We had a choice to make - did we make the right one?

I have been running a business that offers website and development services for 7 years now. Have I always enjoyed it? Honestly, no. Don't get me wrong, for the most part I love what I do. Launching websites and making customers happy is the main reason that I started doing this. The part that I have come to loathe – administration! Hear me out... 

I know that without admin, we would not have a business. But the part that frustrates me the most is all the processes that come before building a website. It can be so deflating when you just want to get it done. It gets to a point that you feel that you have to continue in order to finish but in reality, your head is saying ‘why the hell did you start this?’ A bit like that room you thought you would declutter, you were raring to go and then half-way through, you look at the mess you are sat in and think ‘why the hell did I start this?’.  

I’ve come to realise that websites, particularly from agencies, cost so much because of all the other parts apart from building the websites. A little secret – I've always been slightly jealous of those that can write amazing proposals. How do they do it? Well, their skill may lie in writing the proposals. Our skills lie in building and developing websites. A fact that we are very proud of. 

Proposals. Meetings. Phone calls. A massively important part of what we do. Don’t get me wrong, I know that these processes have to happen to a certain extent. But what if they could be simplified? Drawn back? Wouldn’t this benefit us, as the website developers, and the customer? More time to build and develop. That’s the choice that we are faced with. Do we spend time on proposals, meetings etc or choose to use our valuable time, that the customer is paying for, actually creating the end product? 

Well, we choose the latter. We want to create amazing websites that when launched, everyone involved sits back happy and proud of themselves for a job well done. We want to work with customers who give things a try. An inherently American mindset, we have found that our friends across the pond have a mindset that works with our way of doing things. This may be controversial but if our way, isn’t your way then you can just walk away. Right? 

After all, we are far better at building and developing websites than we are at proposals. Isn’t that what you want from your website developer?  

Do you think we’ve made the right choice?