Feature Spotlight: Pro Websites with Alex Suarez

Show Notes

This week weโ€™re coming at you with another Pro Services Feature Spotlight. Joining Tom and Paul to talk about Pro Websites is our web sales manager and one of the OG Buildertrend sales associates, Alex Suarez.

History of pro websites

Unlike our other pro services that came along after the creation of Buildertrend, Pro Websites worked right alongside Buildertrend from the beginning. It started with Alex and has now expanded into a team with developers who focus on building websites for our clients. The Pro Websites team members love using their creative freedom to develop and deliver a great product to our customers.

One-stop shop

Our Pro Websites team audits each customerโ€™s current website and puts a plan in place for their new one. They start from scratch and build a website on the front- and back-end using WordPress. From there, they continue working with the customer to provide assets and teach them how to run the website from the backend.

Having a web presence is vital in todayโ€™s digital world, and it needs to be done efficiently. With that said, the Buildertrend Pro Websites team has the process down to a science. After discovery calls with the customer and collecting all documents, the website can be launched within three to four weeks.

How to get started

Does this sound like something your business could benefit from? If you would like to learn more about Pro Websites or get a free audit of your website, you can do the following:

  • Call your coach and tell them you are interested
  • Email websites@buildertrend.com
  • Go to the marketplace within Buildertrend. Click the cogwheel on the top right of your screen when you are logged into Buildertrend.
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Transcript

Tom Houghton:

You are listening to โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ your guide to a better way to run your business. I’m Tom Houghton.

Paul Wurth:

I’m Paul Wurth. Confused.

Tom Houghton:

Why are you still confused? We’ve done this intro for like eight episodes now.

Paul Wurth:

That’s the new one.

Tom Houghton:

That’s the new one.

Paul Wurth:

I’m excited. I’m here with my friend Alex Suarez.

Tom Houghton:

Oh, spoiler alert.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah.

Tom Houghton:

Guest Alex Suarez joining us on the podcast today, our sales manager of our web services.

Alex Suarez:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

Longtime friend.

Alex Suarez:

That’s right.

Paul Wurth:

Longtime friend of the business.

Alex Suarez:

Was that intro scripted there?

Tom Houghton:

Something like that.

Alex Suarez:

Okay.

Paul Wurth:

It was electric.

Alex Suarez:

I’m impressed already.

Paul Wurth:

Tom tells us what the heck Alex is doing here.

Tom Houghton:

Alex is here to talk about our web services, which is an additional service that we offer our clients, part of our Pro Services package. Although he’s going to give us a little history because web services has been around for a very long time. So let’s get started right off the bat. First, just dive into what the history of how web services came to be.

Alex Suarez:

Absolutely. So website development, web services, something we’ve done since we started Buildertrend 14 years ago. It’s kind of how we got things rolling, so to speak. Paul, am I right on that?

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. I mean, we used to sell it… Alex and I were the first two salespeople from Buildertrend way back in the day. Just for the audience.

Alex Suarez:

Right.

Paul Wurth:

A lot of history here, but yeah, we used to sell Buildertrend, but how we got in the door sometimes was your website is not great, Mr. Builder, let’s do that for you.

Alex Suarez:

Right. So what our pitch was really, we said, we helped builders out with their web promotions and so websites were more popular then people understood them more. The Buildertrend platform was more obscure. People didn’t really understand, Hey, manage your business on the internet, this is a great way to run things. And so we’d get them on the phone. We talked about their websites. We introduced them to that part of it. And then we’d say, “Oh yeah, we have a backend system called Buildertrend. You should go look at as well.”

Alex Suarez:

So it’s something we’ve done for forever. We’re really reactive for probably, I don’t know, 12 years to our customers where they would just say, “Hey, is this something you guys do?” Oh yeah, it is something we do after Buildertrend took off. And about what, 15, 16 months ago, we just were like, we have something going here. We’re getting so many requests. Let’s be proactive about it. Let’s do outreach, let’s market it, let’s improve what we’re doing. Bring more options to the table, bring more value to what we have to offer, whether it be more designs, more features, SEO services. So that’s really where it started and where we’re at now.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. That’s a great little history lesson.

