Ideas For Building A Hosting Business

[Engage-Engine]

I recently had the opportunity to visit many hosting company sales websites, a learning process which has generated some ideas I plan to implement on my own site.

I thought I would share these insights here, both because they might be useful to some of you, and because your feedback will surely help me refine and improve these ideas.

Full disclosure, I have _nothing_ for sale, but I'm trying to implement these concepts right here in this thread, by emerging from anonymity, trying to make a personal connection, with the goal that some of you may decide I'm someone worth partnering with.

Finally, this will take more than one post, so please pardon my wordiness. And now, on with the show...

 

[Engage-Engine]

What's the most effective way to sell a hosting account?

Obviously it's ideal if we can meet the prospect in person, and build a relationship of trust over time. This is why many hosts focus their sales efforts on meeting other businesses in their local area.

Most webmasters don't know too much about hosting technology, and aren't really in a position to evaluate data centers, bandwidth, control panels, backup procedures, and all the other technical aspects of operating a hosting business.

Given that most webmasters usually can't evaluate a host based on the technical facts, how do they make their decision, and choose their host?

What they probably hope to find is a knowledgeable reliable person who does understand hosting technology, an honorable person they can trust. If they find a host they can trust, they don't need to know anything about the hosting business.

I'm the same way. I know nothing at all about auto repair. Exactly nothing. When I shop for an auto mechanic I try to ask questions, not because I'll understand the answers, but so I can try to evaluate the mechanic as a person. I just want to find someone I can trust, so I can forget all about car mechanics.

The real product being sold on a hosting sales site is not the servers, the plans, the prices, or any of the fancy technical talk that most readers don't actually understand.

Sure, low prices are great, but what good are they if we can't trust the host to keep our site online? Even a few hours of downtime can cost us more in lost sales than the entire price of the hosting plan.

Seen this way, the real product being sold is us, the hosting company owner.

If this makes sense, then the next question is, how do we implement this concept on a hosting company sales site?

On to next post...

Please jump in with your comments, advice, and critiques.

 

[SenseiSteve]

How would a prospect on the Internet know whether to trust you or your company. If you call the larger hosting companies, you won't be talking to the owner, rather someone from their sales team.

What I look for is contact information - do you have a brick and mortar posting mailing address and I don't mean a PO Box.

Do you list any of your clientele on your site - will I recognize any of them? This is trust by association. If you're hosting any of the major sports franchises, I'd suppose you're probably a stable provider.

I always look to robtex to see upline and check whois. How long have you been in business and does this match the verbage on your site? Is your site professionally designed? Are there broken links? Lack of attention to detail is a warning sign. Can you be reached 24x7?

Is your management team listed on your site? This relates to the concept of trust you talk about - would I trust a provider if their CEO had an MBA moreso than I would if the owner revealed on hosting forums they were still in high school?

 

[Engage-Engine]

Thanks for jumping in Steve.

How would a prospect on the Internet know whether to trust you or your company.

Yes, exactly, that's the question I want to explore too.

If you call the larger hosting companies, you won't be talking to the owner, rather someone from their sales team.

Right. Imho, ideally, we want a host that is large enough and successful enough that they know what they're doing.

But, if they get too big and successful, then our account is one of thousands, and we no longer have any leverage as a customer. Uh oh.

Something in the middle between too small and too huge seems best.

What I look for is contact information - do you have a brick and mortar posting mailing address and I don't mean a PO Box.

Some of the sites I've seen have no info about themselves of any kind. My own site could use much more info about me.

Do you list any of your clientele on your site - will I recognize any of them?

Yes! Great point.

I had great success with this technique in a list hosting business I had years ago. I listed every single client on the site, and people really used that information. Nobody can sell our company better than our clients, nobody.

Of course, I was giving my competitors access to all my customers too, so there's that to consider. One of my competitors did make a run at my client list. So, we have to be confident, and really providing a quality service, to use this technique.

Lack of attention to detail is a warning sign.

Yes, agreed again. If the contact form doesn't work (saw this yesterday), it's time to move on.

Is your management team listed on your site? This relates to the concept of trust you talk about - would I trust a provider if their CEO had an MBA moreso than I would if the owner revealed on hosting forums they were still in high school?

I might host a hobby site with a high schooler, IF, they were right upfront about their age. But for a business site, yes, want a real professional, a full adult.

And, as we're discussing, someone I can trust.

 

[Engage-Engine]

Ok, we're exploring a theory that the real product being sold by hosting companies are the people who run the hosting company. If this is true, what are the implications for hosting company sales sites?

