JH Consulting, Inc.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the vice president of Recruiting Realities. Our national speaker Jack Renkens visits high schools around the country to educate students about how to get recruited and rules of the game.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JH Consulting?

We wanted JH Consulting to create our website and increase our name recognition, especially on Twitter.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

JH Consulting created our whole web page and bolstered security by following all the rules so we wouldn't be hacked. The team is very knowledgeable and skilled at social media postings and offered several ways to disseminate stories about our company. In terms of design and branding, they helped create our company logo and make sure all elements are uniform across each mailing we send out.

After securing a trademark, they created our PayPal account. I felt comfortable giving them all our credit card information to set up WordPress and Benchmark. They spearhead mailings to our large clientele of athletic directors at different schools across the United States. When anyone contacts us, they collect their information to create mailing lists and regularly prompted us to send out e-mail marketing blasts.

When Juliana Hughes comes to our meetings, she always has tons of things to show us, and easily transitions from one topic another. Always highly organized, she provides thorough documentation that indicates our increased visibility and growth. They’ve also created this year’s edition of our book by getting new photos taken and suggesting new materials to include. The athletic photos they managed to find are unbelievable.

What is the team composition?

I only directly work with Juliana, but a team helps her with the stories and platform. She always makes sure it's done properly, if she doesn't have the personal knowledge to complete something herself.

How did you come to work with JH Consulting?

I read about JH Consulting after we asked our acquaintance them who had built their website. At one point, we worked with a vendor based out of California, who we could never get ahold of. Juliana from JH consulting was much better.

How much have you invested with them?

When we began our startup, we spent an average of $65,000. During some years, we paid more than that. Usually, the cost is between $50,000 and $75,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2012. Juliana still works with us on monthly emails, PayPal, and security, and makes sure our website is up and running each day. When our business slowed down at one point, we had to stop using her for a few months. During that timeframe, our website was hacked. When we restarted our engagement, she solved all the problems we’d experienced.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Our business centers on our national school speaker, which is the source of most of our revenue. Customers usually visit our site to purchase a book or educate themselves. I would characterize the functionality and reliability of the website as excellent. They’ve added excellent features and made it look it look attractive, appealing. It’s very easy to work with.

Juliana is great at tracking down potential problems, and we’re really grateful to have her. She goes above and beyond what I think she should have to do. I'd give her a rating of 5 stars.

Using Google AdWords, she utilizes different phrases to help search engines pick us up more frequently. SEO efforts for Bing and Google have made our site more accessible. JH Consulting is incredible and handled the whole process for us. There's really nothing they couldn't do.

How did JH Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

The nice thing about Juliana is our very personal connection. She calls, texts, and e-mails us. We have a variety of communication methods. She's consistently available and always returns our calls. If she's unable to do something one day, she'll complete it by the next. Work is done in an efficient, timely, and correct manner.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Without Juliana, I honestly wouldn't be where I am today. She goes above and beyond what we ask of her, and always gives suggestions for improvement. It's just been wonderful. We couldn’t have conducted last year’s major team meeting without her help. She did all of the posters and organization. I can't even begin to say where her work started and ended.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Suggest new ideas for what you want done. Juliana can make any little idea into a spectacular solution and will think of a million potential related options. She can achieve anything anyone would want; just ask her.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My name is Jared Allen, and I’m the owner and sole practitioner at the Law Office of Jared Allen PLLC. I worked with JH Consulting when I was a partner at my former law firm, the Law Offices of Allen & Meyerand PLLC.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JH Consulting?

My partner and I needed to overhaul our company’s website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially hired Juliana [Founder, JH Consulting] to redesign and improve the website that my partner and I created when we started our company. She moved our site domain from Weebly to GoDaddy, set up the website using WordPress, and executed SEO.  She organized various social media accounts for us on Facebook, Google Plus, Linkedin, Twitter, and Instagram. She created other more industry-related websites and profiles as well. We provided the content, which she added to our website and social media accounts.

She also managed a limited PPC campaign, but since our previous PPC campaign with another provider didn’t produce our desired results, we agreed it wasn’t the optimal method for attracting our type of clientele. She coordinated a video production to market a feature magazine article a company wrote on us. Overall, she helped with our outreach efforts and managed our internet presence to help us grow our general networking base, so that we could expand our reach in the local market.

What is the team composition?

We worked with Juliana.

How did you come to work with JH Consulting?

My partner's wife worked in advertising and someone in her company referred us to Juliana, which is how we originally came to work with her.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $15,000-$20,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We first reached out to Juliana in September 2013, and we worked with her on the website for about two months.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Juliana provided us with reports updating us on site statistics such as online traffic. We always had site access in addition to a high quality, responsive contact form and portal. Over the course of our collaboration we made substantial progress on our preferred type of site user, calls received, and general online traffic.

