My website journey over the past eight years has admittedly been an adventure with the web designers I’ve hired, but I wouldn’t be where I am today with Graceful Resources without some… let’s say “less than trustworthy” people along the way.
I’m sure you can relate as well in any career field (not just web design). It’s what we do we with the experience that defines our long-term success in service to others.
When we run into obstacles (and we all do) we essentially have one of two choices:
- We become more bitter and give up, or
- We become a guide for others.
I have chosen the latter through Graceful Resources and I hope you do as well in your line of work (and you become comfortable with the criteria that follows for trustworthy professionals).
My Web Designer History
This site I am sharing with you today is actually the fifth WordPress site for my business that I’ve designed. The other four have now been retired. Over the years, here are some of my experiences:
- A web designer/developer charged me $750 initially and then went AWOL when I realized he didn’t know what he was doing.
- An SEO firm (recommended by a friend and local CEO) charged me $1000/month for four months to “optimize my site for search engines”. In the end, they got my first site blacklisted by Google because they tried to game Google’s algorithm by stuffing my site metadata with keywords. They then charged me $2000 to fix the website. In short, they were web con artists.
- A project manager in California charged me $3000 and then outsourced my web project to someone else in Brazil. The problem wasn’t that he partnered with someone else to help with the technical side of things. The problem was that he failed to keep me updated on the project.
I also hear “my IT guy disappeared” stories all the time from hard working, honorable people just like you.
How to Find a Good Web Designer
There isn’t some high tech answer to finding a good web designer.
In the end, we are talking about finding good trustworthy professionals, and I will defer to NY Times best-selling author Dr. Henry Cloud for his guidance on this one.
In his new book The Power of the Other: The Startling Effects Other People Have on You, from the Boardroom to the Bedroom and Beyond – and What do Do About It, the author outlines the following five criteria to assess if you can trust a person in your life.
When applied to web designers, I wish I had these five criteria in my back pocket years ago. But today, I hope my future clients (whether for direct web projects or my upcoming online courses) would judge me by this same list.
- Trust Someone Only if You’re Sure That Person Understands What’s Important to You
- Make Sure the Person Has Your Best Interests at Heart
- Ask Yourself if the Person is Reliable Before You Turn to Him or Her for Help
- Assess the Person’s Character
- Consider the Past Experiences You’ve Shared with the Person
I recognize the fifth criteria from Dr. Cloud may be the most difficult to assess with someone you haven’t worked with yet, but I encourage you to consider all initial interactions over email, phone, blog, social media, etc.
In the end, business relationships are about trust.
For your own business, I encourage you to publish on your website the following three critical pages to build trust with your site visitors (you can click on each for my example):
And to review the same content on the website of your future web designer or another business partner critical to your success in today’s economy.
Hope this helps,
Brent
Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback via my contact form or in direct response to my free Graceful Journal email mailing list.
As a certified project management professional (PMP) specializing in web design and lead generation strategies, I’m here to take away the pain of figuring out how to seamlessly integrate web and email software resources to grow businesses online.
One project step at at time.