Let's talk about our home page for starters.



The Super Short Summary

The first job is to make it immediately clear that we are a hosting company. This can be easily accomplished with a sentence or so, right at the top. This seems so obvious it's silly to even mention it, but... If we look at a lot of hosting company sales sites, we'll find many who assume visitors know who and what they are.

Can our service be described in a sentence, and is that sentence staring the reader in the face as soon as the page loads? Remember, it only takes one second for the reader to get confused, and click away.



Above The Fold

Ok, once that's done, now what? What goes "above the fold" of our home page?

Well, if we conclude that we, the operators of the service, are the real product being sold, perhaps we belong above the fold?

I've been working online, in and around the hosting business since 1995, and have never once seen a hosting sales site that starts the home page with a video from the hosting company owner. I've never done it myself.

Should I? Should you?

We probably don't want to put our entire life story on the home page of our hosting sales site.

But do we make it really really easy for new visitors to learn about us, if that's what they want to do? A very prominent "Meet Our Staff" photo link displayed above the fold of the home page might do the job. I need such a link. Do you?



The About Us Page

As Joan Rivers might ask, "Can we talk?"

Can we talk about the "About Us" page that so many sites use?

Can we say out loud that these About Us pages almost always totally suck, without offending anybody too much? (Don't feel too bad if your About Us page sucks, I don't even have an About Us page.)

"We here at SomeHost.com believe in the importance of the customer relationship as it relates to primacy of coordinated synergy in Internet marketplace forces in the 21st century reality where server node cloud computing X9-4az Botsang Whatsit technology is used to provide full functioning yada, yada, yada and more yada."

If we are the product being sold, would a picture of us petting our dog be more effective than this kind of Netbiz buzz word fancy talk? Would you actually read your own About Us page, if it wasn't your About Us page?

Home pages and About Us pages. What do you think? Do these pages on your site do a good job of selling you?

Please add your thoughts, and help me figure all this out.

On to the next rant...

 

[SenseiSteve]

We grew exponentially because we did a real good job of targeting our local demographic. Part of that effort was getting prospects into the data center. Once there, the deal was as much sealed. Unfortunatley, that can't be done online, but we've opt'd for a flash tour of our facilities, which has worked well. The idea of your CEO talking to prospects on the home page should work well also. If you're not camera savvy, then SitePal is a viable option. Video does enhance sales.

 

[Engage-Engine]

We grew exponentially because we did a real good job of targeting our local demographic. Part of that effort was getting prospects into the data center. Once there, the deal was as much sealed.

How did you get them to the data center?

Unfortunatley, that can't be done online, but we've opt'd for a flash tour of our facilities, which has worked well.

There you go, good idea. I guess a problem for many smaller hosts is they have no facilities to show.

If you're not camera savvy, then SitePal is a viable option. Video does enhance sales.

Ah, interesting! Thanks for that, will have to learn more. Personally, I'm camera savvy technically, but my on camera presentations are nothing to brag about.

 

[Engage-Engine]

We're exploring whether the owners and staff of a hosting company are the real product which should be sold. This seems to tie in to another question which is very relevant to building a hosting business.

What's our unique selling proposition?

As you know, the hosting business is very competitive. What's worse is that thousands of hosts are all selling more or less the same product. This is especially true when seen through our prospect's eyes, as they usually won't have the knowledge to understand and appreciate the real differences that do exist between hosting companies.

In this environment, how do we convince the prospect that we are the one host out of thousands they should chose? Challenging indeed.

What if we shift the focus from selling the hosting technology, to selling the people who operate that technology?

First, we've changed the subject from technical products the prospects probably won't feel confident about, to people, a "product" the prospects have had much experience evaluating. Hopefully, the prospect is now more comfortable.

Second, people are more interesting than servers, especially for non-technical people, ie. most of our prospects.

Third, we now we have a unique selling proposition. Our staff is unique! No other host on the entire Net has them!

Finally, our sales presentation is now on the topic that both we and the prospect know is the critical factor that will determine the prospect's satisfaction. The people behind the servers. The real product.

However, we still face the challenge that the biggest market is outside of our local area. Even if we decide to shift our sales focus to selling our people, we will still be faced with doing this over long distances in many cases.

In the next rant, we'll dig in to what is involved in building trust with prospects that we'll never be able to meet in person.

 

[Engage-Engine]

Ok, break time.

If you're reading this, I'd be grateful for some feedback.

Should I keep going?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks!

