Transform Your Website (and More) With Inbound Marketing

    Posted by Todd Hockenberry on May 16, 2013 7:20:00 AM

    transform your websiteWe've been HubSpot partners for over three years now and have on boarded over 40 customers as well as consulted with a few dozen others. But something happened today that has never happened to me before—I got a rousing round of applause from a client.   

    We recently were retained to help a regulatory consulting company re-design their website and launch them on a full blown inbound marketing campaign. The owner knew she needed a new website and she knew she needed outside help to get it done. The company culture feared change, feared online marketing, feared competition, and had no idea of how to take the steps needed to overcome these fears and build a website that attracted prospects using valuable content.

    This company knew they needed to change, but needed a framework to work by and a nudge in the right direction. So when the owner was referred to me and we hit it off she hired us and we started down this road of inbound marketing. Many of you already moving on that path would recognize what we did as a straight forward, basic plan.

    That is what it looked like to me. What it looked like to them was totally different.

    Here is what the employees of this company saw:

    • An opportunity to share their expertise to the world
    • Proof that management was progressive and concerned about the future
    • An outlet for creativity in a pretty un-creative world - telecom regulation
    • New sales opportunities in a stagnant market
    • A new enthusiasm for the expertise they have
    • A new appreciation for how much they help their clients and how important they are to them
    • A new energy to find ways to add more value and be even better at what they do

    This company came to understand how they can translate what they do every day into content and how that content is used to attract new prospects and they are excited about it! They see that buying is changing and they need to change to meet the expectations of new prospects.

    In short, a simple website re-design turned into a new sales and marketing strategy. This project created a new energy and enthusiasm for the business, their customers, their market place, and their jobs. They were thrilled to be moving ahead and excited about the opportunities this new website and the thinking that goes with it will bring.

    So when I was asked to attend a meeting this morning to review the project with the team I expected to meet with 5 or 6 key people. Instead I met with the entire company and walked them through the site and answered their questions.

    And at the end of the meeting they gave me a round of applause for helping them change.

    Remember, it's not just a new website, it's a new way of thinking. 

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    Topics: web design, inbound marketing, Top Line Results, inbound marketing agency

    Responsive Design & Marketing in a Multi-Screen World

    Posted by Tracy Lewis on Apr 16, 2013 7:17:00 AM

    People consume online content via three screens: desktop, mobile phone and tablet. Given the proliferation of each, marketers should build their programs to accommodate all three. Consider the statistics: 

    That said, consumers interact with each device differently, and screen dimensions play a large role in preferred content, layout and presentation. So, how can marketers ensure that their content is in the proper format—regardless of how it’s being accessed?

    Responsive.DesignGoogle recommends responsive design, in which the site detects the device and size of screen, and then automatically sizes the content to fit. For a quick overview, check out What the Heck is Responsive Design? by John Polacek (@johnpolacek), or these examples of responsive design in action from the Disney Store, Boston Globe and more.

    Another option, although less preferred, is to have a separate mobile website with its own URLs.  In the words of my PR 20/20 colleagues in Do I Need a Mobile Website, “if you aren’t debating whether to launch a mobile version of your website, you might want to start.” They recommend assessing your site analytics and overall user experience to make a case.

    But, What’s Next?

    As Pete Cashmore (@mashable) detailed in the Mashable Variety Show at SXSW, the number of screens people use to access information is only going to increase. Screens are going to get smaller, larger, on our bodies, etc. A few examples he shared include: 

    While many of these technologies are just in the prototype phases, the implications they could have on how people consume information and interact with content are profound. As we’ve seen with smartphones and tablets, this trickles down into how marketers do their jobs.

    For me, innovations like these reaffirm my belief that technology and marketing are only going to become more intertwined. It’s up to us to stay abreast of the trends, evaluate implications on marketing strategy and adapt. 

    What strategies are you using to succeed in the era of multiple screens? What tech innovations have you seen that that could disrupt how people communicate? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

    About the Author: Tracy Lewis is an inbound marketing consultant with PR 20/20, a certified Gold HubSpot partner and inbound marketing agency that combines content, public relations, social media and search marketing into integrated campaigns. She is also the community manager for Marketing Agency Insider, the hub for agency news, information and resources.

