We have been stressing to our clients lately that we see a trend of people wanting to know who they are dealing with. We do have an about us page on the website, but thought I would give you more of an insight on how we got started. Practice what you preach right?
Our amazing designer, Chad, had created websites for friends and family for years, but had a full time job in the AV field. This required programming, so web design was right up his alley and was a bit of a relief sometimes because it gave him the chance to be creative. It was never anything that was ever considered becoming a profession for him until his uprooted his family and moved them to Colorado for another AV job, The job did not work out as planned, and then we were sitting there scratching our heads saying, “Now what?” Then came a call from a family member asking to make some changes on his website Chad had done for him. A light came on and we said, what the heck, we have nothing to lose right now! We then took to Facebook and asked our friends and family to pick a business name for us. Web Designs Your Way was the final choice and off we went.
Evelyn became the sales face of the company, and Chad the “code monkey” behind the computer. Evelyn would see Now Open signs and walk in and talk to them about their website needs. She built relationships from day one because she is a “people person.” She will talk to just about anyone! She had never been to a Networking Meeting in her life, but soon learned how important that was to the success of your business. Especially because we were in a new state and did not have a lot of connections. The business started to grow, but not as quick as we had hoped. Chad did get another job but we kept the website business going as a side income. The first two years in business we won “Best of Parker” which was quite exciting! The third year we had made the decision to move back to Arizona, so who knows if we would have won again! I would like to believe we would have.
The move back to Arizona was a big decision and we made the move with the intention of just doing the website business. Once we got here, we started Networking again right away. We had our pricing very low to try and build an awareness of who we were and get established. Because our pricing was so low, we were attracting the “wrong” clientele and could not live on that pricing. Chad then went back to work at a day JOB and we maintained the website business still trying to grow it.
Fast forward to 2015. A big decision had to be made. Chad was basically working 2 full time jobs because the website business had grown from Evelyn building the relationships and Chad building amazing websites. Our pricing had increased and was competitive with other web design companies in the area, although still on the lower end. Evelyn had been told time and time again that because our pricing was so low, we were not being taken seriously. Boy was that the truth. Once the rates were raised is when we got busy! So at the end of 2015, Chad gave his notice and 2016 started off with both Chad and Evelyn as a full time website company. Scared to death, but hopeful.
2016 started off with Evelyn setting up meetings with all kinds of companies to collaborate with, such as SEO companies, IT companies, content writers, all to make Web Designs Your Way a one stop shop. We had to find the right fit of companies that had our ethics and core values in order to work with them. We found several along the way and started to grow the business. There were a couple of slow months, but we now know to expect those probably the same time every year! April being one of them because of taxes, and June because the kids were getting out of school and summer vacations were happening. Come October though, we know to be prepared for everyone who needs to get their budget spent in order to receive a new budget for the next year.
2016 was a bunch of lessons learned, growth, and extreme happiness that we were so blessed to be busy and able to support our family in the first year of both of us being full time. We are now going into our 7th year of business and proud of what we have accomplished. Our goals for 2017 are to continue to grow and potentially grow enough to hire some employees. But that would be a HUGE step, but it is our goal!
Now, the hard part for me to write about. I am a modest person, but feel there are SOOOOOOOOOO many reasons why you should choose us. Of course the design factor. Chad is a perfectionist and does not produce anything but amazing looking and functioning websites. Yes, we use templates to cut down on the cost, but Chad also goes in and custom codes items on the back end that sets your template apart from all of the other websites built with that same template. We don’t ever want your website to look anything like any of our other clients! Your business is different than anyone else, so your website should reflect that! We are not an SEO company, but do have a strong collaboration with one. We have learned how to build you r website so that an SEO company can just pick up and go and not charge you extra to add in a bunch of things they need to do their job right. We were actually really surprised when we found out what others leave out that we include!
Ethics and value. We try to treat each and every one of our clients like family. In fact, many of them do become “family” to us. We have built many friendships over the years with people who started out as clients. We tell you everything up front and try to ask any and all questions up front so that there are no hidden fees. Of course, if something extra is added after the fact, there may be additional fees, but we hate the bait and switch tactics some companies use. In fact, we have all our pricing listed on our website with what is included with that price. Not many other web designers do that. Our word is Golden. We do everything in our power to have your website done by the time we told you it would be done, if not before! We hold your hand through the entire process, so there is nothing to be scared of!
Customer service. We actually answer the phone, or if for some reason we do not, we actually return your call! Generally the same day. Same with emails. We have our office phone set up to where we will get an email with your message if we are out. We hold pretty strict hours, but we do schedule appointments with clients which causes us to be out of the office. In this case if you miss us, we will generally call you back as soon as we get the message, even if that means while in transit.
Pricing. Our pricing like mentioned before, is very competitive, if not on the low side! We built our business on helping the little fish in the big pond. We are true believers that anyone who has a dream of owning their won business should have a presence on the web. We know a lot of start ups sometimes forget to put a marketing budget into their game plan. Marketing is a huge part of starting a business and should be one of the first things considered. So we offer payment plan options to help those who “forgot” to add a website to their game plan.
We offer so much and our name is important to us. We have built our business over the past 7 years to the point that most of our business comes from referrals, so we must be doing something right! We stand behind the websites we build, and have customers who have been with us pretty much since day one. We are proud of what we do and it is a passion for us, and our work shows that.
Thank you for reading and we look forward to any questions you may have. Feel free to comment below! Or you can always call us at 480-656-6059