The most important course that I took for my Web Design business and how it helped me raise my rates

Nov. 14

As I approach my 4th year in business as a web designer, I realize how much my business has evolved and my processes have improved. When I started my business I didn’t have a lot of strategic processes in place to automate my business. I got by with free software for sending contracts for signatures, doing web design feedback by email and not having the supporting documents for clients to guide them through creating the content for their website.

Two years into my business I realized that this whole system needed a total revamping in order to attract clients who wanted to take their website to a new level. The first game changing step I took was to sign up for Dubsado for my client relation management tool. (read this post to read more about how Dubsado has transformed my business). With Dubsado I was able to set up workflows, canned emails, templates and send contracts and invoices to create a seamless process for clients.

But… I knew they could be so much better. There were still so many missing holes in my process and I struggled with what to say in my canned emails.

I had been following Melanie of My Billie Designs (now rebranded as Melanie Lea) for a while as she has so much helpful information on her site relating to web design and Squarespace. When she announced the launch of her course Powerhouse Web Designer I knew that this was the course I needed to fill in the gaps in my web design process.

I signed up immediately and could not wait to get started. Since it was the first offering of the course, the content was dripped out on a weekly basis and my only complaint was that I could not access it all at once. I wanted to all out binge watch it!

check out powerhouse web designer

Here are the aspects of the course that made all the difference in my business:

Helpful documents:

Melanie includes links to her ACTUAL documents, emails and website planner that she has used to create an extremely successful design business. Not only are these helpful to have, but Melanie has a fantastic way of relating with people and personalizing her documents. Her wording creates a very conversational tone with clients and takes away the formality of a web design process. She makes it easy for clients to understand what is required in simple terms.

Automating client inquiries:

I am ALL for reducing the amount of emails in my business and automating wherever possible. With the Powerhouse Web Designer course, I followed Melanie’s detailed example of how to send your Service Guide (aka Intro Guide) to clients inquiring about your service. Not only was the whole process helpful, but she also goes over exactly what to include in your Service Guide.

For my business, I ended up creating my service guide as a hidden page on my website that I send client inquiries to. These inquiries could be from a Dubsado lead form on my web site, instagram, facebook or a direct email. The benefit of having it on my website is that it is so much easier to update and my fonts and colors match my brand automatically. I used to create my document in inDesign but found that it took me too long as I don’t work in it that often and spent too much time trying to figure out how to make it do what I wanted. Then you have to export it and upload it to your website or to Dubsado and upload the link. Too much work. Now I just update the page on my website and no link updating needs to be done

Guiding the website content process:

As I mentioned above, Melanie provides many helpful documents, but one that I found made a big difference in my business is her Quicker Content Framework document that gives amazing guidelines for website content and even guides you through how to write the copy for your client’s website. I have chosen not to write content for my clients, but I still provide much of her advice and guidelines to help them write their own content.

Client call strategies that make it easy

I only started added video calls with my clients shortly before I started this course and I often felt like my calls could be more productive and they sometimes felt… well… awkward.

Melanie provides step by step questions and conversation starters to guide you through that initial discovery call. She also includes her client intake questionnaires which are so thorough and now help me to have such a good starting point when talking with potential clients. She also provides the same helpful guidelines for the important strategy call that I hold with clients just before starting their web design work.

Structured web design process

The unit on web design strategy is super helpful to see how to create a proper strategic website plan for your clients site and how to present your design and get the client’s feedback in a productive way.

I have refined my feedback process over the years since I have been in business to make it easier for my clients and also to make it easier for me! After taking Powerhouse Web Designer my process became even better! I guide my client’s through the design step by step and provide the reasons behind the design and the strategies that are in place. Since following Melanie’s advice my feedback process is much smoother and my client’s have less revisions.

I am a lover of practical, “just show me how to do it” courses and this is exactly one of them. Melanie is a very gifted teacher. She is so easy to understand and relate to and best of all, she does not ramble on or speak jargon that makes it hard to understand. She is personable and so accessible. I found the scheduled group calls really great too. I looked forward to them. Melanie is full of business wisdom as well and is so willing to coach you through business decisions. The course is also getting updates soon to add so much more general business knowledge with information about sales funnels, marketing, pricing and so much more!

Although investing in a course(or anything for your business is always a scary thing, there are times when your short term pain is very long term gain.

After taking Powerhouse Web Designer I was able to raise my rates as I had a refined and streamlined process that creates a wonderful client experience. Knowing that I can provide this level of service to my clients gives me the ability to charge more and create a very white glove service. I was able to recover the cost of the course in only one or two website bookings!

In conclusion, I can not recommend the Powerhouse Web Designer course enough! It is perfect for any web designers who are either just starting out or have reached a place in their business where they have outgrown their processes or want to attract a higher quality clientele.