I have a rule with my family members
I have a rule with my family and friends that has worked out really well. When somebody starts selling something, like Amway or A.L. Williams Insurance, I tell them, “I can’t do anything right now, but if you’re still doing this in six months, I’ll sit down with you.” It is amazing that I’ve never had to sit down, yet I’ve been doing this for 10 years!
My system for dealing with sales people works well, because they aren’t immediately faced with rejection and the likeliness that they’ll get a hold of me six months later is slim. This is kind of an unspoken secret that I never bring up.
This little tip would work really well if it was applied to people who have family and friends who aren’t web designers offering to build their website. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people attempting to deal with this type of dilemma and it can delay the decision to have a site re-done, because they don’t want to offend their friend or family member. There are several issues that can occur when people choose to go with someone who isn’t a professional.
I don’t know how many times I’ve stated this, but it stands true: websites are the new front door to your business!
If you have someone working on your website who doesn’t have the experience to know all the ins and outs of what it takes to get ranking, flow navigation, and to know what image sizes are needed to go into that site so that it doesn’t load slowly, you’re going to end up with a website that isn’t user-friendly and you may lose visitors. Many people don’t even realize they’re having this problem for months.
It’s not to say that someone can’t work on the entire site by themselves (design, coding, SEO, etc), but when an inexperienced person does this, it can turn into a disaster. Things are often missed or only half completed. When you’re building a professional website, it’s your job to make sure everything is 100 % complete and in perfect working order.
At the site gardener we’ve come to realize that there is no one person that can do everything. That’s why we have designers that do nothing but designing, and our programmers focus only on programming. By using experts to complete individual tasks, it helps ensure that nothing gets missed. We find that sites also get completed more quickly. Our team works together to produce the end result.
Now that I’m thinking about this subject, it’s got me thinking about people who have applied for a job at The Site Gardener in the past. It’s not uncommon for someone to come in and tell me that they can do it all: designing code, writing code, etc. Unfortunately, instead of grabbing my interest, this puts me in a negative way of thinking from the start. These individuals don’t usually get the job.
I like to use this analogy regarding this subject. Eric Clapton is a great guitar player. He knows that the guitar is his instrument, but if he’d spent his time trying to learn 5 instruments over the course of his lifetime, he likely wouldn’t be the Eric Clapton we know today.
Getting back to the point, please think seriously about who does your website and get someone that has experience and make sure that this is the only thing they do. I look back to some of the first web sites that we did and I really thought they were good at the time, but I am so thankful that we have progressed the way that we have.
Websites are the new front door to your business and I’m sure you wouldn’t trust your 22-year-old cousin, who has absolutely no logo design experience, to re-design the sign in front of your business. The longer I am involved with website development the more I find experience and expertise so important.
The bottom line is this: Get a professional to keep it professional!
My Christmas Story
I wrote about this topic years ago. Every Christmas, when it’s time to pick out the tree, I’m once again reminded of an interesting observation I once made. It happened about 10 years ago. To set the scene, let me explain that I used to get three trees for my house.
Because I sell to garden centers, I wanted to give them my business. There were three garden centers that I did business with in town locally at that time and so I thought it would be nice to buy a tree from each place. It was a Wednesday night when I dragged my son and wife out to shop for Christmas trees. I remember that it because the weather wasn’t that great. The parade of Christmas trees seemed endless, even though we only got three trees. Each time, we all three trudged into the garden center, chose the “perfect tree” and lugged it away. And then we had to turn around and do it all over again.
I recall that Josh wasn’t very excited about it, I wanted to be fair to everyone and I also thought it was good business practice and that they would appreciate me coming in and bring my Christmas business to them.
The first place I chose was an upscale garden center and so it was more expensive than the others. We got out of the car and got about 10 to 15 feet away before we were bombarded with a cheery tree salesman asking us how we were doing and if there was anything they could do to help us. I was surprised to find that the tree prices were very reasonable, because the quality was so great. After we chose our tree, a salesman was immediately asking us what kind of tree stand we had for it. Of course this was so that they could determine if we wanted a hole drilled in the bottom or just have the bottom sawed off to allow the water absorb into the tree. They gave me the tag from the tree so I could go in and pay for it.
By the time this first shopping excursion was complete, the tree had been run through a baler and was tied onto the roof of my car. At that point, my family was so happy that they wanted me to buy all three threes at the first location, but that would have been way too easy. After all, I had people to schmooze!
We dropped the first tree off at home and turned around straight away to shop for tree number two. We pulled into the second garden center, got out of the car and browsed around for a bit, but couldn’t find a tree that matched up to the quality of the first one. This is where this story gets interesting. I could people in the building looking out the windows, but not one of them bothered to come out to see if they could help. After we had walked around for about 10 minutes, there were still no sales people in sight. At that point, we simply got back in the car and got the heck out of Dodge, because I didn’t see the other or anyone who I knew there. I definitely wasn’t getting anywhere with my shopping.
