Call 757-777-5496 cathy@caffacuscreative.com

We have a small staff, but we also have over a decade’s experience, a large client base, and a great network of programmers and content creators to call on. We are used to competing with much larger companies in bidding for web design projects, and we can offer a great perspective about them, since we briefly WERE a large company. Here’s how it happened.

In early 2011 a bigger company approached us with an offer to partner with them. What they offered was a big office, a full in-house staff and a good knowledge of search engine optimization. What we offered was our large client base, our reputation and frankly, we were much better at web design than they were.

But the partnership lasted only a few months, and here’s why: Having to support the lease on the office and the staff meant that we had to make a lot more sales than we were used to, and that we had to charge MUCH higher prices than Richmond Media usually charged. A large chunk of the money had to go to the office and the staff, so we couldn’t afford the kind of personalized service Richmond Media was used to providing.

Plus, office staff comes and goes, so clients had no idea who was taking care of their maintenance needs. And the “new” staff didn’t know the clients at all, so personalized service was out the window.

I had to spend a lot of time keeping up with who was trying to help who, and instead of being able to talk to clients and address their needs, I ended up having to assign that job to lower paid people who didn’t have an investment in getting to know the client, or even in doing a great job for that client.

So Richmond Media left the partnership. What did we lose? Well, we lost the ability to bring five or six people into a sales meeting to impress the client.  We lost the ability to do a bunch of big jobs at the same time. But we regained the ability to get to know every client, and to talk directly to them when they needed something from us.

So if you’re in need of a website, should you go to a big company or a smaller company? You might be impressed by the bigger company dragging a bunch of people to a meeting, or by their fancy office.  But you need to realize how much that office and that staff can cost you in the long run. Would you rather pay for your website, or for the web design company’s office?

If you have questions or need more information, please contact us.