How did JH Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

Juliana was fantastic to work with, and always on top of her work. She was easy to communicate with and receptive to our ideas, but also managed our expectations by explaining which specifications were feasible. She constantly collaborated with people that could help make our website better and our presence more prominent. We were pleased that she referred to outside specialists for video content and other site material. Her professionalism and her warm, friendly demeanor made it feel like we were family. We still keep in contact because she’s a great resource and a good friend.

If she was unable to respond to us immediately, she would let us know what time was best for a conversation. During the beginning phases of our collaboration we would meet at least monthly to discuss our desired web content and design; she planned our monthly, or bi-monthly, meetings well ahead of time to ensure all of our availabilities. She wrote meeting agendas highlighting what we previously discussed and what we still needed to discuss in addition to providing updates on statistics and ideas for our portals and sites. We usually communicated through a group email to minimize repetitive dialogue and keep everyone on the same page. When we needed to discuss minor details we texted or called each other individually.

What did you find most impressive about them?

She actually explained what she was doing, why it mattered, and what worked best. We worked on SEO with a couple of other companies before her, and none of them explained to us what they were doing, but instead guaranteed ridiculous results. We learned pretty quickly that anybody that was guaranteeing those types of results was most likely exaggerating. In contrast, Juliana set realistic expectations for what we wanted to accomplish. We knew we weren't going to spend enough to compete with the big-box firms in Phoenix, so she did a great job assessing our needs, understanding our budget, and maximizing our resources. Her strategy definitely worked considering we increased our traffic and business significantly throughout our collaboration.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Sometimes it was apparent that Juliana was stretched thin. As she got busier, it became a little harder to complete tasks as quickly as we would have liked. She tried to do what was best for all of her clientes, but this can be hard to achieve alone. Despite this, she still delivered fantastic work.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

We made our budget and project expectations really clear. We expressed that we wanted to get an honest assessment of what we could do with our specific budget, and established from the start what we hoped to accomplish. She was great at working within our parameters.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am a real estate agent with HomeSmart. I technically have my own group, OzmentRealtyAZ. I’ve been in real estate for a number of years, previously coming from the IT side of things myself.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JH Consulting?

I don’t have as much time as I used to set up a lot of my real estate adverts. I had a few, but not a functional website or any kind of ideal presence.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

I told them what I wanted the site to look like. Originally, I had a generic cut and paste template that wasn’t in keeping with the design and aesthetic that I wanted. They helped with the redesign and restructuring of the function and flow. There are still some aspects that are being worked on. 

I’m very particular with how I want things to be, but they’ve done an amazing job for us so far. The site was designed from scratch with WordPress. They provide SEO and social media services as well. I’ve been working with them on the type of articles that I want to create so that’s where we’re at in the process right now. We’re working on blog and exposure for the blog.

What is the team dynamic? 

Juliana [Owner, JH Consulting] does everything. All my communications have been with her. Any changes have been communicated to her based off of what I'd like to see happen, how I’d like to see the pages load, sizing, interaction, and layout.

How did you come to work with JH Consulting?

Juliana reached out to me with some questions about real estate. In the course of our communications, she provided me information on what they do and I employed their services to help expand my outreach.

They were good about helping with a lot of the concerns that I had before moving forward in the process. Not too many companies would even bother to take that time. I reached out to other organizations and groups where they told me their fee and that’s it.

How much have you invested with them?

I have spent $12,000 so far.

What is the status of this engagement?

We had the start of our conversations in January of this year. I’m still working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

I definitely consider that there have been results. I know the technology pieces and outreach takes some time, but that’s something that I’m OK with so far. I’ve seen interest and increases in my response from my Twitter following and my Facebook following.

How did JH Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they fair extremely well. They’re organized, on top of conversations, and very extensive with their documentation. A lot of times we’ll have conversations and I’ve forgotten an element of a conversation and they’ll remind me. They’re very good on their follow through as well. They’re also great with staging. They take me through the process of what to expect per the development as well as testing and implementation. They’re very thorough on communication throughout.

We communicate using a variety of Skype, phone calls, and email. There’s another app I just started using called Asana, which we use to track things. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They make you feel like you’re a person, not a project, which, for me, is huge. They have the same vision and value structure that I use for my service, so to have somebody talk to me as if I’m a person, and help me understand everything, instead of treating me like a project they have assigned to them, is worth its weight in gold.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any complaints. We’d like to pay next to nothing if we can, which I joke with them about, but when you find someone whose services are what they are, I’m more willing to pay to ensure that everything is done right. They’re definitely worth it.

