so they can view the site properly. While the website will automatically be mobile-optimized, you don’t want the client to view the homepage design for the first time from a smartphone. It’s better that they view it full size for the best first impression.

The homepage presentation is an EXTREMELY important part of the sales process and should not be overlooked. Don’t just send a link and let the client view the site on their own. You want to make sure you are presenting it to them live the first time, walking them through each aspect of the site, highlighting all of the key elements and benefits, and answering any questions they may have. A good homepage presentation is often the difference between winning or losing the sale.

4. Collect Payment Information
You should always aim to collect payment information (often the credit card number) from a client at the end of the homepage presentation. If you created a personalized homepage, did a good job presenting the site, and answered any questions, there should be no reason why a business owner would not want to move forward. If there was something they wanted to change about the design, assure them that you will gladly make any and all changes once payment is received. We suggest asking for their credit card and charging the setup fee immediately using our Client Billing feature before you make any changes or work on completing the rest of the site.

5. Complete and Launch the Site
After you received payment and charged the setup fee, it’s time to hold up your end of the bargain by completing the rest of the website in a reasonable amount of time. We recommend always taking the lead on content, using the framework provided by the theme template and what you know about the business, to complete the rest of the site pages. If you wait for the business owner to send you content and photos for every page, you can be waiting weeks if not months for them to follow through. A typical 5-page website should not take longer than a week to complete.

Lastly, once the business owner gives their final approval, it’s time to officially launch the site and connect the domain name if you have not already.

Efficiency is key when growing a successful web design business. If you can get this process down, you will find it much easier to launch a lot of sites with very happy clients, rather quickly. Using everything SiteSwan has to offer is a critical element to your success!