Website for IT consultants, where the first meeting is the whole sale
Nearly every piece of work you have ever won started with half an hour in somebody's meeting room, working out what they actually have and what they think they need. Everything before that half hour is you trying to find out whether it is worth driving over, from an email that says the server keeps falling over and asks what you charge.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.
How a piece of work usually starts
Not badly, exactly. Just slowly, and with a lot of guessing on both sides before either of you knows whether there is a job here.
The enquiry that says we need something with AI
It arrives on a Wednesday from an operations manager at a firm of forty people. There is no scope in it, no budget in it, and no clue whether they have a domain controller in a cupboard or everything already in the cloud. You reply asking, and they reply asking what you charge, and after four emails you are no closer to either answer.
The part of that exchange which decides everything is the first meeting, and it takes eight days to get one in the diary because neither of you has offered a time.
Two ways of charging, one price list
A day of migration work and a monthly support agreement are not priced the same way and never have been, but the site has one page headed Services with six bullet points on it and no numbers anywhere.
So the buyer assumes the day rate applies to everything, or assumes the monthly figure covers the migration, and the first difficult conversation of the relationship is about money instead of about the work.
Your skills page reads like a CV
Virtualisation. Identity and access management. Endpoint hardening. Every word of it is true and you can back all of it, and none of it means anything at all to the operations manager, who is trying to find out whether you can stop the laptops locking people out on Monday mornings.
The buyer is not shopping for competencies. They are shopping for the problem they had last week, written in the words they used when they described it to their boss.
What actually shortens the road to the first meeting
Four things, in the order they matter to somebody who is trying to buy from you.
A scoping meeting people can ask for in one go
The form asks the three things that decide whether there is work here: how many people use the systems, what they are running now, and what has gone wrong recently. Free text underneath for whatever does not fit.
It lands with you complete, so the reply is a time and a place rather than another round of questions, and the meeting happens this week instead of the week after next.
Day work and monthly cover, priced apart
Consultancy carries an hourly rate. A support agreement carries a fixed price per month. A migration or a rollout is quoted, because it depends on what is in the cupboard.
And the names are the buyer's names, not yours: not identity and access management, but keeping people signed in without the helpdesk in the middle. Categories let the retained work and the project work sit in separate lists.
A quote that becomes the agreement
Cost lines for the hardware, the licences, the days on site and the days remote, with the assumptions written into the quote where the client can read them. They approve it on its own page, and the date of approval is recorded against it.
If a deposit is due at that point it goes through your own Stripe account, and the same quote is what you both open in month four when someone asks what was in scope.
A register instead of a folder of threads
Everyone who has sent an enquiry sits in one list with what they run, what they asked about and when. The firm that wanted a migration priced in February and then went quiet is findable in September, when their renewal comes up.
That list is where the retainers come from. Almost none of them come from the enquiry that arrived today.
A service list a buyer can read
Names and figures are yours. What matters is that each line says how it is charged, in words the person paying will recognise.
Two categories usually do it: work you are paid for monthly, and work you are paid for once. A buyer who wants cover never has to read the project list.
Questions consultants send us first
Put the support agreement at the top of its own category with a fixed monthly price and the bands you use, and let the project work sit below in a second list. What a visitor sees first is what you want them buying.
Then do not publish one. A service can be listed as quoted, or carry a from price, or state the rate only inside the quote you send. The list shows how you charge without necessarily showing what you charge.
The quote carries the cost lines and your own assumptions, and the client approves it on its own page with the date recorded. That approved document is the thing you both refer back to when scope is questioned later.
Very little, which is usually the surprise. The site is hosted, backed up nightly and kept on SSL by us. You point your own domain at it, and after that every edit is a pencil icon on the page in front of you.
You do not have to. It can be imported, so the pages and the service names come across, and the builder writes only what was missing. Anything it writes can be rewritten or deleted before you publish.
From £49 to £199 a month plus VAT depending on the plan. Your own domain, SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support in English are in every one of them. SMS reminders are a prepaid add-on.
More trades
- Creative agenciesA meeting booked from the portfolio.
- PhotographersPackages booked outright, weddings quoted.
- AccountantsEnquiries that arrive with the numbers you need.
- Law firmsAn advisory meeting with a stated price.
- Landscapers and gardenersSite visits in spring, maintenance all year.
- Tree surgeonsPhotos and details in the form before the drive.
- All trades
Put up the site that books the first meeting
Say in a few sentences what you do and who you do it for, or point at the site you have now. The builder drafts a first version with your services split into retained and project work, and a form that asks the scoping questions for you.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.