My Business Has a Terrible Business Model
My Business Has a Terrible Business Model
On paper, we don't really make sense– Evolution Mint is a lean design and marketing firm focused on coaching our clients to self-sustainability. The goal is that within a year our clients have the skills they need to take over their online store and PPC. Now, relative to other agencies in our field, that makes absolutely no sense. Most design and marketing firms aim to create a reliance relationship with their clients to keep them on the books as long as possible. We see our work differently.
Why we started teaching our clients
Really, we started because we weren't expecting EvoMint to be a long term project– We just wanted to make some money while in college, learn e-commerce, PPC marketing, SEO, etc. We liked our clients and we knew we didn't want to leave them hanging one day when TwoStory took off. So from the beginning we made it clear– Yes, we're here to serve, but we expect you guys to take the time to know your e-commerce layer as well as we do. Our clients took it well, knowing how to drive traffic and convert customers is immensely valuable.
How it works
It's simple– At every step of the way, we take the extra 2-3 hours to work with our clients to learn a key skill. For instance, if we just set up Google Analytics, we'll run through Session Flow Diagrams, and the next day, when to use through A/B testing and have them use Google Optimizer to run their own A/B test. The most important part of our workflow is making sure they have stake in their business' e-commerce– Their A/B test leads to choosing the right color for their main CTA. They can be proud of their contribution and, more often than not, they want to do more, test more theories, and optimize their pages.
Unforeseen Rewards
We never saw our approach as a competitive advantage. We knew we didn't make sense, and we really didn't care. But soon enough, we started to realize the effect our model had on our client relationships.
Empathy and Appreciation
Something we didn't expect was how much our clients would value our work once they tried to do it themselves. One of the things we ask our clients to do is to draw a traffic map for their website like the one below.
Obviously we're contributing our own thoughts along the way, but we like to have our clients tell their own story and design their website to tell it. We ask them to put themselves in the customer's shoes, to put themselves in each type of customer's shoes. First you need to know your entry vectors, why people are coming to your site. And then you have to show them each of the things that are important to that individual to convert them to customer.
This is surprisingly hard and once they finish (typically a 2-5 day process) all of our clients express appreciation for what we do. We've realized that our approach instills a much better sense of our value proposition in our clients.
Referrals
We never expected to take on any more contracts beyond our first two clients, but 3 months in, all of sudden we were getting weekly emails looking for design and marketing training. I think we're one of the few firms out there who can expect to be recommended by every one of our clients, and I'm extremely proud of that.
Is it sustainable for us?
I have no idea. We never expected to be where we are today, but people continue to find us, even though we don't even have a website. Only time will tell, but we're happy with who we are and will continue to operate the same way.
My Business Has a Terrible Business Model
My Business Has a Terrible Business Model
On paper, we don't really make sense– Evolution Mint is a lean design and marketing firm focused on coaching our clients to self-sustainability. The goal is that within a year our clients have the skills they need to take over their online store and PPC. Now, relative to other agencies in our field, that makes absolutely no sense. Most design and marketing firms aim to create a reliance relationship with their clients to keep them on the books as long as possible. We see our work differently.
Why we started teaching our clients
Really, we started because we weren't expecting EvoMint to be a long term project– We just wanted to make some money while in college, learn e-commerce, PPC marketing, SEO, etc. We liked our clients and we knew we didn't want to leave them hanging one day when TwoStory took off. So from the beginning we made it clear– Yes, we're here to serve, but we expect you guys to take the time to know your e-commerce layer as well as we do. Our clients took it well, knowing how to drive traffic and convert customers is immensely valuable.
How it works
It's simple– At every step of the way, we take the extra 2-3 hours to work with our clients to learn a key skill. For instance, if we just set up Google Analytics, we'll run through Session Flow Diagrams, and the next day, when to use through A/B testing and have them use Google Optimizer to run their own A/B test. The most important part of our workflow is making sure they have stake in their business' e-commerce– Their A/B test leads to choosing the right color for their main CTA. They can be proud of their contribution and, more often than not, they want to do more, test more theories, and optimize their pages.
Unforeseen Rewards
We never saw our approach as a competitive advantage. We knew we didn't make sense, and we really didn't care. But soon enough, we started to realize the effect our model had on our client relationships.
Empathy and Appreciation
Something we didn't expect was how much our clients would value our work once they tried to do it themselves. One of the things we ask our clients to do is to draw a traffic map for their website like the one below.
Obviously we're contributing our own thoughts along the way, but we like to have our clients tell their own story and design their website to tell it. We ask them to put themselves in the customer's shoes, to put themselves in each type of customer's shoes. First you need to know your entry vectors, why people are coming to your site. And then you have to show them each of the things that are important to that individual to convert them to customer.
This is surprisingly hard and once they finish (typically a 2-5 day process) all of our clients express appreciation for what we do. We've realized that our approach instills a much better sense of our value proposition in our clients.
Referrals
We never expected to take on any more contracts beyond our first two clients, but 3 months in, all of sudden we were getting weekly emails looking for design and marketing training. I think we're one of the few firms out there who can expect to be recommended by every one of our clients, and I'm extremely proud of that.
Is it sustainable for us?
I have no idea. We never expected to be where we are today, but people continue to find us, even though we don't even have a website. Only time will tell, but we're happy with who we are and will continue to operate the same way.