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Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

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Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#11

Post by mrfusion »

priorconsent wrote: post #7

Here's what I did. Even before getting an order or making a pitch, I pre-designed five Chinese restaurant websites. I sourced the images, wrote the copy and made a sample menu -everything. The websites were beautiful. Where ever the restaurant's name was supposed to be, I put "YOUR NAME HERE". After I completely finished the websites (it was a lot of work), I SEO'd them for local search. Once all five websites ranked…

So what are you doing now? It seems like being able to approach small businesses is such a valuable skill.

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#12

Post by BorisMelnik »

priorconsent wrote: post #7

Here's what I did. Even before getting an order or making a pitch, I pre-designed five Chinese restaurant websites. I sourced the images, wrote the copy and made a sample menu -everything. The websites were beautiful. Where ever the restaurant's name was supposed to be, I put "YOUR NAME HERE". After I completely finished the websites (it was a lot of work), I SEO'd them for local search. Once all five websites ranked…

EXTREMELY difficult niche / industry to penetrate. I used to do work for Chinese restaurants as well and had a terrible time trying to even get some of them to listen to me.

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#13

Post by priorconsent »

mrfusion wrote: post #11
priorconsent wrote: post #7

Here's what I did. Even before getting an order or making a pitch, I pre-designed five Chinese restaurant websites. I sourced the images, wrote the copy and made a sample menu -everything. The websites were beautiful. Where ever the restaurant's name was supposed to be, I put "YOUR NAME HERE". After I completely finished the websites (it was a lot of work), I SEO'd them for local search. Once all five websites ranked…

So what are you doing now? It seems like being able to approach small businesses is such a valuable skill.

If you believe in what you're selling, and you are convinced it can help small businesses, talking to them isn't a problem.

I design social games and write ebooks, among other things.

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#14

Post by mattm »

priorconsent wrote: post #7

Here's what I did. Even before getting an order or making a pitch, I pre-designed five Chinese restaurant websites. I sourced the images, wrote the copy and made a sample menu -everything. The websites were beautiful. Where ever the restaurant's name was supposed to be, I put "YOUR NAME HERE". After I completely finished the websites (it was a lot of work), I SEO'd them for local search. Once all five websites ranked…

I'm curious, what were their objections to not buying?

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#15

Post by yen223 »

mattm wrote: post #14
priorconsent wrote: post #7

Here's what I did. Even before getting an order or making a pitch, I pre-designed five Chinese restaurant websites. I sourced the images, wrote the copy and made a sample menu -everything. The websites were beautiful. Where ever the restaurant's name was supposed to be, I put "YOUR NAME HERE". After I completely finished the websites (it was a lot of work), I SEO'd them for local search. Once all five websites ranked…

I'm curious, what were their objections to not buying?

If you were running a busy restaurant, and some guy knocks on your door and offers you a website RIGHT NOW, for a low-low price of $100, would you take it?

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#16

Post by davidrc »

Here a small Hack. You can scrape a local list of new incorporations, and set up a system to check for them on google. If one don't get results, could be interested in your services, so contact them. I think it's feasible, to scrape an official list and a small script that searches google from that list, as the names of the companies normally appear in the legal sections of web pages. Regards.

Re: Ask HN: Finding small, local companies who need websites?

#17

Post by mattm »

yen223 wrote: post #15
mattm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what were their objections to not buying?

If you were running a busy restaurant, and some guy knocks on your door and offers you a website RIGHT NOW, for a low-low price of $100, would you take it?

I'm not sure, that's why I wondered what objections he faced.

Having dealt with some small business owners this past year, I know they get hounded all the time by people trying to sell them stuff (advertising, marketing services, SEO, etc.). One fairly new (in business for 2-3 years) owner told me that it just becomes the default to say no, unfortunately.

On the other hand, this guy already did the work and proved that he was getting orders for their restaurant. It seems like very little risk.

On the other, other hand, restaurants do have razor-thin margins and a lot of small business owners really don't like paying for marketing.

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