Most small business owners make a terrible mistake when they hire an IT company to build their website. It’s understandable that when they realize they need help with their website, they naturally ask, “Who do we know in IT?” Well, twenty years ago, you needed a geek to build a website, but today, it’s no longer a geek project. It’s also not an art project. Today, it’s a marketing project, and I’m on a personal mission to educate America’s entrepreneurs so they don’t waste a boatload of money on a website that sucks at marketing.
Geeks make the worst web designers.
Consider these two basic facts:
Fact 1:
The purpose of a website is to communicate with human beings.
Fact 2:
If a geek could communicate with human beings, he wouldn’t be a geek! OK, well maybe that’s a little harsh. But let’s face it. Most geeks just aren’t that good with people. It’s what draws them to computers to begin with. It’s what makes them good at what they do.
IT firms are great at fixing computers, setting up networks, and managing servers. But the skill set required to do effective marketing is vastly different, and, although I’ve worked with IT professionals most of my adult life, I’ve never known anyone who was truly great at one to be equally great at the other.
So PLEASE!! Your website is the largest, most important, most expensive, longest lasting communication tool your company will ever buy. So please don’t turn it over to someone who just isn’t that good with communication!
