This Is Destroying Your Web Design Business (It’s Not AI)

0:00Lots of web designers are struggling right now, and everybody wants to blame it on AI. And yes, AI is changing the industry, but I'm here to tell you that in the past 2 months, I've signed more website clients than any 2-month period in the history of my business. And I've been doing this for almost 10 years, so I've been around for a while. So, in this video, I want to talk to you about

0:21why your business might be struggling. And I'm going to show you how you can kind of break the system and really start crushing it with your business again, because right now is do or die. Your business is either crashing and burning or you are going to be positioned to earn more and work with more clients than ever before. But it is purely up to your decisions and how you structure and position and run your business. So, we'll talk about that, and then at the end of this video, I want to share with you two decisions that I made that if you make these same decisions today, you will notice massive

0:57difference by tomorrow in how attractive you are to potential clients. So, what you learn in this video should start making you more money tomorrow. All right. Now, with that said, this is the most critical thing that you can take from this video. So, if you remember anything from this video, remember this. If your business is struggling right now, it's probably not because AI is replacing you. In fact, it probably has nothing to do with AI. The reason you're probably struggling right now is because you're stuck in the old way of selling websites. AI and tech in general have changed a lot of things, but one thing

1:31that doesn't get talked about enough is how they've changed the expectations of all humans. And the expectations that have changed the most are what people think a website should cost and how long a website should take. And too many of us are still selling websites that have painfully slow turnaround in a world where everybody expects everything to be instant. Now, with that said, I've tried a lot of different things in my business. I've tried a lot of different niches. I have tried a lot of different platforms, a lot of different offerings, and all of those tweaks and levers do make a difference, but there are really

2:07just two changes that I made that I attribute all of my success to. Truly, just a few months ago, I was not sure what was going to happen with my business, and now we are looking to earn more than ever before, and it is solely because of these two decisions. So, I would encourage you to listen to these and then consider if it's something that you would be willing to implement into your business because I can truly promise you that it will make a huge, huge difference. All right, so the first decision or change that I made was finding a way to deliver new websites in

2:40days instead of months. And I know that sounds far-fetched, and it sounds difficult, and sure, there are cases or scenarios where this isn't going to be possible, but the minute that I shifted into a fast turnaround model, everything changed. AI has made all of us think that all things digital can and should be done today. So, making a client wait weeks for a first draft and months for a

3:05final product simply will not work. People won't wait for it. They won't pay for it. They won't like it. It will be a terrible experience for them because those expectations have changed. Now, there are definitely different scenarios where certain websites will take longer. A fully custom website is going to take longer. And so, those projects, as long as that expectation is set, you're going to be just fine. But what I've done with my business is choose a single niche and customer type that I know exactly what they need, and I can implement it within a day or two. So, in my case, it has become local service businesses because

3:40typically, they don't care as much about what their site looks. What they care about more is their local exposure and more local leads coming in. And so, with these websites, I can still get in and and give them some customization and make sure they look nice. But, there is absolutely no reason why we should be going and building new sections and new structures and new pages. Once you figure out what works, that should be a plug-and-play copy-paste system. So, looking for ways to templatize, reuse assets, and employ AI to build these websites is going to help you really crank up your turnaround time, and

4:14clients are going to love you for it. So, right now for my clients, I'm delivering an almost completed homepage by day two. And so, these clients are getting that instant feedback. They're getting excited, and it completely changes the tone for our entire engagement. They're more excited and engaged. They're quicker to respond and get me the things that we need, and we're moving so quickly that we're we're getting them to results faster. And I'm realizing all the things that I used to waste so much time on just weren't necessary. Now, I should add that if you want to be able to achieve these fast turnaround times, your clients

4:48absolutely must trust you as an expert. If they, at any point of this process, sense any doubt in you or that you're not sure what to do or what direction to go, that's when they start having a lot of feedback and opinions and suggestions, and that's when the feedback loops become a nightmare. But, if you go into this telling them, "This is what works. We know exactly what you need. There's no need to recreate the wheel." And, you know, they can give you slight feedback on colors or fonts or things like that. But, most of these businesses don't want to have an opinion. And the only reason that they

5:21do have an opinion is because they get worried that things aren't going to look good or get done right. So, go into this, be the expert, let them know that this system works. There's no reason to recreate the wheel. You don't need this extra page. You don't need all of these new custom sections. What you need is a system that works, and you need it up as fast as possible. And since I've started to talk like this, I haven't had a single client in the past 2 months that has ever had issues with the final product. They're all super excited about the way that it turned out, the way that

5:54it looks, and they're really eager to see how it performs. All right, now the second big change that I made is the way that I talk to my prospects about what I do. And I'm going to explain more about this, but just so you understand how this has changed my business, before I started doing this, it literally felt like pulling teeth trying to get these people to sign up and pay for a website. Sales calls were difficult. My close rate was actually getting really bad because people just weren't as interested in web design. And so, the way that I shifted things is I no longer am pitching them

6:32on web design. My actual offering or service is a system that gets local businesses more website traffic, leads, calls, and walk-ins. So, my messaging is more focused on the end goal. And this isn't some new concept, right? We've always talked about how clients don't care about design, they care about sales. But, what I'm doing now to even further the effectiveness of my messaging is I'm really nailing down on AI and how it's changing business. And so, when people ask me like, "What is it that you do?" I tell them that we have a system that gets your business mentioned on AI tools like ChatGPT and Google

7:13Maps. Because that's all people want. They know that getting mentioned on Google Maps is going to get them new customers, and they know that getting recommended by these AI tools is going to make their business future-proof. And so, it checks all of the boxes for them, and it turns my old-fashioned offering from web design services into a new, futuristic, exciting offering that is on the top of everybody's mind. Everybody wants to know how to use AI. They want to know how AI is going to change marketing and the way that they run their business. Being that solution that they're looking for is going to make these sales calls so easy. Because

7:51people don't know what to do, they don't know how to use AI. Whatever they do have set up, whether that's their website or their marketing campaigns, it's all outdated and they're not getting good results from it. And so, the way that you talk to prospects has to change. You have to be forward-thinking. You have to be talking to them about the future of local business and the future of AI. And it has been so exciting to see the shift in these sales calls and how these prospects are receiving this so well and also how much more willing they are to pay me and trust me with all of their

8:27website and marketing. So, I guess what I'm trying to say with this one is if you are positioned as a traditional old-fashioned web designer, you're old news. You're not likely to land any new clients. But, if you can lean into AI and the discussions that are happening around that topic, it's going to be so much easier to sell your services. So, from my recent personal experience, I know these things work. You've just got to take the time to reinvent your offer and reinvent the way that you talk about what you do. And you might even want to do what I did where I completely rebranded and I just got a fresh start

9:02on my business that has made all the difference in the world. So, I hope you found at least one thing helpful in this video and I wish you all the luck in the world because I do think this is a great opportunity for us. So, thanks for watching and we'll catch you in the next

9:13video.