 Well, I'm glad you all stuck around to hear this, hear my, how to price websites like a pro. For those of you who are in my talk, the other yesterday, it was just yesterday, it seems like a long time ago, I was referring to this and today I'm going to try to go through the main process of the pricing websites like a pro so that we can actually get into showing you the automated website cost estimator which is kind of like the cherry on the top. So I'm Judy Knight and I'm a clinical psychologist by training and a serial entrepreneur. Eleven years ago I sold a software company that I was running, medical record software company, didn't know what I was going to do after that but I knew I didn't want to be a psychologist and I ended up starting to do WordPress websites for clients and then now I have a little agency. It wasn't like a straight shot yesterday. I kind of told you, you know, there's a time where you get to be in the Bermuda triangle of web designer hell but I started a WordPress meetup to coordinate and to kind of curate my education back in the day and that meetup now in Atlanta has 3,500 people members but so that's a little bit about me. I also, out of wanting to help people not go through what I went through which is like you know floundering around in that place where you're, you know what you don't, you know you're not great but you don't know how to get to the pro level is I started a course, a four month course with coaching that for aspiring and struggling web designers to learn to price close, build and deliver effective websites and in doing that that's where I decided my students needed help pricing the sites so I created this little pricing website like a pro with the website cost estimator and I started using it with my clients just to test it out and they loved it so this whole process that's where it came from and if I wanted to give you this little freebie before in case you have to leave at the end or if I get carried away and forget to tell you, if you text the word WordPress pro and I say word all one word to 66866 you'll get my weekly tips that I send out a newsletter and you'll get the pricing websites like a pro PDF with the paper versions word and word version and a PDF version of the pricing websites like a pro and you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter at Judy night so are most of you freelancers and you know how tricky an issue the pricing is and if you don't do it right if you underprice it you are in for all sorts of surprises and it you it's terrible you feel like you can't come back and charge a client for more and then you end up having to finish the site you know the drill and so not accurately pricing assessing the scope and pricing costs you time and money and that's one of the reasons having been burned like that we go into panic mode right when we have to price a site so there's no right way to do it you've heard a lot of people over the last couple of days talk about how they do it and it's different with large agencies and if you're dealing with a really large client then what I'm going to tell you isn't the way I would do it but if you're dealing with middle size you know small businesses where there's one to three people that are decision makers then this is a good thing a good process to follow but there's still no exact right way really depends on a lot about your situation but what I've done is created like this little five-step process it's in a PDF that you'll get if you use that 66866 number where it talks about how to go about setting yourself up for success first in order to find that accurate and fair price so before you even start pricing things you have to do your homework you have to be prepared and one of the things you have to do is have a really great website yourself how many people out here you free freelancers have a really great website yourself raise your hands one or are you modest but that is not unusual how can you price a website for decent money if your own doesn't represent the type of work you do or the quality you know it doesn't sell yourself because so many of you say well I'm selling to friends and family and people I know and referrals well hello those referrals are going to look you up and they might have gotten more than one referral and if they have you want to have your website outshine the other ones we just got a huge contract person looked us up from Google they were looking for a local agency that wasn't a big agency and she said you wouldn't believe how many bad websites are out there for web designers I said oh yes I would and you know it really helps you know helps make helps us close more business because our other people aren't doing a good job at that so go home today and put that on your to-do list so you really have to know who your clients are what you can do for them your range of services you provide how to write your brand story if I if you weren't in my talk the other day go to storybrand.com and look at Donald Miller stuff about how to do a brand story it will give you the way to talk to a client so that they will know that you're going to do a website that is better than the guy that says show me three websites you like and I'll build you one that's not going to work either to get the higher prices so you need to really feel like and do the work that you have to do looking at user experience research you're reading whatever you have to do so you feel confident that you're going to be able to do a really great website because you can't sell it if you can't sell it if you don't have confidence in yourself you're not going to be able to sell what you do always tell people if they're able to sell in person I tell these this to my clients then and most of them are you have somebody that's in business they can sell in person but I say we have to them bottle that and how whatever you do in person we're going to make that appear on the website and the problem is if you're selling to friends and family you don't really have to do that right you're just like you're the only guy they know that does a website and they're going to pick you and you're going to be ending up working for $1500 and you're not going to ever get out of the Bermuda Triangle of web designer hell so get yourself a great website then the first thing you do is you do a free phone call and that free phone call is 10 minutes the entire purpose of that 10 minute phone call is to qualify the lead you call you ask them questions about themselves and what kind of website they have now and you ask them how much are you planning to spend just ask them and if it seems like a fit then keep them on the phone a little longer talk a little more the whole purpose of the next part of that first phone call is to sign them up for a free I'm not a free consultation a paid consultation doesn't have to be a lot I just charge $150 because at the end of this call they'll say well what are the next steps I'll say oh the next step for the first step for anyone that we work with is for us to do a talk it out session