Paul Wurth:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Alex Suarez:

It is. It’s funded a lot of Buildertrend to start with.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah, it did.

Tom Houghton:

There you go. Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

So we wanted to get our best guy, Alex, tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, take this and run with it.” And we have, we really accelerated sort of the number of websites we do and the team’s grown. How has the team grown since you got there?

Alex Suarez:

I mean, when we started, it was we had just a couple developers that were handling the website part of it. a lot of our stuff was our developers are doing branding accounts. And if you have the login tabs on your website, the contact forms, they were doing a lot of that stuff, but we wanted to utilize skillsets more. We had a really great revenue-generating part of this business we weren’t taken advantage of. And so we brought our talented people in and said, let’s focus on a lot of this. It gives them more freedom, creative freedom to do what they do whether they went to school for it or whatever. They get to do what they really like to do and that’s create stuff and develop stuff and give a great product out to their clients.

Paul Wurth:

So we got some talented developers down there. So are we doing just new websites or do we do a revamp or do we have any idea of that?

Alex Suarez:

So right now we’re just, if you’re going to come aboard with us, we’re going to start from scratch. And our websites are built in WordPress. There’s a lot of flexibility in WordPress site. We’ve built the backends to make it very easy on our clients if they want to take over and they want to update things on their own, they can do that. It’s not a difficult process to do, but yeah, we build them, we support them and a service beyond that, like SEO, we have a specialist on hand, Mike Stein, who’s awesome at it. He’s very, very skilled, knowledgeable. So he provides assets to our clients to not only help them get started, but also teach them sustainable things that can help them out down the road.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. That’s good because I mean, I think a lot of people hear like WordPress or they see some like Wix and they’re like, Oh yeah, I can do this on my own. But there’s so much more to think about than just creating the website like you mentioned SEO. And obviously if you already working with Buildertrend, this kind of makes, it’s like a no brainer just to kind of bring your site in line with us. And we’ve obviously got a great team of people here that can help you out with that.

Alex Suarez:

Right. And I mean, people love the fact that we’re turning into a one-stop shop for their needs and it’s not just pro websites. It’s Pro Services in general, where they’re not having to hire five different companies to accomplish improving their business. So if they can get everything from one spot, they love the fact that we’re industry specific. It means a lot. We’re not out there building websites for restaurants one day and law firms and next it’s all about this industry. And then we take advantage of our knowledge and give that to clients.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Paul Wurth:

So there’s some expertise there.

Tom Houghton:

Absolutely. So as a business owner, I feel like you got to have a website. I mean, you have to, that’s like an absolute requirement. It’s 2020, but let’s say again, as a business owner, I’m thinking like I have no time to put into this. How much can I leverage Buildertrend to lean into that, to provide as much guidance as I need or is it more of like a, Hey, just give us a few bullet points and we run from there or do you work on both sides of that?

Alex Suarez:

Really both sides. I mean, most people in this industry, they’re busy.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Alex Suarez:

They’re working. It’s not the nine-to-five workday.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Alex Suarez:

And so can somebody build a website on their own? Yeah. But you better know how to do it. You better keep it updated. It makes… To build something and have it sit there or they can’t take it live, they never got to finish it. That’s not going to work. I mean, you have to have a web presence, it’s got to be done well. A lot of times, it’s your first impression with somebody, especially for referral based. So we listened to our customers and we try to guide them. Some people have different reasons for a website. Some people, it’s just portfolio. I’m not trying to generate business. I just need to send somebody someplace if they want to see my work. Others, they need to drive business. So it’s more calls to action. It’s more outreach. It’s SEO. How do I get people to the site?

