Sayenko Design

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of Spirit Walker Expeditions. We offer guided sea kayaking trips in Glacier Bay, Alaska.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

We had an 8- or 9-year-old website that was not responsive, and we needed to update it and turn it into a responsive site. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We had a limited budget, but we basically needed to redo our whole website. I talked to a number of different companies, and Sayenko was the only one that could do the project in our price range and appeared to have the capabilities to do it well. They had a thorough intake process, and we had a number of review processes and iterations that we collaborated with them on. That process went really well.

They built the site on WordPress, we populated it with content and photos, and then we launched it. The site is a pretty standard WordPress site. Given our budget and our needs, we didn't want anything too intricate. Sayenko also made it a lot easier for us to manage our calendar, which was great. I don't know how custom that was.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I got recommendations from friends, and I also looked for companies online. Sayenko was referred to me by another company that usually didn't do projects this small, but they knew that Sayenko often beat them on price for projects of this size. I thought that was a good recommendation.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

I feel comfortable saying we spent less than $10,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working on the project in January of 2017 and ended in February of 2017. I assume that if we want to update the site or make changes, we’ll go back to Sayenko to do that. We don't have anything else planned right now. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or impact of the engagement?

One of the biggest things that drove us to make a responsive site was the bounce rate we saw from our mobile visitors. That bounce rate appears to have decreased by about 20% to 25%.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Sayenko did great from a project management standpoint. We always knew where they were and what they were doing. They let us know when they needed stuff from us. That worked well. We mostly used email to communicate. They used a prototyping tool to share designs with us and allow us to make comments. I don't know if that falls under the project management side, but that was the only bit of technology we used for communication other than email.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

We had a very tight budget. I would have liked to have had another $4,000 or $5,000 to do the work, but they took the project, even though it was small; they gave it their full attention and built a solid website for us that had a good visual design, which was more than I was expecting.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

I don't know if this should have been in their service or not, but it would have been nice if they had helped us think a little bit more about transitioning from our old site to our new site in terms of maintaining URLs or doing redirects. I’m not sure that was necessarily part of their mandate, though, given the tight budget we had. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

HAWI Management is an athlete management company that represents track and field athletes as well as world-class triathlon athletes. I’m the founder.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

I wanted to have a more professional and vibrant website to make a good first impression on people we may not meet in person and it may be the first place they go when we give them a business card.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

The site was built on WordPress and is pretty simple. The site looks professional and is mobile friendly and easy to navigate. It has some video incorporated into it and a very nice landing page. The website is hosted on their server.

I have worked with Sayenko on several other websites for some of my clients as well. One of them started out as a simple site but has grown over time to include e-commerce, social media, videos, photos, etc. I’ve worked with Mike to continue to update the site in terms of content, layout, and e-commerce. It’s been fun to watch the website grow.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I knew Mike Sayenko when he was an Olympic trials marathon qualifier. He was just getting his business started and I’ve seen it evolve into one of the best in the industry.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

I’ve spent over $10,000 with them for both of the projects I mentioned.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in 2013, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We also have a submission form on our website, so we get a lot of leads for speaking engagements and prospective sponsors for my client. We also have a specific outreach for anyone interested in having my client coach and consult with them to help improve their running. So those are inquiries that come to our inbox on a regular basis. That shows that people are coming to the website and navigating it in such a way that they’re getting to know who we are and are eager to interact with us.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Sayenko Designs under-promises and over-delivers. He lets you know what he’s capable of doing, what the timeline is, and what the costs are. I work directly with Mike and we communicate mainly through email and attached documents.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

I really like the process Sayenko has for identifying exactly what the client wants. Sometimes there is a misunderstanding between what the service provider can provide and what the client is looking for. Mike and his team do a good job of making sure there’s clear communication on what the expectations are from the client. Once the expectations are clear, in writing, and authorized, then they execute on that plan. He let me preview the site before launching it making sure I was satisfied with the results.