Once again, my family attempted to persuade me to return to the first garden center, but I wasn’t having any of that. No, I was feeling stubborn and merry and in the Christmas spirit. It was time to share the Christmas cheer with my garden center connections! Or was it? Looking back, perhaps I should have listened to my family, but alas, I continued on with my mission.
The next garden center was close, so it didn’t take us long to get there. We all got out of the car and I immediately noted that this place seemed to be livelier than the last. There was a young buck of about 18 sitting outside, but in a small shed. He looked extremely bored and actually a tad bit annoyed that we were there. Again, we found that they didn’t have much for us to choose from and it seemed impossible to find a tree that we liked. But, with persistence, we found one. I pulled the tree and we waited for the kid to come out to help, but we soon realized that that wasn’t going to happen. I was feeling less merry and less cheery when I had to trudge over to the shed myself to announce that we were there and that we found a tree we wanted to buy.
Still, I paid for it and asked if he had a way to bail the tree. He pointed at the baler and reluctantly pulled the three through it for me (for a minute, I thought he was expecting me to do it). I then asked him if he had a saw. I quickly realized my mistake when I saw the look of bewilderment on the young man’s face. Next, I asked the pressing question, “Do you have any twine?” At that point, it was clear I was really grinding on the kid’s nerves and for the first time since stepping onto their lot, I began to enjoy myself.
He reluctantly gave me a box, acting as if I was the only person to ever ask. After that, he walked back to his shed and my son and I tied the three to the car. We left when we were done. After dropping the second Christmas tree off at the house, we went back to the first garden center to shop for the third and final tree.
The best part of the story isn’t what happened that night. The best thing happened a month later when I had an opportunity to speak to one of the owners of the garden centers we shopped at for our Christmas trees. Two of the three weren’t even aware that I’d been there to buy a tree. I asked them how their Christmas season was. The owner of the second garden center (remember, this is the one where no one even bothered to come outside while my family and I shopped for Christmas trees; from there, I left, without a tree, and moved onto another place). During our conversation, he complained that the guy down the road had cheaper trees that really cut into his market. He also said that they’d done everything they could, but just couldn’t compete with the lower prices.
The third garden center owner had a similar story. He somewhat blamed his customers for not being more loyal and again, shopping for cheaper trees, even though (he claimed) he offered much better service than the chain stores.
It was no surprise that when I asked the owner of the first garden center how his Christmas tree sales were, he told me they’d been great and after adjusting some of his prices, he’d sold out of trees earlier than he’d expected. He planned to up the number of trees the next year.
The biggest difference in the three garden centers is that the success of the first garden center can be summed up with one word: personnel. They put a lot of effort into hiring the right people with the right attitude, whereas the other two centers had no clue what they were doing. If they had, I would have had an equally successful shopping experience at all three garden centers.
It’s impossible for business owners to know what’s going on at all times, especially when they’re not there. I have two suggestions for business owners who find themselves in this situation. First, do a survey on service quality and other issues that commonly come up in your business. This can be a stressful move, because customers can be brutally honest. Keep in mind that it’s good to have someone who is not closely involved in the business to go through the surveys and to summarize the overall theme. This can greatly reduce the stress.
I’ve seen people get really upset over things written about their business in a store survey and it’s hard for them to get over it and they often never do another survey, which can be a mistake. Even if you get a bad response with the first set of surveys, it’s good to go back and survey your customers again after you’ve made some changes to ensure that the changes have had a positive impact.
The second suggestion I have for business owners is to use a secret shopper. This can be done either officially or unofficially. This is a great way to find out how the secret shopper was treated during a time when you’re not there. Secret shoppers serve two purposes. The first is so that you can find out what’s going on. The second is that that if your employees know what’s going on, they’re likely to go out of their way to be more cordial and helpful.
So if you’re finding that you’re getting constant complains about your employees or the service they’re providing, you may need to look at your hiring practices. If you’re unsure, use online resources. There are tons of online resources available about how to hire and what to look for when hiring someone for customer service.
It’s also important to look at who is doing the hiring. People tend to hire people who act similarly to themselves. That being said, if the person doing the hiring within your organization isn’t what you’d describe as a people person, than you’re going to end up with a lot of talented people who are just missing one talent: customer service skills.
Why I am angry?
I have to say that I’m pretty angry today after seeing what a so-called website company did to a friend of mine. Matt is the manager of the garden center that I do business with. His boss Tim hired his daughter’s friend to build their company website.
Matt and I sat down together and out of curiosity, I opened the new website on my laptop. It didn’t take me long to see that the entire site had been built using a flash template purchased by a third party! You may not know this, but Google does not read flash. So as far as any of the search engines are concerned, their garden center doesn’t exist online!
To top it off, this so-called web developer did absolutely NO search engine optimization! What’s so frustrating is that Matt is a very smart guy who knows the Internet. He put his trust in the web designer to do his job and build a website that was not only searchable with all of the search engines, but one that would be ranked well and easily found!
Instead, what he got was a website that fell through the cracks into the never-never land of the World Wide Web: a place so remarkably hidden that no Internet visitor could stumble upon it unless he or she is specifically trying to go there. If I hadn’t used my software to analyze the code within the pages, Matt would have never known what was going on with their website.
