If you're wondering why clients aren't buying from you or why the ones who do seem to undervalue your work, the answer isn't always more leads — it's the experience you're creating from the very first touchpoint.

Welcome to another episode of Websites Made Simple with me, Holly Christie.

In this episode, I'm talking about what we are really selling when we are selling websites — and it's not the number of pages or the platform. It's the experience. From the first discovery call to the handover manual, every touchpoint either builds confidence or erodes it.

We get into:

1. Why discovery calls convert better than email enquiries — and how to structure them
2. How to follow up after a call so you stop losing warm leads
3. What your contracts should protect you from (and why so many designers get this wrong)
4. How to keep clients informed and feeling involved throughout the build
5. When to refer out — and why knowing your boundaries makes you more professional, not less
6. What good aftercare looks like (hint: it's not a two-hour Zoom dump)
7. Why you should be checking on the results your websites produce for clients

If you want better clients, better money, and a process that makes people tell their friends about you, this one is for you.

Check out: https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/sparks-group-mentoring/ It's a supportive group mentoring session for website designers and developers to bring their questions, roadblocks, ideas, and "is it just me?" moments.

Come and find out more at https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk or email me at [email protected]

Skip to the good bits:

00:00 What you're really selling (it's not a website)

01:30 Why discovery calls convert better than email

03:00 Screen sharing and building confidence on the call

03:41 Following up after the call — and why timing matters

05:00 The follow-up email template Holly uses

06:00 How many times to follow up before letting go

Mentioned in this episode:

Remember to sign up for our blogging masterclass!

Go to https://websitesmadesimple.co.uk/masterclass

Blogging masterclass

In this episode.

I'm gonna talk about what we are really selling when we are selling websites

because if you are not doing it this way, you're getting it wrong.

And when you're getting it wrong, you're leaving money on

the table and no one wants that.

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Websites Made

Simple with me, Holly Christie.

I'm a website designer.

I'm a website designer's mentor, and I have this podcast to help you.

Have a brilliant web design career without burning out in the process.

So today I'm talking about what we're really selling when we are selling

websites, because it's all well and good for us to say, oh yeah, you'll end up

with a five page website, or a 10 page website, or an e-commerce store, or

whatever it is that the client wants.

But that's not really what they're buying from us because they can get whatever

it is they're wanting from anyone.

In fact, with all the DIY tools.

They can do it themselves.

We all know how that's gonna work out if they trying to do it themselves,

but you know, people can be stubborn What we're really selling is the

experience, and what I really wanna help you to do using this podcast is to.

Of the websites I've built or the quantity of the websites I've built or

the models that I've put out there, yes, they have all been contributing factors,

but what's really made people sign up to work with me, pay the big bucks to

work with me has been the experience they have when we work together.

So let's look at it together.

This all starts with the discovery call and.

you may have an intake form where that's how you get your clients on board.

you might do it over email, you'll have your own processes, but I

always recommend a discovery call.

First of all, I think that they are easier to convert people on because

you're not going back and forth on email.

You are not accidentally using jargon that they don't understand.

You can really get a lot.

From each other on a Zoom call from understanding what they want.

There's also that opportunity to screen share.

As a creative, I often get a lot of ideas when people are talking to me

about the type of website they want, and I can pull up ideas and say, this

is something I built recently, or this is something I built a while ago.

I think this could really help or that could really help.

It also means that people can say, oh, I really like this website.

And they can share their screen and show you what they like.

And it makes it so much easier for people to invest in working with you,

to have confidence in working with you and to have an understanding of

what their end product is gonna be.

So if you don't already have a discovery call as part of your

process, I would really recommend that you put them in there.

They only have to be 15 minutes.

They can be pre-booked to a time that suits you from your calendar.

But go ahead and do that.

So the next thing I want to look at is the follow up from that discovery

call, because in the creative industry, we're not known for our admin prowess.

Now I'll say I am known for being good at admin, but one of the things

that I'm not always on my game with is the follow up on the calls.

And seriously, if you're not following up, the people who have already

been in touch with you, that's where you really are leaving money on

the table because people get busy.

People lose your details.

People rely on you to contact them, and often people will make the

decision, particularly if they're at the point where they're ready to buy.

And hopefully you've listened to other episodes of this podcast.

Building your personal brand and you know a bit about your marketing and

you've got your processes in place.

And so hopefully by the time people come onto that discovery call,

they're 80% of the way there.

those people are going to make their decision about whether

they work with you or not.

Very quickly after that call.

In fact, there is some research that I was told that people make the swiftest

decisions within 15 minutes of that call So you want to be able to get

in there with your follow up and that will be an email that summarises what

you discussed on the call or what they're looking for, what your services

are, how much it's gonna cost, and you need to get that out to them.

I like to have a template written for this already, which is called like Your Website

Journey and the next steps, and it has the main body of the email is already written.

So all I need to do is come off that call write in the type of website that

the person's looking for, anything like specific that we've discussed.

the price and I can get that email straight off to them.

