How I am pivoting my Squarespace business to be able to help more clients in a timely and cost effective way
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After 5+ years of designing Squarespace websites, countless lines of code and working with 100’s of entrepreneurs I have reached a point in my business where a pivot is in order.
Last year I became interested in the Day Rate model and took Sarah Masci’s Day Rate Mastery course to learn more about how I could implement this in my business. I go into details on the course in this post, but in summary I decided to start offering this service on a part time basis in my business.
I was getting more and more inquiries from people who just needed help with their site in a quick manner and were not interested in a long drawn out project.
The problem with the traditional web design project:
I was realizing that something needed to change in my business as there were issues that I was not able to address with a traditional website project timeline.
I was booked out for 6 months + and put a cap on bookings as I did not want to be committed that far in the future. Both potential inquiries and I were equally frustrated that I had such a long wait in order to help them out.
I was finding that clients were not fully prepared for their website project even after a long delay of waiting for me and this held up our project. I ended up having too many projects overlapping and I was finding it to be too much.
I felt bad saying no to people and tried to “squeeze” clients into my schedule. This caused me way too much stress and I did these clients an injustice as I tried to rush through their site redesign.
Clients were looking for quick help with their Squarespace website at a much lower pricepoint than a full custom web design project allows. Enter Squarespace Design Days.
How I started to introduce the day rate model
Since I was quite booked out I decided to not accept any more custom website bookings and determined to start setting at least one day a month aside to work with those people that were inquiring and hoping I could help them with some quick fixes to their Squarespace website.
I introduced my Squarespace Design Day at a beta rate to test it out and see how it went. I offered the first 7 sites at a reduced rate and they were snapped up within the first 2 months. This confirmed my suspicions that there was a market for this service.
After those first 7 days were booked I raised my prices and continued to add bookings as much as I could around my previous full custom custom website builds.
There has continued to be a very steady demand for these as more people find out about it. I have heard countless times on discovery calls how pleased these clients were to find out about my service as it was just what they were looking for.
Like this:
“When first starting my business I tried to save money by making my own squarespace website. I spent hours and hours trying to make it look professional but I just couldn’t get it right. I soon realized that I needed something more professional and needed to hire someone. When looking for web designer most of them wanted to make a website from scratch or they didn’t use the squarespace platform. I wanted to stay on the squarespace platform and didn’t need a brand-new website. I needed someone with skill to come in and make it more put together. Jodi’s Design Day was perfectly what I needed that fit my time and budget.”
Here is just one of the many pages that was redesigned on our Squarespace Design Day together. In this case I was able to do the entire site in a day.
What I love about the day rate model
I thrive on single task projects. I am NOT A MULTITASKER! I do my best work when I can just work in one sitting from start to finish on a website. I do not lose focus or have to remember where I was at or what code I had added after a lengthy break. This allows me to get SO much done in a day!
Also, having the client’s available to answer questions and provide feedback in a timely manner means there are not unnecessary delays. Since the day is set and they have paid for it they are also highly motivated to have all of their necessary content ready for me by the morning of the Design Day.
This eliminates two of my biggest frustrations with the traditional website model - waiting on client feedback or answers for weeks or waiting on necessary content to complete the site.
Now I schedule 1 or 2 design days in a week which means I work less days than I worked with the traditional web design model AND make more money. It is going to free up my time to finally create the Squarespace template shop that I have been planning for years as well.
The result after just a half Squarespace Design Day:
“Jodi’s suggestions on design improvements were spot-on and her workflow is very efficient. She delivers a huge amount of value in a small amount of time. You should book immediately.”
-> It is a dream solution
Limitations of the day rate model
Are there any instances where a day rate model might not work? Honestly, I have not had too many yet! The beauty of it is that the client is purchasing a block of time, NOT an end result. I do not promise that I will complete a whole website in a day for instance. What I do is go over their requirements with them on a consult call and give them a very good idea of how much of that I can get done in a day.