I know Mike does SEO really well but we haven’t utilized that as much because we’re not looking for tons of hits on our site. We just want to make sure that the people that find the website have a great experience. He’s a big advocate of SEO to make sure the website is a top hit for your industry, so we may utilize that more in the future. The timeliness has always been great and that’s been an issue with other firms I’ve used. He’s very realistic on the timeline and he always delivers.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

No. So far, everything has been good.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of marketing at a theatrical supply house that does event engagements, rentals, builds, and draperies.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

Because our company does so many different types of business, one website didn't really reflect all of those different areas incredibly well. We'd received an enthusiastic recommendation for Sayenko Design from one of our business partners, so we engaged them to do a specialty subdomain for our event services group.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We contacted Sayenko Design and exchanged a few emails, and then they came to us to figure out who we are and what we’re about. We discussed the process and what the division of work might be, and then they gave us some options, which included everything from a bare-bones site to the dream site we could have with an unlimited budget.

Once we determined where we wanted to be on that spectrum, they used WordPress to build the site. One person worked on the site’s design and infrastructure. Another one really worked on keyword discovery and copy. They were really good at keeping on our case to provide them with customer testimonials, event images, and other content pieces that would make the site effective.

What event services does is provide the technical underpinnings of a successful live event. That means lighting, sound, video, and staging. Sayenko Design helped us figure out how to effectively communicate what event services is, and what our customers are getting when they hired us. Now, we have an incredibly visual website that is divided into appropriate event types and customer categories with keyword-ranked information about each event.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

We belong to an industry association that recommended Sayenko Design to us out of the blue. The people within the event services department had been pushing for a more robust and focused web presentation. I've launched a lot of websites in the course of my 15-year career, and when I spoke to the people at Sayenko Design, you could tell that they absolutely knew what they were doing. They knew best practices, and they had a keen grasp of effective workflow and project management. We didn't even bother bidding out the work. We received a strong recommendation and the initial interview went well, so we went forward with them.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

I want to say we invested around $5,000 with Sayenko Design.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Unfortunately, around the same time that the new website was launched, our event services department experienced substantial personnel changes, so we really stepped back from promoting the site during that time of upheaval. The website is still active today, but I would have a difficult time giving you any hard metrics on it. The current people running the department have absolutely made use of it — not as much as we’d hope, but it has been updated to a certain extent. It’s being maintained appropriately; Sayenko Design and our team are occasionally adding content. The website continues to be a useful marketing tool that drives good leads.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Sayenko Design was always clear and upfront. We used emails and phone calls to stay in touch. They had no problems sticking to their deadlines, and they were good about prompting us to provide the content we had agreed to provide. I know the entire process would have been much faster had we been providing the assets requested of us in a more timely manner. At no point were things lagging because of Sayenko Design.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

Sayenko Design was professional and efficient, and they provided a fair value for the price. I wish our own internal issues had not gotten in the way of maximizing the value of the great new tool they had provided us; what they did provide was exactly what we needed.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

I can’t think of any ways Sayenko Design could improve. They did a fantastic job.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of Mark Schaefer Magic Entertainment Company. I specialize in corporate magic.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

I had just moved here to the Seattle market from Los Angeles. I had an outdated web presence and little to no social media. Back in Los Angeles, most of my business came from word-of-mouth. I really wanted to establish a cleaner, more corporate look because that’s my clientele. I also wanted help to establish a presence here in the Seattle area, given that I had no presence here before moving.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It started off with a call to make sure that we were a match for each other and then I really talked to him in-depth. They actually had a really good process that helped me extrapolate what I was trying to do in my words. Then they presented it back to me with how they envisioned it and how they thought the process should flow. They discussed everything, from persona creation, to what market I was trying to reach and the type of content that I wanted to put up there. Their work included search engine optimization, blogging, and some analytics around my website. They introduced me to targeted AdWords and how that process works, whether it’s Facebook or Google. From start to finish, they helped me not only create a new brand, look, and logo, but a complete refresh. Aside from my website and graphic content, they created my new logo, business cards, stationery, everything. The website was all done in WordPress. They added some plugins to WordPress for scripting such as MailChimp.

I also have an interactive portion that I do with my audience to drive them to my website. That was Mike’s idea. I took the creative side of the magic and he did the programmatic coding for the backend. We just launched that about 30 days ago. I used him recently for some analytics questions and tweaking that I needed. We also did an update of the content, videos, and pictures that we are going to be putting back up.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I found Mike via a referral from another friend in the industry. Initially, I reviewed 4 different companies. I like to support local businesses, but 2 of the agencies that I spoke to were not even in the state and the other one was very far away. Mike is local here. That was only 1 deciding factor, though. Mike had never worked with a magician before, so he was really eager to take on this challenge. He very quickly gave me his pitch. Once Mike took all my information, he walked through their methodology, how they would attack the project, their timing, and the duration. He did so in such detail that it really made me feel comfortable that he would deliver a product that I would enjoy.