    Image Source: IntelFreePress

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    Topics: iPad, Mobile Websites, web design, PR 20/20

    The Web Design Business is Dead

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Aug 16, 2012 12:04:00 PM

    There's too much Competition.

    I know that "the web design business is dead" is a pretty dramatic statement. For the record, I don't think it's dead. I think it's going through a major transformation that most web design companies won't survive.

    I did a search a little while ago on a yellow pages site and there are 28,402 companies categorized under "web site design" and 41,498 companies categorized under "web sites". This, of course, doesn't include the many small 1-5 person web design businesses who are too cheap to list themselves in the directory or smart enough not to waste their money on it. Then, there are the marketing and ad agencies that have gotten into website design, but still call themselves agencies.

    There's a ridiculous amount of companies doing website design. Further, if the number of web designers that download HubSpot's free internet marketing resources are any indication, there are probably 100s of thousands of people or companies that call themselves web designers in the US. A full 15% of our leads are some kind of web or marketing agency.

    The industry is completely saturated.

    Most of them won't admit it in public (many have admitted it to me in private), but websites that used to get built for $100k are going for $50k, $50k for $25k and the standard $5k small business website is now getting built for $2,500 by someone's nephew, someone in India or a low cost high volume web site shop. And many are not that much different. The high cost providers are not always the high quality providers anymore. There's too much competition.

    Website Design, alone, does NOT Provide an ROI.

    The only thing that differentiates the average web designer right now is their design skills, which is highly subjective. And it's hard to correlate the effect of good design to the bottomline.

    Unfortunately, graphic designers are a dime a dozen and attractive web design doesn't necessarily translate to online lead generation success and ultimately: dollars. Does a $10k graphical website design generate more leads than a $5k one? Not usually.

    Hosting isn't a Business Web Designers Should Rely On.

    Many web designers, historically, also provide hosting. Some of them manage their own servers. Many of them just have a reseller plan with a big hosting company. This provided a nice recurring revenue stream for web designers for a little while. More importantly, it set them up to charge their clients for site edits when new content needed to be published or existing content needed to be revised. However, any web designer that is relying on web hosting to generate revenue is fighting a losing battle. In fact, I think it's already lost. They're more like Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole resisting the inevitable. Website hosting is a commodity business if there ever was one. And low cost virtual assistants can edit websites now that most people have basic html skills. Long gone are the days when someone should be paying $50/hour to add a new press release to a website.

    Web Content Management Systems Will Not Save the Web Design Business

    Most web design companies have had to get a lot smarter about how they build websites too. There are still way too many web designers that build websites from the ground up, instead of on a content management system (CMS). (They're also still the ones still charging clients for hosting and site edits, who are afraid to give up that revenue stream.)

    But, the good ones use a CMS.

    However, even CMS implementation is not a strong differentiation source anymore. When a web design company is proficient with a more advanced CMS like Joomla, Ektron, Sitecore or Drupal, they're able to command higher dollars.

    But, open source software like wordpress has made launching a website on a CMS easier, faster and much cheaper to launch for most small and mid-sized businesses. There's no software to buy and there's plenty of really smart low cost hep who are geniuses at configuring and customizing a design on top of the open source CMSs.

    Just like design, CMS implementation skills alone are NOT a really big differentiator anymore either.

    But, the biggest problem with web designers, is that they are busy building websites instead of delivering ROI to their clients.

    Most web developers, once a site is launched, are done. They made their $5k, $50k or $100k. They need to get their next job started to make payroll. The average web site designer knows how to lay out graphics, write html and has someone on their team who can hack php and install server side software like the CMSs listed above. That's it. These companies rarely have internet marketing skills and experience. Or they say they do, but they're learning on their client's dimes.

    Even worse, by putting the cart before the horse and building websites before an internet marketing strategy is established, they are making mistakes that they are going to have to charge their clients to fix.

    "But, I'm a web designer and I'm learning internet marketing as fast as I can get clients to pay for it." Sorry! That's not fast enough.

    Have you read the Innovator's Dilemma? How about the Innovator's Solution? If you haven't and you're in the web design business, and want to stay in business in the next few years, I recommend you go to amazon right now and order both.

    The premise of the books is that to really win in business, you must destroy a convention. If you are already winning in business, you might have to destroy your own conventions.