Alex Suarez:

So all those things are coming into consideration when we meet with clients and we do discovery calls and consultations because we want to know what they do, what their goals are and then we can craft the website. We ask for some creative freedom to do some things that we think will be best practices and help them the most. But it’s not like this client, this website client, has to sit down with us for two weeks on end and just work and work and work. We want to just take some basic stuff they have start building it and the websites are fluid, they’re evolving. So it’s not like, hey, here’s your end product and that’s it. It’s always kind of continuing to get better. Changing things in and out, whatever it may be.

Paul Wurth:

So timing wise, let’s say I’m Joe Customer. I want to do a website with you guys from today. What’s that look like? Two, three, four months until I get a new website.

Alex Suarez:

No. We try to have it down to a science. I mean, we want to get these out in three to four weeks.

Paul Wurth:

Wow.

Tom Houghton:

That’s fast.

Alex Suarez:

Well it’s if we have… A lot of it can be on the customer.

Tom Houghton:

Sure, yeah.

Alex Suarez:

Don’t sign up today and then three weeks later, we have to wait to have your consultation. We try to get those scheduled as quickly as possible because if that’s the case, then we can get to work on it.

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Alex Suarez:

All we need is about 20 minutes, 25 minutes in a consultation discovery call, where we go in, figure out how we want to set the website up, what pages we want it, ideas on layouts. We don’t need a lot, a logo, a few pictures and that allows us to start working on it. Then we come back for a view about 10 days later for edits, changes, whatever, until we get to what that client wants.

Alex Suarez:

And then we do train on the backends. We do show the client, hey, this is how you update things on your own. We’re always there to help out. They can always call us the same principles as the Buildertrend software with unlimited training support, so they can call anytime. We’ll help them out with anything they need. About three to four weeks though, is what we want to do before we launch. And then after that would be the continued service, SEO, things along those lines.

Tom Houghton:

That’s pretty great because again, thinking about the business owner in mind and thinking, okay, how am I going to update something on the website? Let’s say in three months, we’re rolling out a new model or whatever and we want to update that to the website. So somebody can just call in at that point and get assistance with that?

Alex Suarez:

Yeah, they can. Absolutely. We like to be able to train them to do things on their own.

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Alex Suarez:

Because if they can do it on their own and if we show them how easy it is to do, then honestly, it saves everybody time.

Tom Houghton:

Sure.

Alex Suarez:

Because if they can get in there and add some pictures and it takes them a couple of minutes to do, then why wait to call us?

Tom Houghton:

Right.

Alex Suarez:

And wait for a call back or whatever, if you can’t get anybody on the line. But usually that hasn’t happened. We will then give a timeframe to say, hey, it’s going to take a day, otherwise you can get in there and just do it on your own. So people do like that. There’s a lot of companies out there that will not give clients access to the backend. And so that delays things significantly, but it does let our clients really feel like they’re part of this and it’s their site.

Paul Wurth:

How does one know they need a new website? Just a lot of people saying in your website stinks or not calling. Jeez, Bill, I don’t know why I’m not going to get phone calls here.

Alex Suarez:

I mean, there’s certain practices if you talk to marketing companies, when is the proper time to update the site and for like a new look, some people it’s about two years. Where they think, okay, this is kind of outdated or the technology there’s always changes. There’s cooler things that come out all the time.

Alex Suarez:

So you want to be able to take advantage of those. The new technology also can change the way that people find you from organic searches online. Some platforms can lend itself to being easier to find. And I think that if you stay up on the times, it shouldn’t be an issue with people being able to find you or changing pictures in and out or blogging. If that’s the way you’re going to go, if you’re going to blog, you don’t want things static. It’s not like I’m going to do a blog and I’m going to post one once a year. I think standard practice is like maybe once every two to three weeks is posting something.

Tom Houghton:

Okay.

Alex Suarez:

So blogs, certain things like that, that we advise our clients on if they’re going to do it, keep it up to date.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah.

Alex Suarez:

Here’s the keywords you need to incorporate if we’re going to do a blog from an SEO perspective too.