What is the status of this engagement?

We launched last year, so it’s been 10 to 12 months. We worked on it and then we put it on hold for a bit, and then we came back to it. We actually had a soft launch in the first weeks of January 2016 and we went live in February. I will absolutely continue to work with Mike for other engagements.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

I spent $6,000 to $8,000 total for my project from start to finish.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Actually, it’s a perfect day to have this call with you. I got 2 really big contacts today commenting on my site and how they found me. Literally 20 to 30 minutes ago, I got a contact from a very large entertainment agency here in the Seattle area. They have a lot of interested people and wanted to know if I could be part of a 4-month show downtown in Seattle. They were commenting on the website, how fast it is, and how clean it is. This is the only brand I have in the Seattle area as far as imagery and such, and it’s been serving me well and driving people to my business.

Right away, I’ll say in the first 10 days of my side launching, I got 6 shows booked. I asked how they all found me and they said they found my website through a Google search. Even before I performed and signed contracts with these folks, I was getting comments about how the presence of my site looks exactly like the image that they would want from an entertainer. It’s clean, crisp, and corporate looking. The amount of clicks and the click to conversion rate I am getting far surpassed what I expected. The bounce rate is also very low compared to the industry average. Also, we added the ability to sign up for my newsletter. Within 2 weeks, I got several hundred people signed up. I was like “Wow. What magic is he working?” He also helped me to launch a Facebook ad.

I’ve done magic for all of the top 10 Seattle-based corporations on a repeat basis. I didn’t have that before launch. When I look at my competition in the area, with the exception of 1 person now, everyone has a pretty weak, outdated web presence. A lot of times, I don’t get to speak to a potential buyer. They see my website and that’s their first impression. I was really focused on having a strong, fast impression that conveyed who I am and why would it be beneficial to hire me. A lot of times, Mike challenged me to think differently and I think it’s paying off.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They actually are really good at that. They are very upfront about deadlines. They were chasing me down for things that they needed from me. I jokingly say it was a nightmare then because I was so busy, but they were trying to make sure they met their deadlines, which really paid off. Their process and follow-up pushed me to make sure that we kept the project moving forward. They fire off messages to me to review things and to follow up on requests for information, whether it’s keywords, imagery, or reference content. Any delay was always because of me. Mike literally—I don’t know how he does it as it’s a small company—gets back to me right away. I never wait more than 24 hours for a response.

What did you most impressive about Sayenko Design?

I would go back to one of the reasons I hired them. It’s not the cheapest solution or one of these inexpensive site creation promises. He really took the time to get to know me and to understand the business. The competitive analysis that they did for me at the beginning was amazing. I had just moved here and I didn’t know my competition in this area. His focus on detail and his passion around the call to action was great. He doesn’t just take any work—he really drives and wants a long-term partner, not a customer. He proactively will call me and say, “I noticed this month that your conversion is really high. What is it that you’re doing and how can we help you repeat it?” So I see Mike as kind of a business consultant to me, someone to bounce ideas off of. That’s something that people that work with him should know about. He is going to take time to really understand you and your business. It’s not just a short transaction and then off to the next customer. At least, that was my interaction with him.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

The only thing that I would say would be that he can’t scale. As his business continues to grow, he should make sure that he has people that are able to help him grow. A lot of times, people like myself need things really quickly. His success in business and the amount of customers coming to him probably make it tough for him sometimes. I work directly each time with Mike, but then he outsources it to somebody else and then they call me and then I call Mike back for the most part. Again, it’s not a weakness. I just think that as his business grows, hopefully, he will hire more people so that he can scale even more.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the president of a company that sells care packages containing food products on the Internet. We mostly sell on Amazon as a third-party seller.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

We wanted a website built for a new product line. Before Sayenko Design designed and built our e-commerce website, Amazon was the main way we sold our products.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We hired Sayenko Design to create our WordPress site because we wanted an additional external marketplace for purchases. We also wanted to increase our marketing and visibility to customers. After the site was launched, they helped troubleshoot issues with payments and orders so that everything ran smoothly. Sayenko Design also did a marketing review. We’re still paying them to host the site and provide some minor monthly maintenance support and updates.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I originally had reached out to 5 or 6 different web companies in the Seattle area, and Sayenko Design was one of them. I contacted some of his former clients and altogether he just seemed like the best option. He owns the company and he seemed like he was available, and I like working with people who are available. At the time, he seemed to be the best option for us.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

We’ve paid around $20,000 for their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together about 3 months before we launched the site, which was around the end of November. It was done by then or the most part, but there were definitely some kinks we had to work out a week or 2 after that.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

It’s hard to quantify. Our customers haven’t had many issues with ordering, so in that sense, the site is effective at doing what it’s supposed to do. The design also works really well. I’ve had friends and family check out the website and they like it and think it works.