and that cost $150 now I have them come to our office for two reasons a I'm busy and I don't want to drive all over Atlanta to meet with people who don't have any investment yet in me much better to have them pay $150 and they drive through the traffic to come to me and when they have the skin in the game you're already this much further closer to the sale so you hear you know you might think that when you do something nice for people they'll like you more it actually works the other way when somebody does something nice for you they like you more so have them come across town and meet with you now if you have a shitty office excuse me then maybe that's not the thing to invite them to your office but if you have an office where you're proud of and a team you're proud of or whatever then you want them to get to know you and your team like that was what somebody in in one of the talks yesterday said was his client said we like you because of your team so if you have a team then use it and have them get to know you and your team people like to know you have a team however if you're a one person then own that too and just let them know that you do what you say you say what you do you'll not make them wait and you'll get back to them all the time get that out of the way so once you've got them into your paid consultation the whole paid consultation is really about them just dig into their business what's your biggest revenue what are your goals what things do you have you done before what kind of marketing do you do just ask a million questions and they'll feel great that you might not think you know anything about business it doesn't matter what you do need to know is you need to be curious about their business so you can start to see what it's going to take to tell their story they're really their story about how they're going to help their client how you're to process telling their story it really isn't their story their story about how what they're going to do for their client and you know that's what that's what you're going to need to do is focus on them so you can't just go and ask them to show you three websites that they like and tell them well I can build you one like this you know you might want to ask them about the websites they like later but that's only to get more you know into discovery and find out kind of what they do like and what they don't like but definitely in this paid consultation you want to get enough information from them that you really you give them some information about how you might think about what's it's going to take to bottle their secret sauce and get them to be able to sell online like they do in person so you also like I said well I said that in terms of if you're a single person but if you're even a an agency or a single person then you also let them know how you work and get that out of the way you know what is your communication style how long will it take how do you do the payments just talk about that all up front so they feel comfortable and then if you've done a good job in those two meetings then the moment of truth arrives and they'll say well how much will that cost and that's when most everybody go oh well let me go out to the parking lot and see what kind of car they're driving or something that's what they think you're going to do so that's where I did created the website cost estimator and so I'm going to get out of PowerPoint and show you let's see how can I get out of PowerPoint so take water so this is our pricing websites like a pro module in the in my course oh I haven't gotten there yet hold on a second let's see so it's not showing up okay where's Michael when I need him so does anybody know how to do this the way I'm trying to get it to work I'm trying to bring up the Firefox instead of this pardon what's open I see I can't see what is okay thank you I see I can't see what's happening okay now can you see this it's hard enough doing a talk much less having to deal with the technology of it okay so I'm going to go down here and to the website cost estimator so I did this like I said come on it's trying I'm going to make it a little bigger you guys see that so it's gravity form and I did this like I said in practice with my clients and they really liked it so it was fun so what I did was so how I do this and I'll just kind of do a little demo of okay like are you what kind of site this is this a little refresh is it a whole new website is it just a little itty bitty biz or exactly what and then say this is a new website so I click that and it is now they've got a thousand dollars here how much how many decisions makers will there be oh only one well that doesn't add anything to the price oh let me make this smaller because you can't see that it's adding it up like I don't think yeah there it is so at the you know down at the bottom it's at the bottom of everything because it's conditional logic it's adding up so the client can see exactly how many how much money is it's happening so how many people zero only one person there's no extra money what style of collaborator will you be on this project this product this people love this question cool I'll collaborate with you and trust your judgment reluc and that doesn't add anything reluctant I know I'm slow to respond with deliverables and approvals that adds 500 involved I have a specific idea about the end project and I'll know it when I see it that adds a thousand exacting I have champagne taste I want the site exactly how I want it that adds 2000 and the funny thing is is people know if you get to that reluctant question and they know they're paying the neck they'll laugh and if they know they have champagne taste they'll usually admit it they might say well but I don't have the budget for that but the good thing is you've got it on the table that they know that they're gonna be picky uni so you know if you I've had somebody go through it and say but I'm a nonprofit I can't really you know have champagne taste even though I have champagne taste so we get through three-quarters of it and she's been stewing about this she says go back and add champagne taste so you get them to understand how they contribute to the price of the website and and it breaks ice and it's funny so so then let's see we need to select something so maybe they're involved this is like well no that's not quite right that's not quite right kind of person logo and branding do they already have it if they'll provide everything then that doesn't add anything to the site if they need a refresh and you can adjust these prices according to your prices because you'll be getting a PDF and a Word document so you can put your own prices in but say they need a rebrand a logo and branding and as long as it's pretty simple you know we'll just do that $2,000 website photography graphics will the client provide all the images well you know they never do so that's usually a trick question client needs help to find the images I mean there are a few clients that might come with everything together but not very many so