Sales Playbook

"Fair, let's do the math together. What's one new customer worth to you? For most [trade] businesses it's a few hundred dollars minimum. The site is $499, once. If it brings you two customers, ever, it's paid for itself, and its whole job is to bring them every week."

Compare the field: freelancers run $1,500 to $8,000, agencies $5,000+. We're priced below the cheapest freelancer for hand-coded custom work because we've systematized the process, not because we cut corners.

Never drop the price; change the scope. "If $899 is heavy right now, we start with the $499 Starter and grow the site when the leads come in." Price integrity is a brand promise.

"You absolutely can, and for some people that's the right call. Two honest questions: do you have 20 to 40 hours to spend on it, and is your time worth less than $25 an hour? Because that's the real price of 'free'."

"And the result is different, not just the effort. Builders stack plugins until sites take 4+ seconds to load; ours are hand-coded and load in 0.2. On mobile, more than half of visitors abandon a slow site. The DIY site costs you the weekend AND the customers."

"Try this: spend one evening in the builder. If you love it, great. If you want to throw the laptop, my quote is good for 30 days."

"Good, that puts you ahead of half the market. Different question: is it working? When did it last bring you a customer you can name?"

Open their site on your phone in front of them (or ask them to). Count the seconds out loud. Then: "Google measures exactly this. A slow site doesn't just annoy visitors, it ranks lower, so fewer people ever see it."

"Let me send you a free 5-point audit of it. If everything checks out, I'll tell you honestly to keep it. If not, you'll know exactly what it's costing you."

"That's genuinely nice of them. One thing to check before you commit: ask them what happens after it launches. Who fixes it at 9pm when it breaks? Who handles the security updates, the backups, Google indexing?"

"A website isn't a one-time favor, it's a running system. We're a company: there's a care plan, monitoring, and someone who answers. Favors don't come with SLAs, and they're awkward to complain about."

"Get their offer in writing, get ours, compare like for like. Ours is $499 with the whole launch handled. If the nephew wins on that comparison, take it, honestly."

"Of course. So I don't pester you about the wrong thing: what's the part you want to think over: the price, the design direction, or the timing?"

Price → ROI math above. Design → offer the free mockup ("don't decide on faith, decide on a picture"). Timing → "The quote is fixed for 30 days, no pressure. What date should I check back?"

Never end with "okay, think about it!" and no date. A stall without a scheduled follow-up is a lost deal that hasn't told you yet.

"Straight answer: no honest company can guarantee customers, and if someone does, hold your wallet. What we control, we guarantee: a site that loads in 0.2 seconds, is structured so Google can find and rank it, and gives every visitor an obvious way to contact you."

"Those aren't decoration, they're the three levers that decide whether a site produces. Speed keeps visitors, SEO brings them, conversion paths capture them. We're accountable on all three, and you can measure each one."

"We set up analytics on day one, so you see visitors and leads yourself, in numbers, not vibes."

"The opposite, actually. Templates are the thing that makes sites look identical, and we don't use any. Every site is designed from scratch around your brand, in a design vibe you choose."

"Look at our own site: flip the vibe switcher. Same company, six completely different design worlds. That range is the point. No two client sites share a layout, an image, or a copy voice."

"Right now, that's true. Here's the loop though: you get no business from the internet because you're invisible on it, not because your customers aren't there. When someone's sink floods, they don't flip through a phone book; they search '[trade] near me' and call whoever shows up."

"Your competitor [name, if known] shows up for that search. Every one of those calls used to be a coin flip between you and them. Now it isn't."

"Search your own trade + town right now, on your phone. If you're happy with where you appear, I'll leave you alone."

"Good instinct, there usually is one. Here it's just a different cost structure: agencies bill you for account managers and meetings; we systematized the process and hand-code efficiently, so you pay for the website, not the overhead."

"Also, honestly: the build is the beginning of the relationship, not the payday. Most clients keep us for hosting and care at $19 to $99 a month. We'd rather earn a client for years than a margin for a week. That's the 'catch'."

"I'm sorry, and I believe you; this industry earns its reputation. Can I ask what happened?" Listen fully. Do not pitch until they finish.

Map their pain to our specific safeguards: ghosting → "you get a status update at every stage, on a schedule, in writing." Surprise costs → "the quote is the price; it's printed on the site." Endless delays → "Starter sites deliver in about a week, and you'll know the date before we start."

"Start with the smallest possible commitment: the free mockup. We earn the rest."

"No, and nobody honest can. Google's rankings aren't for sale to us. Anyone who guarantees #1 is either lying or about to do something that gets your site penalized."

"What we do control: your site will be technically flawless in Google's eyes (speed, structure, schema markup), and if you take the SEO plan, we target the exact searches your customers make and report positions monthly. We promise the inputs and show you the outputs."

"Happy to. So I send something actually useful instead of a brochure that says how great we are: what would the info need to answer for this to be interesting?"

Whatever they name is the real objection; handle it above. If they can't name anything, send the one-pager plus the free-mockup offer and book the follow-up date before hanging up.