Judging a
Website Host Based On What Other Customers Are Doing
One of the most common things
i am asked is to see what other customers are doing on pageBuzz
so the can see what their website might look like.
I am not sure what anyone
would think their website would look or operate like anyone else's
website.
If I show a doctor 20 car
dealer websites how is that remotely helpful? If I show a wood
carver 10 websites that sell shoes. how does that tell him
anything?
We have sample sites for a
reason, to show people different types of websites and different
possibilities.
The actual possibilities are
only restricted by someone's imagination.
It would be insane
to go to an art store and ask to see what other people have
done with their paint brushes. Or for a parent to ask Crayola
Crayons to send them samples of what other children have
drawn with their crayons so the can see what their child
might draw if they buy Crayola crayons.
The whole notion of
judging a website hosting company based on what other people are
doing is just perplexing.
I see companies like Papa John's,
Dominos and Little Caesars making billions with cheap pizza. So
if I open a pizza shop will I make billions?
I like the look of McDonald
restaurants, so if I open a restaurant will it look like
McDonalds?
I am not quite sure where the
disconnect is in peoples brains. Why do people think their
website will look like anyone elses' website?
If Donald Trump lives in NY,
and you move to NY, do you think you will be a billionaire living
in a mansion?
If you are considering moving
to NY and you only look at homes costing $5 million dollars or
more, do you assume that you can afford to live in it?
So if I show you a website
that someone spent $100,000 to build and makes millions of
dollars a year, do you assume by hosting at pageBuzz.com that
that is the same website you will have for $20?
It is as bad as driving a
Pinto Station wagon and parking it in a lot where most people
park their Rolls Royces, will your Pinto station wagon turn into
a Rolls because you parked in the same spot. And vice versa, will
the Rolls turn into a Pinto if it parks in the Walmart parking
lot?
I think you can see from my
examples how ridiculous it all seems.
Yet that is what we are
confronted with daily and no matter how we explain it, people are
insistent that they need to see other peoples websites. If they
make jewelry, they want to see other people selling jewelry.
I always tell them, google it!
Go out and find any website selling jewelry, that is what you can
do with pageBuzz, the same thing anyone else can do with any
other website.
But here in lies the
problem.
Nobody realizes they have
to build anything. The assume, we give them a finished website.
They signup, click a button and they are in business.
And to some extent that can be
true.
But only as true as if you
were to rent a tore in a shopping mall. You set up a folding
table throw some jewelry on it and start selling.
Of course, you are open for
business, but you will want to maybe make the store look a little
better.
You buy display cases, add
decorations to the wall, carpeting and paint. All of this gives
your store a very unique look You sell different products than
the other jewelers, you have different prices and you do
different things.
You can't assume that if you
open a store in the same mall as Gordon's Jewelers or Jared that
you store will look the same, that you will have as much jewelry
or the same number of employees.
Your business is uniquely your
business and so is your website.
But for us trying to crack the
shell of some peoples brains is not that easy. They don't don't
understand the analogies and this is why our competitors do so
well with their TV ads promising great websites with no effort.
People believe what they see
and hear. If you tell them, ebay hosts their website o pageBuzz
then they assume if they open a website thy will be just like
ebay.
If you tell them google hosts
their website on pageBuzz then they assume they can add a search
field to their front page and be google. After all how hard can
it be to build a multi billion dollar company. It should not take
more than 15 minutes, should it?
So the bigger problem
is, even if we show the customer a website that is in the same
market, we get this kind of feedback:
Well, their site
is red and I don't like red so I can't host at pageBuzz.
They are charging
too much for products, mine are cheaper, so I can't host
at pageBuzz.
That site has a
slideshow of necklaces on the front page and I only sell
rings, so I can't use pageBuzz.
They don't have an
"about us" page and I need one of those, so I
can't use pageBuzz.
Now as a website host,
I see the humor in all this, but customers don't.
Their entire perception of
what their business will be is all based on image. The don't look
at hosting as a tool but as a finished product.
Hosting is not the
same as website design.
Website design is just that,
the design, what you paint with the brushes, not the brushes
themselves. Hosting is nothing more than a parking space and
totally unrelated to the car that you park in it.
But we can't get past that
thought process and we are pulled in by peoples short sighted
nature.
That is the biggest reason the
Internet has been such a great opportunity for scammers. People
just don't think, they are impulsive and easy to trick.
If I show you 5 websites you
like, I get your business even though your website will never
look like that.
And many of our customers
signup because they like one of our samples. They call us and
what a website just like it.
But even when we copy over the
website they want to change the products, colors and content, so
the website ends up not looking like anything like the sample
anyway.
Then the customer is
disappointed and cancels.
Well, if you see a sample that
is green and you change it to blue, the site is just not going to
be the same. If you take out the blue products and add in yellow
products, the site is not going to have the same feel.
Websites are built around the
content, colors to match and designs that fit the market.
No website hosting
company can plan for every single business in the world and
have a sample or a customer that has what you want. When
hosting companies have millions of customers it is just
impossible to assume that anyone would have the same website
as any of those millions of businesses. Or that they will
even be in the same business.
Hopefully, I have made enough
sense to you, that you wont judge a website hosting company by
what its customers are doing.
If you plan your pizza
business based on what Papa John's is doing, you will likely fail
unless you have deep deep pockets. If you plan your store based
on what walmart.com is doing, you will be very upset when you
realize they spent tens of millions of dollars building their
website.
You have to look at your
business as a unique opportunity, a blank canvass that you get to
paint. What you do with it is totally up to you.
Getting a website is just that,
a blank canvass, an empty store. You decorate it, set it up the
way you want to and build what you want.
Just remember, a website is
what you make it and now what someone else has done with theirs.
|