And that really does make a difference because it doesn't break my workflow

because I'm already in that discovery call kind of time slots, if you will.

it also means that I can just tick that as another done from the list.

I have a group mentoring program called Sparks Group Mentoring.

We meet it's website designers, developers, and SEO

specialists and copywriters.

We meet every Wednesday between one and two o'clock, always comes up

in the group when we are talking about web design, running our

business and our processes, our.

Automated processes that we can put in place and the follow up is one of those

that we can do as well and we can take that further to send a follow up after

three days, after five days, after seven days, whatever feels right for you.

Do make sure you follow up at least twice.

I would say ideally three times.

If you haven't heard from them after three emails, then send a final email saying,

shall I remove you from my database?

And that usually will kick someone into either say, oh, no, no,

sorry, I was just really busy.

Or saying, yeah, thank you so much.

I've decided to go elsewhere, or whatever.

It's that we're doing.

So the next part of the process.

If you've listened to me before, you know what I'm gonna say Are your contracts?

Because it is so important and so many website designers don't

have the proper contracts.

Contracts which protect them or protect their clients, and by protecting them,

we're talking about things like licensing.

You'd be really surprised how many clients will.

Take photos from a website or a stock photo site or from a supplier's

site without checking whether they have the right licensing for it.

if you are looking to just get the website built, you may think,

oh yeah, the photos are in.

That's brilliant.

Off we go.

you could end up being sued by the whoever owns those photos.

You've used them without certain license.

I've known this happened to agencies.

I knew an agency that was shut down because of it, because they couldn't

afford to pay for all of the, uh, website projects where they'd used, uh,

photos without the correct licenses.

So you need a contract that's going to cover you and cover your clients,

if you don't have a contract.

Go to websitesmadesimple.co.uk.

You will find my website designers contract pack on there.

It has absolutely every contract, which is UK Law compliant, and it'll make sure that

you are covered and you are protected for the entire process of the website build

and working with the clients working.

And that includes the contracts for actually building the website.

It includes the terms of service, which goes into things like

licensing for fonts and for images.

when payments are made and what happens if a client ghosts you.

It also has working with associates contracts and it has hosting

agreement contracts as well.

So if you don't have all of these things in place, that is your

one stop shop where you can.

Go and get these contracts from one-off price.

They, you can, they're white label ones, so you can put your

own branding on and you'll be protected and sorted straight away.

But do make sure you've got good contracts in place.

Make sure you do not start building a website without the contracts in place

as well, and having really robust.

And fair contracts, you don't want to absolutely screw your client over here

will also show your client that you are a really professional setup and it'll

give them confidence in working with you.

when people have confidence in working with you, they generally pay more

money to have that experience as well.

double whammy is one.

You are protected, you're looking professional, you've got something you

can rely on, and you're making good money from it in the process as well.

Within my website, designers contract pack, and I promise you this isn't,

this podcast isn't a whole advert forward, but in the terms of service,

it goes into the website design process.

Now, we'll all have our different processes.

Mine uses my website designer's onboarding pack as well, which kind

of goes with the contract pack to help clients to submit information to me.

So it's got a booklet, an editable booklet that the client can

submit their website content in.

It tells them what images to send, how to check for licenses, how to send them.

It's got absolutely everything there.

So when someone signs up with me.

We agree, a start date.

I send them the onboarding pack.

I agree a date that they'll send that back to me.

I do have a check in process as well to make sure they're all okay

with it, and then back it comes.

There's a brilliant website designer called Kane Mitchell.

He's part of my Sparks Group Mentoring program.

He has a brilliant way of doing it.

He starts with a two hour call with the client, and he gets the

content from them on that call.

He also uses AI to help them along.

It's a brilliant, brilliant process, and it means that.

His client just has to show up for the call and they don't have to do all the

work behind the scenes of, you know, gathering this and gathering that.

So I'm certainly not going to tell you how to do your process.

There's so many different ways to do it, but make sure you have a

really robust process in place.

And for me, that is making sure that my clients hear from me at set times.

Even if I don't have an update for them, I will still message them on that time

and say, there isn't an update this week because I'm right in the middle

of all of this with your project.

But next week, you know, we'll be back on track it really helps.

The industry has such a bad reputation for website designers, ghosting clients.

it's really hard because the client just feels so powerless, I always

want the experience of working with me to feel like a collaborative one.

that can't happen if I don't contact the client if I'm just head down in the work.

I have a process of how many weeks a website is built over for custom builds.

This is generally six weeks to the first draft, and then I will contact them every

week with a video update, which will be kind of three to four minutes long.

It just walks them through the progress that's been made on the website.

It invites their feedback, it invites their opinion,

but it also explains to them.

What I've done and why, so I might say, I've used this color for this.

I really liked that sentence, so I pulled it into a heading and moved it here.

I've put this image here because of this, because I feel it does that, and what

I found was the more that I explained what I had done and how I had done it.