This situation is just like a restaurant owner who buys 10 billboards to tell everyone about his great restaurant. Sounds profitable, doesn’t it? The problem with his 10 billboards is that he got a really awesome deal on them and each one is sitting right square in the middle of a cornfield, or behind a building, or deep in the woods where no one goes. Meanwhile the owner stocks up on extra supplies and brings in additional staff while he waits for the new traffic to come barreling through the door. In the end, he’s spent a great deal of money, planning and preparation for absolutely no change in sales. This owner has just seen a decline in his profit when he should have seen an increase.
That’s why I’m so angry. As you read this it may not seem like such a big deal, but think of it this way: if you decided to go to get your oil changed, but found out that each time you paid for this service, they were using the same oil filter over and over again, all the while smiling, handing you the bill, would that sit well with you?
The bottom line is that there are no keywords for Matt’s website; a website Rohr Nursery probably paid a pretty penny for. That being said, there’s no way for Google to have any notion of what this website is about or how to even begin to rank it. Still, I wanted to see where the site ranked, but before I get into that, let me give you a little bit of history about Matt.
He’s probably one of the most talented water garden experts in the entire state of Ohio. ——– Nursery is one of the most respected water garden suppliers in the area. First, I typed “water gardens Canton Ohio” into the search engine. As we paged through the search results, ——- Nursery wasn’t coming up. The thing to remember is that websites have two kinds of visitors. The first kind of visitor is the visitor who is specifically looking for your website. This visitor already knows who you are and they’re just checking you out. The second kind of visitor is the visitor who isn’t specifically looking for you, but is doing a general search and spots your site in the search results (if Rohr Nursery’s website had been designed and promoted properly, it should have come up within the first page or two of the “water gardens Canton Ohio” search results).
The goal of site ranking is to make sure your website is visible to those visitors who aren’t specifically looking for you, but are doing a general search. After reading through five pages of “water gardens Canton Ohio” search results, The nursery still wasn’t showing up. You can probably imagine the look on Matt’s face by now.
When I check the calendar of upcoming events at the garden center, I was dated for 2010, the results become even more interesting. This web designer charged nearly $2,000 to build this site and plans to charge an additional $800 a year for maintenance!
Stories like this are becoming more frequent. I see it over and over again with hardworking business men and women everywhere. The strange part about this (and I really don’t know if the web designer even knows he’s doing anything wrong) is that anyone can call themselves a website developer. It’s unfortunate. If I hadn’t been curious enough to take a look at the website with Matt, he would have thought everything was fine and that Rohr Nursery had gotten their money’s worth.
Now I might be a little old school, but I take it personally when the sites we build are not ranking towards the top of the search page. At The Site Gardener, we feel that SEO is as much of a part of building the site as adding the pictures and the text. The purpose of a business website is for people to be able to find your business so that they purchase your product or service. It’s that simple. And the odds that this blog entry would gain —— Nursery a higher ranking than the company website are very high, if I used their name and that’s something important to consider.
So the next time you’re planning on paying a website developer to build your business a website, don’t make the same mistake —– Nursery did. Don’t allow your site to fall through the cracks into never-never land. Make sure you hire a web designer that recognizes the importance of search engine optimization. No one wants to pay for a used car filter or a billboard that’s sitting in the middle of a cornfield.
Maintaining a Powerful Web Presence
Maintaining a Powerful Web Presence
I keep telling people that websites are the new entry into to your business.
Phone books are a thing of the past. Google is the new Yellow Pages. Not having a good website at this point could prove to be a costly decision. A web site is the best way to put your personality out there for people to get an in-depth look into your business. From family history to landscape jobs, you’re proud of to the new plants that have been brought in. People can and will spend time browsing through your site, viewing what you have to offer, without being pressured or obligated. The garden center that has a great website can do more business than a more established garden center with no web presence, by simply directing people to areas of your business that people wouldn’t normally see. At this point, not having a website could give people the impression that you’re not keeping up with the times, that you refuse to spend money or can’t spend the money to promote your business.
As far as landscape companies go, most people will shop online before they ever make a phone call. Not having a website can greatly hamper your business. It’s bordering on the assumption that you do not want to show them your work.
With that said, there are companies that build nice websites, but don’t keep them updated (outdated calendars, for example). This doesn’t look good for your business. Compare this situation to a lawn care service that refuses to mow the grass in front of their place of business. The idea that this could happen sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it has the same effect as someone visiting an outdated website. Don’t let your website be the outdated website that visitors come to!
Subtle things throughout your website can say volumes about your business. When it comes to wholesale nurseries, not having your availability ready at a moment’s notice can cost much-needed sales in this already tough market. Many of the younger buyers want to be able to go online after hours, without having to make a phone call or visit in person, to get the information they’re looking for.
Unfortunately we’re an instant gratification society. We don’t want to wait until someone calls us back with prices and information. No, we’re more likely to go with the business that offers it at our fingertips whenever it’s most convenient for us and not just during business hours. The biggest point I’m trying to make here is that your website is a great tool and can bring a good amount of profit to your company, so use it!