    As you can imagine, that's really hard. And doing it seems really stupid, I am sure, when people embark on it. But, history demonstrates that the ones who do it, succeed amazingly. For example, the NYT is now one of the top news destinations on the web because so many people link to them as stories break, which drives a lot of direct traffic and helps them increase search engine traffic. Do you remember when you had to pay to access their site? They walked away even though it was a $10M business. The most successful companies in the world followed the same disruptive technology path, atleast when they started. The Innovator's Solution is why Microsoft beat IBM with an easier to use OS; why DELL revolutionized the PC business; why Google beat Yahoo and Microsoft on the web with a more targeted advertising system selling clicks at a time for pennies each; why Salesforce.com is growing faster than SAP.

    How many guys do you know that used to build and sell PCs? How many of them are Dell resellers now? Who do you think is doing better... Salesforce.com implementation consultants or ACT! consultants? How many web design companies built their own email marketing system, only to shut it down and transition their clients to Constant Contact, AWeber or Exact Target two years later?

    Web designers are now competing against software as a service. All websites are is software. There's something about Software as a Service that is hard to compete against.

    Most web designers and developers are designers first. Some are great software configurators. But, very few are great software developers.

    Just like agencies tried to build their own email tools, only to move to reselling SaaS solutions, agencies will need to choose a marketing platform. There is no open source alternative, nor can there be given the complexity and integration requirements for modern marketing.

    They can't provide powerful SEO tools, analytics, lead capture, lead intelligence, blogging, marketing automation, marketing contact databases and social media publishing tools that are integrated with each other, that companies like HubSpot provides. Not to mention all of the 3rd-party marketing apps that instantly integrate with the software like HubSpot for call tracking, chat and content sourcing, to name a few.

    Previously, most small businesses would have to pay $500-$10k up front for just a website on a cms. Now, small businesses pay that for a full inbound marketing system with ongoing support and training. Larger companies who usually pay a $50k to get a custom web site developed are shifting those dollars to more sophisticated marketing software too, like HubSpot professional and HubSpot Enterprise.

    Sorry to rain on web designers parade. That's not HubSpot's intention. Remember that thing about destroying conventions? Business is about creative destruction. It certainly doesn't make sense to have 100,000 people manufacturing cars in their garages. Websites aren't as complex as cars. But, the brains behind business websites are getting much more complex. Should we really have 100,000 people in small offices around the country creating websites?

    Software as a service and streamlined processes enable HubSpot and our partners to provide a full inbound marketing platform to businesses at a lower cost than website and CMS development alone.

    Websites are no longer brochures. Websites are platforms that are increasingly connected to the distributed computing power, structured information and rapidly expanding social networking community of the web. Standards will arise. Platforms will win.

    Just like Amazon and eBay won in ecommerce. Like Zoho and Salesforce are winning in project management, crm and other business productivity solutions. Just like Google has won in search and ad targeting and delivery. There will be web marketing platforms that provide an ROI to small businesses who want to do measurable marketing. These platforms will provide more value for a lower investment than Bob & JoJo's web design business in Albequerque, NM ever could or will be able to do.

    It's not all doomsday, though. The platform needs operators. Business is still about relationships. People will still want to work with people - face to face. HubSpot will never have a maningful physical presence in New Mexico. Social media, SEO, blogging, PPC, content creation... none of these things are easy to fake. It takes skill, creativity and refined proven processes to implement an internet marketing strategy that supports a business's growth strategy. There are very few people that are excellent at these things.

    And that's the opportunity. I think very few web designers will make this transition. The ones that do will be rewarded. The agencies who already made the decision are growing rapidly. But, I think in the next few years we'll see a massive shakeout...

    The web design companies that transition themselves to online marketing services companies will win. The ones that still exclusively generate revenue $5k or $50k at a time by building websites from scratch won't. Web design companies must transition to charging retainers based on a demonstrable ROI for their clients.

    Here's the rub. As web designers transition, so do PR agencies, marketing agencies, ad agencies, copywriters, seo consultants etc. Anyone who wants to be relevant needs to transition, or atleast broaden, their offering to include ongoing internet marketing services.