The more on board clients got with it, and then the less edits I had to make

to the website afterwards as opposed to the very, very old days where I

would just go away, build a website to first draft and then send it off to

them and then get a list of 56 changes.

This process was a lot smoother and the clients have all come back and

said they really love the process 'cause they love feeling involved.

They like seeing the week by week progress of it, and they feel that they've had a

real input within their website as well.

And it does mean also if they suggest something that doesn't feel right,

I can come back to them and say, I don't think that's gonna work.

And I can either show them why it won't work, or I can explain it to them.

But either way, it usually has a really good, experience for both of us.

The next thing.

I really want to talk about is about knowing where your role

as a website designer ends and another professional's role begins.

And if you haven't listened to it already, I would urge you to go and

listen to the episode with Nikki, who is the absolute queen of SEO.

She's been an SEO specialist for over 30 years, and we did a

podcast episode together around where a web designer's role.

With SEO and where an SEO specialist begins, and it's the difference

between a website being SEO friendly, which is what we are building as web

designers, so we're making sure that our headings are in the right place.

We're making sure that our images are the right size, that things

are labeled correctly, that the website's fast and loading.

That sort of thing.

But the actual search engine optimization of writing content and updating and

tagging and things like that, that all belongs to an SEO specialist.

And in that, I would include the setting up Google Search Console

and Google my business pages.

I know some website designers like to do this, but it's not

really your role to do that.

I would say if you are given the Google search console tracking code, it is

your role to put that in the site, but do be quite firm between what you do

within a website build and what gets handed over to somebody else as well.

And if you have someone else for the role, whether that's a copywriter, if

they're looking for copywriting or a branding designer, if they're looking

for brand or if it's a search engine specialist. Do have people

you can work with and it's so easy to find good people to work with as well.

But if you need a recommendation, you can always contact me at Hello

websites made Simple UK, or find me on LinkedIn and I'd be happy to

recommend someone for you as well.

Next, decide what your aftercare is gonna look like.

Some people like to book in like a two hour training slot over Zoom

with their clients and they say they'll teach them everything.

They'll record the session.

This isn't my favorite way of doing it because I think that people

get quite overwhelmed by tech.

I mean, bear in mind, if you don't work within websites, it's not something

you're gonna be massively familiar with, and it then means that they will

have to keep going back and watching this two hour video to try and find

the spot where they learn how to change some text or do this or that For me.

I create website manuals for the clients, and the manual is A PDF that

has videos that I've recorded in Vimeo.

A lot of them are standard.

This is how you change text on your website.

This is how you upload an image to your website.

This is how you add to the menu or change this or that.

And then there will be a couple of videos, one, which I always just call welcome

to your website that walks you around the structure of where everything is.

Which plugins are on there, that sort of thing.

And then I send this off to the client at the end of the build.

And it also has things like how to log in and that sort of thing.

it means that they always, always have a working document

of how to use their website.

It also means that if they want to get a VA to update their website,

they can send this document to the VA.

And it's just really useful for all involved.

Because I have a standardized PDF, which I have built in Canva, so I can just copy

it each time and change that welcome video and the information on the front page.

It doesn't take a lot of time for me to create, but it's absolutely

invaluable for my clients as well.

So do make sure you are not just sending them off the website with a

login and, uh, wishing them Godspeed, which I know we have all done,

especially in the early days, but, uh, it's not how we do it anymore.

And finally, you should be knowing what your websites are doing.

I will often have clients who come to me and say, oh my goodness, I've just

made a sale from my website and it's only been up for a couple of days.

Or, you know, thank you so much.

I've had some inquiries.

If you are managing the maintenance and hosting of the website, you may

see the inquiries that are coming through on the contact forms.

And things like that.

but do make sure that you check in with your clients regularly, that you

have an idea the results that are being created from these websites, because

that is what a website's meant to do.

The websites are here to bring in leads and to make sales, and you need to make

sure that they're doing that because if they're not, you might need to maybe have

a little bit of mentoring to find out what's not working about your websites.

You may need to look at your build process or.

it could be something to do with the website copy's not strong enough and

you need to really put your foot down and insist on a copywriter or having

a copywriter that you can work with.

They're all different ways and if you feel that your websites aren't being

chosen and you are not being chosen as a website designer for it, then you

are very welcome to book for one-to-one mentoring with me and we can untangle

and work through that together as well.

And if you'd like to.

You can either book it directly through websites made simple co

uk, or you can come and find me on LinkedIn where I'm Holly C Christie.

I would love to hear from you and to hear what you are gonna

implement or what gap you've found.

That's not set quite right, but is now.

You can contact me on LinkedIn at Holly C Christie.

You can email me at [email protected] or if you're a

voice like me, go onto the websitesmadesimple.co.uk.

Go to the podcast page and you'll see on the contact form there you

can drop me a voice note and I look forward to hearing from you.

And until next time, happy designing.