If you do not have the skill to do your own small business’ website design, then you will need to outsource this to another company. However, when choosing who to do the design, it is important to know what you are looking for in a company. Find out what to look for in this portion of an interview between Dale Beaumont and Matt Freedman.
Matt co-founded Redback Solutions and has built the business into an e-marketing, web development and digital agency with offices in Sydney and Newcastle. Redback has worked with over 200 clients, helping them market their businesses online. In 2007, Matt and two other entrepreneurs launched Sticky Tickets, an online business that allows anyone to promote an event and sell tickets to it.
What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs looking to engage the services of a software or web development company as a means to turn their ideas into reality?
If you want to create an online business then you are going to need help building it in the first place. Then you will need ongoing help in supporting and continuing to evolve it. This is why it’s important to find a company that you can build a long-term relationship with. When looking for a company:
- Use a company that is passionate, but constructively critical, about your idea. If they don’t believe in your idea then they are not going to do a great job. But be careful if they blindly love your idea, because they may be faking enthusiasm to win the work.
- Use someone you feel comfortable with because you will want to build a long-term relationship with them. If you don’t feel at ease with them now, you won’t in the future.
- Ask to see examples of their work in similar fields and for projects of similar size and complexity.
- Speak to their clients and ask questions about how the initial project went. Was it on time and on budget? How was the project managed? What was the quality of the end product like? How was the support and follow up after the site was launched?
- Don’t choose the cheapest solution. We are talking about your online business here. You are better off delaying your plans and raising the extra funds than sacrificing quality and the success of your idea.
- Look for companies that have strong technical and marketing skills.
- Avoid sole traders and micro-businesses. Sole traders tend to be ‘flat out’ working on someone else’s project when you need them. Your website is your business and you need your development resources to be available when you need them. Over the years we have taken over many websites that were started by a one-man-band but never finished.
For more of this interview and small business website design check out “Secrets of Internet Entrepreneurs Exposed!“