Paul Wurth:

Correct me if I’m wrong, you guys started doing basically free website assessments for people who wanted… Well, basically to answer the question, does my website, I don’t want to say suck, but โ€ฆ ?

Alex Suarez:

It’s not, โ€œDoes it suck?โ€

Paul Wurth:

No.

Alex Suarez:

It’s an audit.

Paul Wurth:

It’s nobody’s fault. So it’s an audit, so they could actually reach out to our team and that could be, if you’re listening like a call to action is like, โ€œHey, just get an audit from the team.โ€

Alex Suarez:

Absolutely. It’s a huge thing that we’ve done and Mike Stein is our specialist and these audits they’re completely free. All we basically need is your consent and then we will audit the site. It’s going to tell us a lot. It’s going to tell us, first of all, are you paying somebody for other services, marketing, SEO, are you paying for these other things.

Paul Wurth:

Right. Some people are doing that right now. And there’s some expensive services out there.

Alex Suarez:

Very expensive, very, very expensive. What it lends itself to is finding out if you getting what you are paying for.

Paul Wurth:

Right. So in one respect, if you’re happy with your website and you think you’re doing well, still go through this free exercise because you could see, are you getting what you’re paying for? Because you wouldn’t know because your expertise is in construction and Mike and your expertise is in SEO and website.

Alex Suarez:

Correct and a lot of times, we’ll see some of these sites that are built very, very well. And that’s good. The framework’s there, but if you are paying for something beyond that, are you getting the keyword research you’re paying for are you acquiring really good backlinks instead of spammy backlinks? Where are your keywords distributed throughout the site? These are very important things that maybe somebody just doesn’t know about or they wouldn’t know about because it’s not really what they do. Some of the sites though, structurally are set up wrong or they’re not best practices or they forget to do a lot of things. So whether your website’s great or it needs some help, these audits are free. And they’ll tell you a lot and you can do with it what you may, I mean, it’s not like you got to sign up for a site with us right there.

Alex Suarez:

But if it’s something you need to take back to your current developer and say, listen, here’s what’s going on. Here’s what we found out from a third party. And it’s not even us. It’s another third-party that does it. So it’s very, very valuable information. And then all the information you get from those audits can be used in other marketing perspectives too, in their business.

Paul Wurth:

What do you mean by that?

Alex Suarez:

Well, it will tell us, we can get into some different things like analytics, demographics, who visits the site, how long they stay there, geo-modifying areas if we want to. If you’re a specialty contractor and you may be knocking on doors or doing flyers in certain neighborhoods, in that case, we can tell you, โ€œHey, here’s the things, here’s where you should go. Here’s where a lot of your traffic is coming from right now.โ€ It’s very valuable information.

Tom Houghton:

And that’s free. So how does somebody get a hold of that free goodness right there?

Alex Suarez:

So you can call, you can let your Buildertrend coach know that you are interested in website development, or at least the audit. You go to buildertrendwebsites.com. That’s one-

Paul Wurth:

Buildertrendwebsites.com. You guys have an email address?

Alex Suarez:

Yeah. You can email websites@buildertrend.com and that’ll come to our entire department. There’s a contact form at buildertrendwebsites.com. You can fill that as well. And then just let-

Paul Wurth:

That’s probably your best bet.

Alex Suarez:

That’s probably, yeah. And then there’s a marketplace within the Buildertrend software we can go as well and you can learn a little bit, and then you can click on the form there and fill that out if you’re just kind of in the system working.

Paul Wurth:

The marketplace, just a little teaser, that’s new for a lot of people because it was launched probably four or five months ago. Where do you find that? Is that in the cogwheel? Top right of your screen.

Alex Suarez:

Yeah. It should be.

Tom Houghton:

Yep.

Paul Wurth:

Go look for the marketplace. Top right of your screen when you’re logged in. If you’re logged in right now, listening, check it out. There’s a ton. All of the Pro Services we offer in there as well as a bunch of other stuff that you should check out. So the marketplace… Bring your grocery cart. Is that why we called it that?