    Paul Roetzer declared the Dawn of the Inbound Marketing Agency a few years ago. Today, inbound marketing agencies are thriving. At HubSpot, we're working with hundreds of agencies who have transitioned to providing inbound marketing retainers. They're doing very well. Meanwhile, most web design firms are die-ing.

    Do you run a web design or creative firm? How are you transitioning? Or are you still in denial?

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    Topics: internet marketing services, web design

    How to Hire a Web Designer

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Aug 16, 2008 10:15:00 AM

    I've been pondering this a lately. A lot of web designers suck at web design. Many suck at marketing. The majority of web designers suck at business. And pretty much all web designers suck at sales, where sales is a virtuous skill defined as the process of figuring out what's important to their clients and then recommending a solution that helps them solve their problems and achieve their goals.

    If you run a small business or manage marketing for a mid sized or large business, especially B2B businesses, and you're talking to a website designer... the most important thing to you is usually figuring out how to improve lead generation for your sales team through your website.

    Paul Roetzer has published a few questions you should ask any website designer you're planning on hiring:

    Q1: What's your Website Grade, Mr Designer?
    Q2: How will our Website be optimized for search engines?
    Q3: What Website analytics will we have access to?
    Q4: Will we have the ability to change our own content?
    Q5: How will our website generate leads?

    Paul has some good tips in his article. You should read it if you're doing a site redesign. I'd also recommend educating yourself about the website redesign process and developing an internet marketing strategy first. Way too many people relaunch their website and then expect to figure out how to generate business from it. It really needs to be done the other way around, unless you prefer to waste time and money redoing things.

    You learned how to drive before you bought your own car, right?

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    Topics: sales, web design, internet marketing, small business internet marketing

    Who Wants to Start a Vertical Industry Focussed Internet Marketing Business?

    Posted by Pete Caputa on May 14, 2008 1:02:00 PM

    I just got off the phone with Wayne Booth. He specializes in designing websites for dog trainers and websites for realtors.

    Then, there's Findlaw and DocShops, lawyer and cosmetic surgery website designers respectively.

    Both Findlaw and DocShops also own directories which drive traffic to their clients' websites. Sorta what I'm doing here. Their just focussed on one vertical and more successful at it.

    Wayne is simply well connected to his market because he is a dog trainer and his wife is a realtor. As a result, he understands the needs of the customers in these niches.

    I am biased, of course, but none of these service providers have the ability to help clients (who are willing to invest the time) excel at their internet marketing lead generation as well as HubSpot does.

    Courtney Tuttle wrote a solid post the other day about different ways to make money online. He talks about starting a service based business after you know how to generate leads for that type of business.

    Those who become good at generating leads will often transition into creating their own service businesses.

    HubSpot is really good at helping companies generate leads, whether they have internet marketing chops already - or not.

    But, we're horizontally focussed. And will continue to be. It's the right decision for a business that wants to be large.

    However, that doesn't mean that other companies couldn't create vertically focussed internet marketing businesses that leverage the HubSpot tools and Internet Marketing training.

    When I joined HubSpot, I told Brian Halligan, HubSpot's CEO, that I was going to start a website that would create a community out of my clients and I'd guide them with their blogging, link building and social media activities. Certain clients have stepped up. (All are invited.)

    Brian's response was, "That'd work well if you were focussed on a vertical".

    The reason I do this is two fold:

    1. To make sure my clients succeed. I believe in Karma and believe that I should only sell things to people who will benefit from them. As a salesguy, I believe it's my job to figure out whether someone is a good fit for us and if we are a good fit for them.
    2. To aid my own lead generation through my blogging and social media activity.
    3. To get direct referrals from happy clients.

    My sales development clients, Al, Trish, Rick and Dave are all stepping up. They do the following:

    1. Leave comments on each others blogs.
    2. Link to each other.
    3. Recommend each other on LinkedIn

    I keep them focussed on doing the right things so that all of this supports their SEO and lead generation efforts. I could charge for this. I could do more for them; There's always more opportunity for my clients that I can see. But, it's not my job to do that.

    Nonetheless, they all benefit from the network that I'm building. All of them have referred me prospective clients. That's payment enough for me.

    The system works.

    But, there's a next level to this...

    I also have quite a few web design/development/internet marketing firms who are clients and are almost as competent as me.