 

[SenseiSteve]

Just watched a video yesterday that is related to the selling yourself concept ... super series of videos. Enjoy

 

[Engage-Engine]

Thanks for the vid Steve. I can't seem to view it, but I'm sure others will be able to.

 

[energizedit]

I'd love to read more on this topic and your thoughts. It is a very unique idea. I can't recall finding any other hosting company out there is following this approach.

Mark

 

[Engage-Engine]

I'd love to read more on this topic and your thoughts.

Thanks for the guidance Mark, appreciate it. And I'd like to read more on this topic and the thoughts of other members here too. This isn't my blog, it's a forum, so c'mon, give it up guys!

I'm NOT a sales expert, as proven by the fact that my attempt to share this theory with hosts (here and elsewhere), and tools to implement it too, has so far fallen flat.

So, there's something about this that I don't get, and if you're willing, you guys can help me figure out what that is. That would be most appreciated.

It is a very unique idea. I can't recall finding any other hosting company out there is following this approach.

Let's try and analyze it together.

First, it does seem true that very few hosts take this approach to their online sales.

What confuses things, is that probably almost every host takes the approach of selling their host staff when selling offline in their local community.

So, to me, there's nothing especially creative about these ideas. It's just a matter of transferring techniques that are already proven successful in offline sales, to our online sales pages.

More coming soon. Until then, dear readers, let's hear your thoughts.

 

[Engage-Engine]

Ok, as promised, let's talk about building trust with prospects over the Net.

Our first step was to shift the focus of our sales efforts from our servers to our staff. Now, let's add another important factor to the equation.

Time.

It takes time to earn someone's trust.



Offline Vs. Online Selling

Time is an even more important sales factor on the Net than it is in our offline sales effort.

Sitting down across a table, face to face with a prospective client, is a far more powerful trust building experience than anything we can do on our websites, even if we're making extensive use of video.

Also, businesses in our local market will probably only take meetings with a few local hosts before making their decision. Thus, the chance they will remember us and our offer is high.

But, a prospect shopping for hosting on the Net may visit 73 hosting company sales sites before making their decision. The chance they will remember our offer is low.

That's the challenge of selling hosting on the Net, right? A far weaker selling medium than meeting face to face, and lots (and lots!) more competition.

This is all sounding rather grim, but here's some good news.

We can make use of time much more efficiently and effectively on the Net than we can in person. In fact, we can totally automate the process of building trust with our prospects over time.

And by now you've guessed how.

Yes, that's right, by making effective use of email. There's more to the Net than just the Web.



Email Marketing

And no my skeptical friends, we are NOT talking about spam. We're speaking of 100% confirmed opt-in mailing lists.

And here's even more good news.

Very few hosts are making effective use of email in their sales efforts, and that gives us a powerful way to earn a competitive edge.

Don't take my word for it. Visit your competitor's sites, and see how many are doing a good job of inviting prospects on to mailing lists. Very few. Very few.

No kidding! I use one of the oldest hosts on the Net. They are very experienced, well respected and successful. And they've never mailed me anything beyond an automated billing notice. Never, nothing, not even once, in years. And I'm already a customer, the most promising of all prospects!

Well, maybe they've done a good enough job with other methods that they feel they can afford to ignore one of the most powerful selling tools available. Maybe they don't want any more clients, who knows.

Well, that's not my situation, and probably not yours either.



But Why Email?

There's a simple answer. If we can successfully invite our prospects on to a mailing list, we now are in a position to build trust over time.

If we email prospects truly useful information that really does serve their needs, they may stay on our mailing list for years.

A simple question.

Do we want one chance to build trust and close the deal with our website?

Or do we want many chances to build trust and close the deal in email?

In the next post, we'll talk about sending prospects interesting and useful quality information that truly serves their needs. Something more than just our sales pitch alone.

 

[bermuda]

building a hosting business nowadays could be both a win win or lose lose project as while surfing the net, you can find a lot of posts about happy webmasters running profitable projects as well as the failed sites with no customers. It is highly recommended entering this highly competitive niche with a lot of cash to urn advertisements for some months before receiving some organic web results.

 

[Anneke]

I like your focus on email. I like it a lot. I've been working with email more and more over the past few months. We started an opt-in newsletter that we send out once a month. I've been spending a lot of time writing blog posts, articles about tech news, etc., but also about our company and our staff. So far we have had excellent responses. Sales have increased, customers have started commenting and participating in our discussions: in short, trust seems to be building at a steady clip.

 

[a-acsu]

Check out whymicrosoft.com for a good example of what you are thinking of here...