The traffic has been disappointing, but I wouldn't blame Sayenko Design for that. It’s probably more because of the reality of how people shop online. We do a lot of business on Amazon, and we thought we would be able to do well on our own website. I think SEO and marketing just need to be ramped up.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They did fine from a project management standpoint. Communication was tough sometimes, but overall I think they’re pretty responsive, especially the last week before the website launched. They definitely stepped up that week and worked really hard to make sure we got everything done. We mostly communicated via email, but there were a few phone calls and online conferences. There were a couple of different stages of the project where he was coming up with a lot of ideas and did a lot of the design work on his own. Toward the end, we were collaborating a lot to complete the finishing touches. Most of the work was done between Mike and a partner who’s more of a WordPress professional.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

I really liked that they were local, available, and that they're a small business. I’m a small business, so I appreciate that. A lot of the web firms around Seattle are big multi-million dollar firms, but I like to work with smaller companies, so that was nice.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

About midway through the process, I was a little worried the website wouldn't be done in time because he left for a vacation a week or 2 before we were supposed to launch the website. That being said, he did kick it into high gear when he got back and he met the deadline in the long run. But I had no idea he was going to do that. Sometimes when companies disappear on you, they don't come back.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner and president of Blackspoke, a government contracting company. We are primarily IT consultants for the federal government.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

We were trying to establish credibility by having a professional web presence for our company. We wanted a static one-page presence.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It was pretty straightforward. Sayenko did a WordPress template-based website design. It incorporated some custom photography that a local photographer did of the actual employees and myself. They did some PDF brochure design as well. It's a non-interactive static site that just provides information about the company. They did most of the technical implementation. I had a pretty well-formed idea of how I wanted it to look and the sites that I liked. We wrote all the content ourselves as it would have been challenging for someone else to write our content. Sayenko did do a little bit of tech editing and content editing, but that's about it.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I did a web search. We found a company that was a little too expensive for what we wanted because we didn't want anything too advanced. Fortunately, that company recommended Sayenko Design. I don't know if it's changed, but at that time they were taking on slightly smaller engagements like our website .

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

We probably spent around $10,000 on the website.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with Sayenko Design from May 2015 to August or September 2015. We pay them a monthly fee for hosting as well as updates to WordPress. We haven't had the need to do any updates but if we do, we have discussed a ballpark figure for it.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

They did a great job. It's a great site with fixed pages, exactly what we wanted. We've had a lot of compliments on the site and it’s been well-received. I don't have any objective measure of how successful it's been. I'm very happy with the finished project.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

We're on the East Coast and they're on the West Coast, so we primarily used email for communicating everything and that was fine. We're a relatively small company and I took this project on directly as the owner. There wasn't a lot of bureaucracy on our side and I interfaced pretty much directly with Mike. It was easy to coordinate things because, at the time, both of us were relatively small companies.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

I think they were good. I know that they have a great way of walking people through a project. I'm probably a different use case because I had a really well-thought out idea of what I wanted. The one thing I will say is Mike did a really good job of implementing my vision, which is not always easy to do for people who have their own ideas and are good at their particular job. Sometimes it means saying, “I wouldn't do it that way but you're the customer.” He did a really good job of doing some things that weren't his. He would make recommendations about things. I appreciated their flexibility in implementing someone else's vision that's not necessarily what they would have chosen to do. It turned out well.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

They went through some struggles with their hosting provider that has since been resolved. We had a couple of issues with the site going down due to denial-of-service attacks, someone maliciously doing something so the provider shut down access to the site. That happened 6 or 8 months ago but it hasn't happened since. I know right around that time they switched to a new hosting provider, cloud provider. It's been resolved and I wouldn't necessarily consider it their issue anyway. Granted, they chose the provider. but it wasn't anything they could directly control.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

My wife and I are independent distributors for a company called AdvoCare. We have one of the largest distributorships in the country for the company. We train people to use our products, lifestyle supplement packages, and systems. We develop business and build up distribution for the company as well. Those are the 2 facets of our company. 

