Explaining the value and potential that comes with using Webflow, can often be a complex task depending on the recipient and their needs. Some folks may prioritize a security-first platform, or be looking for something that is highly customizable, or need a platform that can help them iterate quickly — or — want a platform that can do all three.
Sure, you can send a few links to various Webflow marketing or landing pages — but the overall message is fragmented and impersonal — and doesn’t provide a cohesive experience that showcases why Webflow is the best choice for them.
We’ve got a solution for that, insert Webflow Pitch — our easy-to-use site that helps you convince anyone in your life to use Webflow. It’s simple — just enter in some key details, select what speaks to their needs best, and we’ll send you a custom, ready-made presentation. Better yet, the process is so quick — you can spin up multiple presentations for multiple people in an instant.
@Waldo, is it possible to change “Email us” to “Email me”? I’m a freelancer, and I don’t have a team right now, so it’s strange for me to use “Email us”.
Also, I’m quite curious how Webflow Pitch was built
That’s an excellent question @Tom_Tom. Also welcome to the forum.
To begin with, when you set up a hosting and use Client Billing, Webflow bills your client directly. Either in your name or in their name (you chose). You can also set profit there, so on a $240/year Webflow CMS hosting plan, you can ass what you want. You can add $100, you can add $5000.
Now you can contract specifically with your client for quick maintenance or more serious TPAM. At the bare minimum, for a small site for small clients, I’ll invoice 300€ in advance for all the maintenance tasks that will come. They will come anyway. For normal clients with a dev budget of around 10k, I’ll propose a first TPAM run of 1500€ per quarter, and we reevaluate that after the first two. TPAM is ongoing anyway so what’s not used at the end of the quarter isn’t lost.
This is a big part of the education that happens when onboarding new clients: a website is not a film or a print document, when the development is finished, the life of the site only begins. Either you take the site and do everything yourself afterward, either we plan maintenance when we contract the first time. But there is no just “dev and we will see”. It’s needed to set budgets, response time, availability…
Being a developer, or a designer doesn’t mean you want to be a webmaster or act as an agency. Everything is fine but those aspects have to be discussed seriously before a commitment happens.
Can you clarify what is TPAM? I’ve never seen this abbreviation. I’ve tried Googling it but I’m not sure the results were the same as the one you mentioned. Is it “Third-Party Application Management”?
Principle is easy: client pays you in advance for work you can do quickly and/or represent a lot of small tasks. Example: when you push the site to production, client will then be invoiced $1000 for TPAM. And you create and share a simple sheet with them to keep track of it. Client can then shoot you requests, you apply them without further paperwork, and deduct the time from the sheet. Until all the time is consumed.
I have 1 google sheet doc for all clients with 1 sheet per client. I send them a screencap of their sheet from time to time, by email.
Woah, that’s a sweet idea for a retainer! Thanks a lot, @vincent! I’ve been wondering how to set up a retainer for clients.
How do you track time? Just use some time tracking tools, then add the number to “Duration in mn”, am I right? Also, I’ve noticed “Price in €” — do you write it by hand each time or it’s a formula based on “Last TPAM purchase” and its “Price in €” and “Duration in hours”?
Could you share your Google Sheet template? If you don’t mind of course!
I’m not that good with Excels/GS calculations, so it will be a huge help!
Yes, of course, everything is calculated automatically, you just need to write a new task in one of the lines with the zeros, and put the time you’ve spent in minutes.
I have multiple tracking apps but for that I mostly eyeball it looking at the clock. I’m pretty generous with time spent, wether it’s dev or maintenance, so my clients have confidence in me anyway. And confidence is required for TMA, or you’ll be obliged to report all the time, which defeats the purpose. TMA is great when you never talk about it until you need more money, that’s where you save time, not having to report, communicate, do administrative stuff for each task.
Well, that’s as simple as Christmas: select the cell where you want a result, then type “=”, then click on a cell with a value, then “+”, then on another cell with a value, and press enter. That’s it, you got a formula. And this table doesn’t use anything more complicated than this.
Maintenance can include SEO and design edits and updates, your work is never perfect, and should always be checked regularly. Additionally, if your client jumps in and does things themselves, you could be checking to make sure they did it properly and didn’t break anything, or further optimise it. There is more than simply updating plugins when it comes to regular maintenance!
