Reseller and IT website question.

[jasonec]

I am new to Hostgator (things have been going well so far).

I am creating 2 businesses and was looking for some suggestions.

1. Is a tech support business here in St. Louis. I was wondering if anybody knew of any nice IT sites I could review for ideas?

2. Web Host reseller of course. I have no real idea how to approach this. If any current resellers are willing to share some of their wisdom I would really appreciate it. I need to create a plan to develop this side of the business.
If anyone is willing to share links to their sites etc you have many thanks from me.

Have a good evening all and thank you in advance for any help.

Jason Christian
jason@compstl.com

[MachineDog]

My first recommendation is to take about a month after getting the account to make sure there are no problems with the site and ordering process. My next is that it's very hard to go out there as a CHEAP host when being a reseller vs. other hosts. It'd be better to start out atleast with great service and support but, higher prices. Because otherwise you won't manage a single buy. And my last'd be to know your stuff, be able to provide that support, or work on possibly getting some support at an outsourcing company like bobcares.com.

[jasonec]

Thanks MD.

From the tech side I have the majority of that covered. My site is sort of basic at this point. I would like something a bit more appealing.

www.stlouisitsupport.com

I was planning on offering hosting as a value added service for my customers. I work mainly with Dr's and Lawyers, many of them lacking a website.

I can do basic design but I'm really a computer/video guy.

Thank you for the advice.

Jason

[Serra]

Originally Posted by jasonec

From the tech side I have the majority of that covered. My site is sort of basic at this point. I would like something a bit more appealing.
www.stlouisitsupport.com

A little too basic. Hire a web design company to build you a nice site. I know that sound a little silly as you done that much yourself, but sell what you sell and have someone else build your site.

A company that does PC stuff like yourself came to my company and the owner said, "We built our own site, it sort of suck, if we spent enough time on it, it would be wonderful, but we don't want to waste any more time." They were really good PC tech, but they didn't want to waste money building a site instead of making money on service calls. I put about 4 hours into their site and it was 10 times better. Fairly cheap for them and they got a nice site out of it, plus I turned them onto online credit card payments for their business, which saved them a ton more time.

I was planning on offering hosting as a value added service for my customers. I work mainly with Dr's and Lawyers, many of them lacking a website.

That is a good idea. If that is the case, then price isn't really a problem, your clients will not be looking for a "deal" like most of us tech people would. You could sell 1 plan priced between $100.00 and $200.00 per year and get plenty of customers.

Your sales pitch should avoid the use of "hosting" or "website" and focus on "Corporate Image" (domain/company name in their email address) and "Business card site" (a way for them to give the basics about their company on the web). This is VERY easy to sell, if you already have your foot in the door. You can basically give them a free website with purchase (you'll make your money on the hosting fee), setup a one pager with a contact form (which appears to be well within your ability range as a web developer)

The one problem you might face is that that one pager will end up being Amazon.com if you aren't careful. Just make it clear, that the one page site is free, anything beyond that is a little ($80.00 an hour) extra. Like I tell my clients, "Sure I can do that... it will just be $120.00 more."

[jasonec]

Thanks Serra,

Great comments...

My next question is, do you design webpages?

Jason

[natron]

You can always take a look at http://oswd.org/ for a good starting point and then tweak yourself. There are some very good designs there. If you need help let me know. I like to help people wtih programming. I know HTML, PHP,Java,Perl,ASP,JavaScript,VBScript,MySQL


Nathan

[Serra]

Originally Posted by jasonec

My next question is, do you design webpages?

Yes, my company designs websites and and sells hosting to our customers, thus my experience with selling over priced hosting. We are just getting into working with another company that wants to do like you are doing. We are going to provide the one page sites for the companies.

You can always take a look at http://oswd.org/ for a good starting point and then tweak yourself. There are some very good designs there. If you need help let me know.

Personally, I don't like to use templates. I've found that clients rarely stay with the original design and want a lot of tweeks. Many of these templates are way too hard to tweek. I did use a template for my hosting site, but by the time I was finished with it, it hardly looks like the template any more.

[dancerdog3]

I have used some of these: http://allwebcodesign.com/setup/templates.htm

Fantastico offers a few basic web templates too.

Small business clients often don't know what they want on a website until they actually see one. A template offers a quick starting point.

I also have a business doing computer support for small businesses and I offer web hosting as a service. Clients seems to like it. It also makes my work dealing with web and email issues more efficient.

Lastly - think of your website is like an on-line brochure. Try to make it look professional.

[jasonec]

Thanks everyone I appreciate the constructive comments... do you folks have online portfolios I can take a look at? I do need to do something, it will probably be January before I get to it but I do know it needs more than I can give it right now.

Thanks again,

Jason

[jeff_s]

Your site contains a rather glaring spelling error in its headline.

St. Louis IT support is here to meet you IT needs.

presumably should be

St. Louis IT support is here to meet your IT needs.

[jasonec]

Thanks Jeff