There are times when clients are in need of a full website custom project complete with strategy sessions, custom brand elements and tons of bells and whistles. For these type of requirements I would say a design day is not a good fit.
Having said that, yes I have done whole websites in a day, but that was not a promise I made. Clients are free to purchase an additional day or half day as required or can finish it on their own if they prefer.
In one case a client approached me after working with a designer for months and months and finding that her website was nowhere near her vision nor had much been done on it. She purchased 3 design days and we had her up and running to take advantage of the Christmas season in no time.
After just one design day we had the Home page and many other pages redesigned, but it took 3 full days to get all of her website setup including her shop.
“Absolutely AMAZING!!! That’s exactly how I feel about Jodi and my beautiful website. Jodi brought my vision to life in know time. She is phenomenal to work with and hands down the best web designer I have ever had. I would and have highly recommend Jodi to my anyone looking for A+ work. I have already reached out again to work with her on more projects. Thanks again Jodi so happy I have found you :)”
I am able to work extra quickly since I am not multitasking and I have a base template with tons of coding already in it that increases the functionality of their Squarespace site by leaps and bounds. This is a huge time saver.
“I must say, I am thrilled with my website re-design. I did the initial work on my site, but it needed to be brought to to a new level. I searched the web and found Jodi, I needed a square space expert. The design day went so well. Jodi is very quick and easy to work with and responded swiftly to any questions or changes I needed. Honestly, I was so happy with the layout, I had no layout changes at all. The site was consolidated and makes more sense and easy to navigate. It is simply beautiful and I plan on working again with Jodi. This is now an exceptional website.”
What I typically do on my Squarespace Design Day
Since Squarespace introduced their new 7.1 platform I find that most people that inquire have a desire to have their 7.0 site moved over to 7.1 and have a refresh done of their design at the same time. This is a large percentage of my Design Days.
I also work very regularly with other designers or entrepreneurs who have different website needs every month and want to hire me for the day to take care of their design needs.
I have also created new sites from scratch for clients who either don’t have a website or want to move from another platform such as Wordpress.
Other things I have done is work with clients that have purchased a website template from a third party provider and need help updating the template settings and code.
Here are clients that hired me with help on a Squarespace template they purchased:
Premier Wellness Travel site:
template: Sparhawk by Kate Scott
what we did: custom elements, pages, implementation of color themes and eventually switched to the 7.1 platform
Vow and Vast
template: Mosaic template by Squarestylist
what we did: small edits to make the site easy for her to update along with some training tutorials
Flash Pool Productions
template: Chloe template by Squaremuse
what we did: overall aesthetic and flow changes, introduction of more colors. Hover features over photos, faq sections, testimonials and more
What hasn’t changed
My goal is always to create high converting, beautifully designed websites that meet my clients goals and needs and then some and I continue to make that a priority.
Also, my clients are fully capable of making updates to their own site once I am done. I provide the resources and training videos to guide them through the process of updating their site without having to rely on me or a developer.
“I loved that Jodi took the time to send me all of the relevant details and her needs so that we were both prepared. Staying in touch on Design Day through Google Chat was great as it allowed me to focus on my work and answer her questions as they came up. I could not be more happy with her organization and professionalism AND my website! ”
This will be my new business model going forward, but that does not mean I will never do a full custom website again. There are some things I do miss about the full websites such as spending much time experimenting with different layouts and designs and also the satisfaction of creating something from scratch that is such a perfect fit for clients. However, the satisfaction of being able to help SO many more clients with a day rate far outweighs this! Also, the feedback I get from my Design Day clients is just so rewarding! Comments like these make my day:
“AMAZING!!! Omigoodness, it’s like Christmas. Honestly”
“PS I’m just sitting here...scrolling my new site...just so happy. I’m so grateful, thank you.”
“I’m so excited to add the new page and finalize—-I’m so happy I found you!”
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