Tom Houghton:

Its not a tagline.

Paul Wurth:

It’s a market.

Tom Houghton:

Can’t get like fresh produce while you’re there.

Paul Wurth:

You’re hungry?

Alex Suarez:

I’m surprised Amazon doesn’t have that. You can order like your groceries through the Buildertrend marketplace.

Tom Houghton:

There you go. We’ll work on it. That’s for next quarter, I guess.

Paul Wurth:

Huh?

Alex Suarez:

All inclusive.

Tom Houghton:

Yeah. All-inclusive shopping on Buildertrend.

Paul Wurth:

The quarter thing, I don’t-

Tom Houghton:

No, next quarter, like next three quarters. So we’re in quarter one.

Paul Wurth:

Oh I got you.

Tom Houghton:

Next quarter, we’ll put that in.

Paul Wurth:

Oh, okay.

Tom Houghton:

Not next 25 cents that we put it in the jukebox.

Paul Wurth:

I’ll let the product-

Alex Suarez:

Just let Dev know.

Paul Wurth:

No, I’ll let the product team know.

Alex Suarez:

Put a ticket in for that.

Paul Wurth:

It’s not official.

Tom Houghton:

Don’t hold us to that. Yeah. So if you’re driving right now though, and you missed all that and you didn’t get a chance to write it down, go check out our show notes page at buildertrend.com/podcast. We’ll have all the information inside there to get those details.

Paul Wurth:

Yeah. Again, that was Alex Suarez. When you talk to him, he can give you 14-ish years of Buildertrend history and allure. So ask him.

Alex Suarez:

Oh, I was told not to go into a lot of that though.

Paul Wurth:

You’re not. Not the early days.

Alex Suarez:

Okay.

Paul Wurth:

That’s not for this audience.

Alex Suarez:

Yeah. I had few questions before we started today, just what the parameters are of this podcast.

Tom Houghton:

We’re sticking to websites. Just really sticking to the websites thing.

Paul Wurth:

The websites that’s it.

Alex Suarez:

Life advice, anything else, Paul, you need?

Paul Wurth:

Well, I’ll tell you what, here’s the deal. Here’s an offer I give to the listeners. If you put your name in and get yourself an audit from the website team, Alex will answer any question you have about Buildertrend.

Alex Suarez:

That’s almost right.

Paul Wurth:

Any question that our legal team will let you answer.

Alex Suarez:

Yeah. I’ll bring in the legal and HR at the same time.

Tom Houghton:

There you go. That’s probably a good call.

Paul Wurth:

You’re well versed in [crosstalk].

Alex Suarez:

They’ll hook me up like a buzzer, if I start to-

Tom Houghton:

Go off track.

Paul Wurth:

We’ll show a picture of that in the show notes. Now we’re committed.

Tom Houghton:

I think Producer Kayleigh is saying no to that one. So we’ll end this on a positive note though. The websites feature, our Pro Services is fantastic for your business. If you’re looking for a way to up your game in 2020, look no further than a website upgrade. So contact our team. Also a great reason to is just the pricing of it. I think a lot of people get concerned about pricing like how much is it going to cost? And I can tell you from having done websites outside of Buildertrend and hearing Buildertrend’s pricing, our pricing is extremely competitive. So I definitely encourage our listeners to give them a look.

Alex Suarez:

Yep. Absolutely. Let us know. We’d love to talk to you guys. We’ve got a lot of people that would love to, everyone on our staff would love to work with you.

Tom Houghton:

Awesome. Thank you so much, Alex, for coming on the podcast. Thanks Tom. Thanks Paul.

Paul Wurth:

Thanks buddy. Appreciate you.

Tom Houghton:

Love what you heard. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe to our podcast so you can hear from more guests that will benefit your business. Also, please check out our show notes page for more information on what we discussed on this episode, you can find it at buildertrend.com/podcast. Thanks for listening. And we’ll see you next time on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€

Paul Wurth:

Appreciate you.

Alex Suarez | Buildertrend


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