Our personal brand is Rise Champions. We have our website RiseChampions.com that coaches people about our business or our products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

We feel like when we’re face to face with people, we generally get the business that we want. We wanted our website to bring our personality to life in a video form. The website should show what it’s like to meet us and hear our story firsthand.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sayenko Design did a branding overhaul for our Rise Champions brand. They worked on the logo as well as a simple layout for the page that made people curious about us. People who go to the site would hear stories, see testimonials, and connect with us. They did everything that goes into a 5-page website, which was built on WordPress. Sayenko also set up a blog where we could post articles and things. That blog is connected to Facebook and Twitter. They also set up an email campaign for people who want coaching on our products. We can gather their information, send them a customized program, and follow up with them appropriately.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I met him at a business networking event. He was a guest of someone else that I knew in the group. It was someone that knew him personally, so that helped. Then I went to his site and looked at the work he did for branding. We liked his designs and everything about the style that he created for people. That’s what originally attracted us.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

We paid $8,000 for Sayenko Design’s services.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project started in July 2015 and was completed in September 2015.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Sayenko understood what we were trying to do with the site. They nailed that first-person experience that we wanted so that visitors feel as if they are just sitting down with us. We intentionally did not try to do a lot of SEO and web search because our business is more relational. The site is intended as an introduction for people who’ve met us in person. Those people can go to the site and see our story and who we’re already working with. It’s allowed a lot of them to say, “Hey, here’s the people that’ve helped me. Go check out their story. We’re excited to see how they can help you, too.”

There was a wow factor and a lot of people were jealous of the site that we created. Actually, I’ve seen a lot of people copycat some of what we’ve done. People in our business have tried to emulate it. To quantify, we have 100 leads every month that come to the site, and we convert 10 of them into paying customers. We don’t really track that. We’re really happy with the results that we’ve had. We’ve considered cranking up our advertising a little bit, but honestly, business is good. We have a lot of clients already. We know that we could turn it on if we need to, but so far we haven’t had to turn that on.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They were very organized. I could see his calendar and he would call me exactly when he told me he was going to call. He was definitely disciplined about getting back to us. They were always super responsive. Whenever we consulted them, they gave us good advice. It was nice that they were truthful about things, too. “We shouldn’t do that,” or “Yeah, we can do that.” They listened and tried to really understand our business. It felt like we were able to bounce things off because we have a unique business.

They were also very detail-oriented when describing how to get more traffic and things like that. Almost too detailed for me, which is good because that’s not my strength. We received robust documents about strategy and comparisons to other sites and competitors. I also got a lot of takeaway about search optimization. The information they gave would really help us do more things with our site, should be want to be able to do that. A year later, they were even able to resend the documents that I lost in my email. They’ve definitely got it dialed in and really did things differently. I’ve worked in technology before and ran projects, so I’ve seen the good and the bad of project management. Sayenko definitely handled it well.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

I was impressed by the cutting-edge design and the clean look. It’s different from what a lot of people are putting out there, and it’s pretty relevant and hip. Sayenko Design knows what works. They provided more value than what we requested. It was more than the basic, “Design me a website.” More than a year later, they still responded to my inquiries. When I have questions or different thing come up, they’ll still take my call and discuss things. The best part is they didn’t charge me for it. If I were going to do add things, I would expect to be billed for it. But they’ve definitely responded and helped answer questions along the way. In my 14 years in business, I’ve probably had my website done about 8 different times. I haven’t had anyone do it this thorough with as much documentation, support, and professionalism. They definitely worked way beyond, and that’s what I was most impressed with.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

None.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of Eko Creative. We provide marketing services for other companies and clients. Our client was the Invention Development Fund. Their business allows clients to access inventors and work with them.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

Our client's biggest goal was the ability edit this new site themselves. They had to contact an IT [information technology] person when they needed to edit things in their previous website.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Part of the reason we went with Sayenko Design is because it offered a more holistic program. That included a marketing perspective on the voice of the website. I had already done a lot of work with my client in terms of what we wanted to say on the new site. We also did a lot of work in determining what kind of sites we liked. Then, we brought Mike [Sayenko] of Sayenko Design into the project. I think he does a lot of that with other clients, but we skipped part of that.