then you go okay do you need help getting the hero image yes additional images on the site yes do you need a recommendation for headshots that wouldn't be anything you know zero zero if they needed that mobile site as long as there you they're not having any kind of special requirements that's gonna that are going to make us have to do a whole lot of extra programming for mobile doesn't add anything to the site but if they need something completely different on the mobile then we're gonna charge extra for it usually it's like a restaurant or something where you need to get the phone numbers and directions right up front where you wouldn't do it on the main site so say we're gonna not charge them for that already it's up to forty five hundred dollars then we get to content well we really pride ourselves on the brand story thing and a lot of people really like that and that's why they've chosen us we charge fifteen hundred dollars to help them develop their brand story for their home page little do they know we kind of have to do that anyway I mean you know but we're gonna really do it in earnest and do a good job and so that adds well that isn't where we are yet that number of pages let's say ten to fifteen pages and then the home page brand story 1500 so now we're up to seven thousand five hundred and fifty but remember they were kind of the they all know it when I see it people so but I don't worry about the price so far are they going to do need content we'll provide designer finished copy for each page are you laughing who does that right nobody so they're gonna need help they might use their existing copy from their website but even if they do they're gonna need some help with copywriting and so you know we add whatever they need minor say they're gonna provide it and we make edits because remember we've already done the home page so this is the rest of it so say we just make they provide that the copy for the rest of it and we make minor edits and so now we're up to seventy nine hundred we'll need the final the following features a blog nope no extra contact form not extra additional forms they need more forms hello those are extra you know the client that all of a sudden you've got a HIPAA compliant 42 item form that they spring on you now so when you go over that okay well if you need any others and this is a price and for a certain number of items event calendars event calendars with ticketing photo gallery or portfolios so it goes over all those things that we kind of forget about and that the clients remember later that oh yeah I needed an event manager and they hate to come back and add it to their price later so we're covering all this so then if they come back and later they want the event manager it's like oh remember we didn't price that in the website cost estimator and it just breaks the ice and they don't feel like you're trying to get one over on them so you just kind of go along it if it's a real estate site then it's gonna you know some of these questions if it's a online store then it's gonna add them ask them a whole lot of other questions let's see the store well we don't need to go into everything but it it'll take care of this do you want search engine optimization for keywords on your site how many keywords do you want optimized and and then there's some so if you said well maybe five on their main pages again that's changing their their amount technical items to discuss this is where I just have a conversation about that that we do training it's not extra one training session is an extra and we current we do hosting and maintenance and what about email where's your email hosted and you know that kind of thing and then we I say well this comes to $8400 and then they freak out or not but they might say well that's a lot and then we can go back and see well what what maybe don't you need and we'll go back to that that the thousand dollar that they're kind of a I'll know it when I see it person and I can take that off and so then they'll say well okay that'll that'll work and and so it'll be end up being seventy four hundred dollars and you know anywhere from six I've geared this towards our prices for small businesses and you know our average price for a small business is about you know anywhere between six and eight for you know just small business sites so that works for us so you can do this and put your own prices in higher or lower to have that work for you but what this does is it opens the door for you to be able to go back and talk to them about change orders or how they're being because if we get into this and they did not buy champagne taste and they start wanting you to edit the sign in the the font in the in the email newsletter sign-up box he's um yeah that would be champagne taste with the cherry on top so we're not we you know we can't do that unless you want to go ahead and add more money to it and so they they may also come back with other things but they don't mind because they have helped you come up with the price so at the end of this they're like well eighty four hundred is like oh that's too much you know take a few things off how about this but remember then now we're not going to do da da da da da and they yes that will work that's fine they've just agreed to work with you and so then you only have to go back and put it into your proposal software write it up and send it to them like the next day and you're you've got a new client it's really quite magical but it takes all of those steps and if you don't have a good website yourself this isn't gonna work so because it's all related that you have to be the expert and have and make them feel confident and competent that you're the person and that they know that you're gonna call them back and how you work and stuff and if you do that in those appointments by the time you get to well how much does it cost you're gonna go through it with them and they're going to choose their own price and if they can't do it you know we do a cup we do some little side projects where we do something like we'll work on a site for 15 hours and we'll see how far we get you know so if it's really somebody that isn't appropriate you know doesn't have any funds then there are other ways you can do can work because we slide slide those little projects in between our big projects that just to have cashflow coming in because we can get those done pretty quickly if we have a big you know big bigger projects you you know maybe having longer times before you get paid but but then you can go you know go into that mode and say well if this is really too high it can either refer you to somebody or we can do a very hourly thing and do this this and this but it will have to be like we're just moving on it and so they can choose that or referral to somebody that has prices that are less so that's the website cost estimator and you'll get the pricing websites like a pro PDF and word version but there's also you can buy this the the gravity forms version you'll get information when you get the PDF by email so questions