Do you have any advice for potential clients?

Let them have rein as they know their stuff and have a great understanding of the market and the field. Even if they’re not as familiar with a particular type of sales, they will learn it, understand it quickly, and grab on to terminology and technology quick. Step out of their way, let them do their thing and run with it because they’re great.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm the owner of Greer Lodge Resort & Cabins.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with JH Consulting?

I had already hired Juliana in 2001 (now dba JH Consulting) to do personal assistant tasks for me. She was really great, very creative. And then I bought this piece of property up in the mountains, and it had an old lodge on it. I did a major renovation on the lodge in 2004, and we decided that we needed to have a website. It was going to be a destination resort. I tasked Juliana with finding someone who could do that for us, but she eventually took over the project.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

In 2004, Juliana found someone to build us a simple website for the resort. The resort kept growing exponentially. I was building more cabins, acquiring neighboring properties, and so on. Within 3 or 4 years, it was much bigger and we needed a better website.

Juliana of JH Consulting built a brand new website in 2007. That website kept growing because we were a destination resort and kept adding cabins and activities. In 2016 Juliana again built a brand new website using all the latest technology; because we wanted to keep up with technology and be more mobile friendly.

One of the big things we did in the beginning, because we knew it was important, was SEO for the first website. We were spending a lot of money on Google AdWords PPC [pay-per-click] back then, and Juliana handled that herself. We were spending $10,000-15,000 a month, so it was a big deal. It was a lot of money driving the website.

Over the years, she's developed our social media: the Facebook page, and a small Twitter presence. She responds to all of the reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google about the Greer Lodge Resort & Cabins.

This year, she launched our advertising program: engaging social media. We do paid advertising on Facebook and Google AdWords. We serve up display ads and retargeting through Google and Facebook. We identified our key zip codes and we know our demographics and a certain household income level. Google and Facebook serve up ads to people in those zip codes with those demographics, and that has been very effective.

How did you come to work with JH Consulting?

I originally hired Juliana in 2001 as my personal assistant.

How much have you invested with them?

We've spent around $250,000 with JH Consulting since 2004 to build our website and keep it current; plus handle our social media, SEO, review responses, and online advertising. We’ve spent around $1.5 million since 2004 on advertising and other projects that we've done on Google, Facebook, et cetera.

What is the status of this engagement?

She started working as a personal assistant in 2001, but she started doing advertising stuff for Greer Resort since 2004.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

This is a destination resort. Nobody shows up at the door and asks for a room. They are driving 4 hours from Phoenix or 5 hours from Tuscan to go up there and stay, so it's definitely the advertising that’s getting people there.

Nobody even knew what the little town was; we put it on the map. Today, everybody knows all about the little town because of the efforts of Juliana, the website, the SEO, and all that. She built the last website a couple of years ago. With the current website, she employed all kinds of new technologies. I don't know what they are, but we became much more mobile-friendly. Your SEO is certainly tied to how effective the website is, and the technologies that it's using, and how new it is.

This year, we are up 40% revenue in sales. That is the best indicator. We were strong in a lot of categories, like number of website visits, time that people spent on the website, number of pages viewed, and so on, but the new website’s performance even shocked Juliana. Now, more people were coming to the website and more people were staying longer. We have a very high rating on TripAdvisor for people's enjoyment of the site. She issues reports; it's all unbelievable.

How did JH Consulting perform from a project management standpoint?

She is fabulous. We mostly communicate through email, but when we started the second website, we sat down for 3 hours and laid out a budget and a plan, and then she went and executed it.

What did you find most impressive about them?

I set her up as an independent contractor and helped her form JH Consulting. I could tell she was going to be a very successful person and I wanted to help her.

I like to mentor people. I have 7 children of my own, and I've mentored all of them. I enjoy doing it. She decided that it was time for her to go out on her own.

She is cost-effective. She is a star; I could tell right from the beginning. She worked for me, but then went out on her own, and kept me as a client. That was the launch of her company, and her first assignment was to build a website for Greer Lodge Resort & Cabins, and she did that. It was a great website.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't see how. I just have rave reviews about everything she does, and it's all done very cost-effectively.

Advice for potential customers?

She's very good at describing things. Listen to her information and provide her with a lot of information. You really have to work together as a team. I understand in depth what we're doing. When it comes to promoting posts and tweets, I don't understand how to tweet, who is tweeting, and stuff like that; but she's definitely been a partner and I understand all the SEO stuff.