    My intention is to build a critical mass of clients in similar or complimentary businesses. Then, I should be able to take one of my 'web design/development/internet marketing firms' and help them build a vertically focussed internet marketing services business.

    However, that's taking more time than I had hoped.

    So, if there's anyone out there interested in accelerating this process and building a nicely scalable vertically focussed internet marketing services business, I'm all ears...

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    Topics: web design, internet marketing

    The Problems That I Solve

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Feb 11, 2008 11:06:00 AM

    I'm spending most of my time calling people who have expressed interest in HubSpot's strategic internet marketing platform.  Sometimes, I don't have the opportunity to dig into issues a business might be having when I call them. 

    That's ok. Just in case it was a bad time, their boss just asked them to do something unreasonable, or their cat just died, this post might help them figure out whether I might be able to help them... when they have a moment.

    Here's a list of things I help businesses with:

    • Can you edit and add content to your website without paying your webmaster or waiting for the tech team to do it? Does your website go for months without anything new for visitors to read or for search engines to index?
    • Is your online marketing strategy delivering results? Do you have one? Or does your website still look like the brochure you designed in 1999?
    • Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) something "you think your web designer did" and not something you do everyday? Can you predict and measure the amount of traffic and leads you get as a result of your internal or outsourced SEO efforts? When you did keyword research, did you do anything more than brainstorm what your clients "might type" at google?
    • Is your site visitor to lead conversion rate lower than 2%? Do you even measure that? Is your call to action a "Contact Us" button or buried at the bottom of the site?
    • Do you have a blogging strategy that generates increased visitors and leads for your business?
    • Do you know how to build links to your website that drive qualified visitors? How about links that increase your rankings in the search engines for the right search terms?
    • Are you spending a lot of money on pay per click ads that send visitors to your home page instead of landing pages optimized to get the visitor to convert into a lead? Are you spending a lot on PPC ads without even investigating whether SEO could help you rank in the organic rankings?
    • Do you have a strategy for Digg, Delicious, Myspace, Facebook and LinkedIn that again generates qualified traffic and leads? Have you even visited these sites to see how many of your prospects are interacting with your competitors?
    • Are you still doing Public Relations primarily with a telephone instead of online SEO friendly wire services? How's that going?
    • Are you tired of guessing what to do to market your busines online? Or worse, paying high-priced, do-little consultants to tell you what to do? Or even worse, paying very high priced firms to do things that you don't quite understand and they can't quite explain?
    • Does your marketing department generate qualified timely leads for your sales people using the web? Do your sales people know how to support your online marketing efforts? Do your salespeople know how to generate their own leads from online networking?
    • Do you have an email, web and webinar strategy that nurtures and educates your site visitors and prospects? Do people tell you, "I've been watching your company for a few months now. I'm ready to get started working with you."?

    If they have one of these problems and they'd like to discuss how I can help them, I'm happy to make 15-30 minutes available for them free of charge to discuss their unique challenges and needs. If there's a fit after that, I'll also help them identify the business growth opportunities available to their specific business through online marketing. If we agree that I can help them solve their problems and there's sufficient opportunity to warrant an investment from them, I'll make an appropriate recommendation.

    They should contact me through this form.

     


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    Topics: search engine optimization, lead generation, web design, blogging

    Web Design Firm Types

    Posted by Pete Caputa on Jan 23, 2008 8:03:00 PM

    At HubSpot, we get a lot of marketing and web design agencies who fill out demo requests, download our internet marketing kits and use the website grader

    I spoke to a few firms today. I spoke to some firms that are our partners who are very good and I spoke to some firms that are not very good - who aren't.

    I think I've figured out the buckets that they fall under. So, if you're a web design firm or marketing agency and I send you a link to this post, be prepared to tell me which one you fall under. It'll save us both a lot of time.

    Type 1: www.iknoweverythingaboutinternetmarketing.youcantpossiblyteachmeanythingnew.com
    These guys are the most common. Usually, I get people on the phone and ask them a bit about their business. Then, I get into more specific questions to diagnose what they know or don't know. I ask them how they've done keyword research for search engine optimization, whether they use a content management system to update their website; how they manage pay per click campaigns, etc. Most of these guys say "We do all that". So, I then ask a few questions to determine whether they really know how to do that. Something like, "What tools do you use to do keyword research?" These guys don't usually have an answer because they haven't really done it. They know that they can bullshit their clients about SEO because their clients won't know better. These are the same guys that charge $4k to set up a template and load their email list into Constant Contact. 

