New Elevator Speech

Small Box is a 5 year old company with 12 employees and over 150 clients. We use the Web to grow businesses and organizations. Most of our client engagements focus on building and marketing a website.

When we build a website we focus on accomplishing three things- easy to find, easy to use and easy to update. An "owner friendly" site is critical to having a site that is both search and user friendly. If you don't like updating your website then you probably do not have an "owner friendly" site. Users and search engines hate stale sites and keeping them fresh with content is crucial.

When we market a website we leverage a customized blend of approaches that can include: E-mail Marketing, Social Media, Link Building, Local SEO, Pay Per Click and Ongoing Conversion Analysis. It's all about results. We see what works and build on those successes.

We seek clients that believe in the power of the web, to grow their business online and trust us to make it happen.

I Don't Know

It's so hard to admit I don't know something- how long it will take, what it will cost, etc.

If I admit early and often to what I don't know, even with serious pressure to make definitive statements, the better the overall outcome is. Every time.

My former business partner, Dan Ripley, told me early on - "it's ok to say 'I don't know'".

Great advice.

The Input/Trust Scale

I am starting to ask clients where they fall on this scale. As we move towards 1 our price comes down and our timeline accelerates.

1 - Highest level of Trust.
Almost no involvement with creative process or site content- "let me know what you need to know and then show me when it's done".

5 - Blend of Input and Trust.
Some creative and content involvement: "I have ideas and need to give input on mission critical items (site structure, design, content) but trust you to take care of the details"

10 - Highest level of Input.
Heavily involved with creative process and providing site content: "I know exactly what I want and I need to be involved at every step of the project"

Credit Lines

One bank says- "no money, no way" despite our substantial growth, low debt and strong cash flow.

Other bank extends us a generous credit line.

I don't get it. How can two banks looking at the same data come to such different conclusions?

I need to contact my friends at the SBA and see what they think.

Just glad we were able to find one bank that could do it.

The bank? Huntington.

mulling the idea of Trust Fall marketing

Spent the weekend thinking about this concept of reduced cost Web marketing in return for complete creative freedom.

I am eager to find a guinea pig client. Someone who is willing to give this a shot for a serious break in fees. 3 month commitment then go month to month.

I think we could do great work for about $1500 a month, about a half to third of what we would normally charge.

The perfect client is busy, needs our services, doesn't have a large budget but trusts us and won't get upset if we do something differently than they would expect/want.

We would launch a new website quickly and simply, watch the traffic and analytics, add content, functionality, watch some more, make more changes. Tweak and repeat.

Then over time we would begin adding email marketing, link building, social media marketing, etc. Maybe even dabble in some more traditional methods like direct mail if it makes sense.

We would go to the client when we were curious or needed something- What is it that you do? Who is your perfect customer? Is any of this marketing impacting your bottomline? How are you measuring it? Can we tinker with that? Which do you like better- green or blue? etc. They would give us input but we would decide what to do with it.

If you don't like our work, if we aren't getting results then fire us.

The Small Box team is ready for this. Any takers?