When Waking Girl first started, we said YES to every customer who came through our door. Whether the project or client fit us or not, we made it work. Now, with a full clientele, we are limited on how much time we can dedicate to a client who struggles to be successful with us.

You may have just taken a pop quiz to see if you qualify to work with us. If you're curious about the answers we were hoping for, read on! You do not need to see your business and website the way we do. No pressure! :)

Q. A business must have a website to sell products or services:
FALSE
We believe a business does not need a website to sell products or services. While a website can greatly increase sales and credibility, early deals and relationships can occur offline. Our most successful clients made their early transactions before ever having a website. We have found that many new business owners rely solely on their websites to generate sales. It is important to use multiple avenues to sell products and services, especially at the beginning stages of a business.

Q. The most important purpose of a website is to:
CORRECT: Generate leads and sales
We see business owners fail in their websites because they are more focused on making the website perfectly match their favorite color, than making it bring in $ales. This is a mistake! When clients follow our design direction, they generally see an immediate increase in sales and leads. Why? We have developed a method that make it easy for your customers to reach you!

Impress customers: studies continue to show that impressive websites don't always bring in new customers and sales. We want you to be proud of your website, but we also want your company to be approachable. 

Display logo and brand: yes, we want to display your logo and brand. This goal is secondary to generating leads and sales.

Reduce my taxes: yes! Your website is a business expense! We love helping you reduce your tax burden!

Q. A business owner should take advice about web design from:
CORRECT: The web designer they hired

Intuition: can be super helpful. Let us know what your gut is telling you.
Business partner and/or staff: can be super helpful, but can also be distracting. Ask abstract questions of business partners, staff, family early in the process, like, "How do you want to feel when you visit our website? How do you want our new customers to feel when they visit the website?" Avoid specifics about design elements, colors, etc.
Articles: can be super helpful, but can also come across like you're micro-managing your web design team. 

Q. A website is like a car and needs regular refueling and maintenance.
TRUE
We believe a website is like a car and needs regular refueling and maintenance. Absolutely, yes! The trends of the web are changing faster than the rules of the road--and a website needs to be able to keep up. We utilize platforms and strategies that allow for easy updates and full site overhauls as the technological demands of a website, company and The Internet change. 

Q. A business will fail if any piece of it is not running perfectly at all times.
FALSE
We believe that growing companies do have a few failing pieces at any given time. Only the companies that have become stagnant have perfection in all areas of the business. To grow requires some trial and error. We access the knowledge base of hundreds of business owners to mitigate the risk of failure for our clients and decrease the time it takes to correct an error. We love working with growing businesses.

Q. My website budget is:
$1000/year to $1000/month
Programs also available for $1000/week website marketing budgets!
We believe it's important to have a budget for your website. While it doesn't need to be a major expenditure, a small, monthly amount of at least $100 can really help a website keep up with the changes in technology.

We strive to work with companies that we can help, by taking "web presence" off the plate of the CEO. We are a full-service agency and can handle everything from website rebuilds to maintenance to SEO and Facebook presence. 

Do you qualify? We would love to hear more about your website--what's working for you now, what's not working; what's frustrating, and what about Waking Girl prompted you to reach out?

Q. I'm getting a lot of phone calls from Yelp, telling me that I'm missing out on business. What should I do?

A. My number one rule in sales is: if the company requires a team of cold callers, their product deserves skepticism and hesitation. It might be the best product in the world, it might be so good that everyone who finds out about it just wants to hog the filthy little secret to themselves.

Or -- it's just not worth talking about.

Either way, when you get a call from Yelp or any other cold caller, take a step back and get some expert input from someone who has dealt with the caller before.

Expert Input about Yelp Ads:

1) Do you have a Yelp page? Have you claimed it? Let's start there. That's free and takes about 15 minutes of your time. Go to Yelp.com, find your business, and hit UNCLAIMED. Follow the steps to set up your business Yelp account (different from your personal Yelp account).

2) Have you ever gotten a Yelp review before? Hrmm. Depending on your industry, Yelp may not be an integral part of your business. If you haven't gotten a review before, it may not even be integral to your own success. But of course, it might be crucial for your business' next phase of development!

3) Before advertising on Yelp, it's a good idea to drum up some 5-star reviews. But how!? We recommend and sell a software that helps you better communicate with your existing customers so they know how to leave a review, and so they won't forget! If you can't track down any 5-star reviews, you may want to rethink advertising on Yelp. Why? People who shop on Yelp also leave reviews. If the Yelp-iverse isn't jiving with your services--be cautious! Might need to change how things are operating before bringing on the critical masses!

4) Once you have a handful of positive reviews, and you've gotten comfortable with Yelpers, now you can consider advertising with Yelp. Ask the Yelp representative a lot of questions about cost per lead and overall traffic, and what is the competition doing. If you sell $5 drinks, and the lead cost is $10--this is not a good idea. If you sell $200 services, and the lead cost is $14--this could make sense!!

- Start with the smallest plan available to test the waters. Ask for a discount, and ask them to start the ads before the billing cycle begins.
- Make sure your Yelp page is set up properly with nice photos.
- Download the Yelp app to your phone so you can respond to questions right away.
- Set up an enticing offer so you get noticed!
- Evaluate each month to make sure you're getting your money's worth!

Contact us if you need help talking to Yelp. We can generally get a more honest answer because we represent hundreds of customers. Yelp would rather tell an agency the truth, in the hopes of getting 50 new customers, than stretch the truth in the hopes of just getting your business! Let us know if we can help