    If you asked these guys why they requested info from HubSpot, and they were feeling honest that day,  they'd tell you they are doing competitive intelligence. But, their real reason for downloading our white papers is because they want to make themselves feel good about themselves by concluding that "they know all that".

    If this is you and you want to do business with me, your first step is to admit you have a problem. Then, maybe I'll help you. If you don't want to repent, my goal is to put you out of business. You give all internet marketing professionals a bad name.

    Type2: www.ifwecantbuilditourclientsdontneedit.com These guys are generally techies that build websites. Not marketers. They get more excited about writing C# then figuring out what strategies will generate more traffic to your website. These guys are also doing competitive intelligence. But, they don't have the patience or marketing acumen to actually determine how to build something like HubSpot. So, they'll usually just find a "technical" or "feature" reason to prove to themselves why they are better. They'll ask the question like "Does your service have Widget A?" where widget A is pretty trivial and unimportant in the scheme of "attracting more traffic" or "converting more traffic into leads".

    I don't see any reason for us to talk unless you want to come work as a developer at HubSpot.

    Type3: www.itsnotprettyenoughformyclients.com These are usually the women that come from the marketing and ad agency world. They still have to be reminded of the difference between SEM and SEO. They've just gotten around to recommending email marketing over newspaper ads. They usually advertise that they help their clients with SEO, but their site is built entirely in flash and you will never find their website in the search engines unless you type in their company name. Of course, HubSpot websites can be pretty too. But, "pretty" for "pretty's sake" is not our objective. We help our clients achieve results. And to do that, it's about having a decent design and to focus on content creation, link building, social media, and increasing conversion percentages. Anyway, I just lost you if you're a www.itsnotprettyenoughformyclients.com type because you probably don't want to take the time to learn that stuff.  If you do, just admit you need some help on that side. We can help you still achieve "pretty" for your clients, and add a dash of "results" to the mix.

    Type4: www.icharge$50hour.com/whyshouldtheypaymonthlywhenicanbuildthemasitein20hrs
    If you want someone to take your brochure and put it online, by all means, hire one of these guys. They are usually graphic designer or IT professionals that decided to get into the web design business. They are good at setting up computers or designing brochures. They don't know how to identify your business goals or recommend a solution that helps you use the web to grow your business. They probably aren't too good at designing websites to convert traffic into leads either.

    HubSpot charges a monthly fee because we have 15+ developers working to improve our toolset every day. All of our customers get the benefit of the new capabilities that they develop. You're basically getting the benefit of a bunch of amazing developers helping you build a lot of backend intelligence into your site. We also have an online methodology which prescribes best practices in internet marketing, and you have access to our collective internal expertise through your internet marketing consultant and a client only forum. Our clients have a mini-MBA in online marketing after 6 months of working with us.

    I genuinely feel bad for hourly web workers. I think they don't know better. They are usually just scraping by because they don't do that great of work and/or they don't know how to sell properly. OR they are underselling themselves. Either way, we have a lot of work to do if you want to become world class. Your first step is to start to understand how you can add value to your clients by quoting them fixed cost projects and retainers that add long term value to their business.

    Type 5: www.wepartnerwithothers.com/whohaveexpertise/soweredoingtherightthingsforourclients
    These guys are rare. We have a few partners that are smart and seek outside expertise and tools that can help them help their clients. They realize they can't build everything. They don't pretend to know everything. They are usually very good at making things look pretty, but they don't sacrifice performance. And they only bill hourly for extra stuff after they've developed a good working relationship with clients.

    They are always the more successful firms for some reason.  They care about their clients first and foremost. And you know what... that all comes back to them. Clients come back to them. Clients refer them to other prospects who quickly become clients. They know that doing the right thing for clients is also the right thing for their business.

    If you're one of these firms (or aspire to be), I'd like to talk to you. I can probably help you grow your business AND help you help your clients grow their business. And if we can work that out, I am sure that you'll be able to help me grow mine. Here's how you should get in touch with me.
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    Topics: web design

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