He built us a new site on WordPress – that was the platform. He made the back-end user-friendly. It was a fast turnaround considering it was a whole new site. He worked with us during a period of a month and a half – six to eight weeks – to fine tune the site into something that we wanted. We were able to launch with a phase one home page, and then we built the site further after we launched it. We kept building out different pages and features. The site had case study pages, portfolio pages, and service pages. It also had features for movement and animation as we added video. Sayenko provided all the hosting, updates, and security.

I was in charge of the inventor side of the website, pages that we put out there to the inventors. We needed to create templates that I could then duplicate for other requests for invention. For this requirement, I worked closely with Mike. Then, we started targeting the client side and the inventor side. Once that started, Sayenko Design helped us add Google AdWords, banner ads, and display network ads. We also had a monthly report of the analytics of both the site and the advertising that we were doing. In a way, Sayenko Design was managing our entire digital presence.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

My client wanted a local person, but we also sourced some that were not local. Sayenko Design was one of those options that I presented to my client. Initially, I located around seven designers. The reason we chose Mike after doing all those interviews was because he was offering a full service. He would do the hosting, security, and backups. Plus, he would help with the AdWords and the design. We could also have as much or as little support as we wanted once the site was up. I think that there's many places where they are focused on the design, but they're not going to help you manage any of your hosting or vice versa. That was nice.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

We spent around $8,000 to $10,000 initially to build the website. Mike provided a set rate for the initial website project. Once we got through the scope of our initial website build, Mike worked with us at $100 an hour for additional things we needed design-wise. We also used the Sayenko Design maintenance plan for hosting, which was $40 a month. In addition to our website build, we paid $6,000to set-up our AdWords campaigns (several), then once we started doing regular changes, we spent anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 a month. This amount does not include the AdWords spend, just Sayenko Design's services. Over the course of a year, our spending was around $50,000 to $60,000 if you total it all up. There were other one-off tasks that probably cost more.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our relationship with Sayenko Design lasted for about a year and a half. He pitched to us on August 12, 2015, and we had a statement of work to him by August 25. Our first website meeting was on August 26, 2015. We went live with our website in mid-September. That was just the initial page, but we started adding features at the end of September to October. It was by November and December that we started doing all the inventor landing pages and templates. We hired him at the end of August, and I think he had the first round out for us within four weeks. Then we just kept adding to the site.

We discontinued the relationship just recently, around the start of August of this year [2016]. It had no bearing on Sayenko Design at all. It was strictly because the Invention Development Fund spun into an entirely different company. They decided to go with a bigger agency for their design, collateral, branding, and website. It had nothing to do with Mike. We're happy to recommend Mike. He was awesome.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

Anecdotally, we got incredibly good feedback internally and from our client. When they saw the new web page, it was almost transformational from what they had had before. From an internal marketing perspective, it made the team workflow much more efficient. The team was more productive because they could edit in real time. That is something that all websites should be able to do nowadays, but my client didn't have that.

The business model isn't simple. It's not like, "You want to buy blue shoes? Click on an ad and buy them." They worked with us to do more experimental AdWords because we have to build relationships with both our inventors and our client. We definitely were able to generate brand awareness. There were a lot of contact forms and lead generation, although I don't have specific numbers. During the course of our AdWords campaigns, we definitely saw increased traffic flow and click-through flow. The Sayenko Design team worked with us to tailor and tweak it to be more effective. The spend went down, but what we were getting was more relevant, so that was good.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Sayenko Design absolutely met timelines. In terms of communication, Mike was very quick to respond. As we were building out something more recently, he started using Asana. It is a project management tool and he invited me to be part of it. It was helpful. Sometimes, it's hard when you're giving feedback on a website to put it in an email and say, "OK, in this section, we want this change – that kind of thing." It was a little challenging because we have a team of three people putting our input together. We had to make sure that nothing was missed. Overall, Mike was responsive. If we noticed that something got skipped, he addressed it immediately, so it was not as if it caused us any major harm.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

The Sayenko Design team was awesome. Seriously, their AdWords guy is one of the best I have ever worked with. He was great. Mike was also super helpful. Any time we got stuck, he was responsive and helped us fix little things. I think that he is incredibly professional.

Even from the pitch, he had a deck. He had looked at who we were as a company and what our message needed to be. Design-wise, we wanted something that was simple, clean, clear, and not busy. That's his style and that meshed with us. I think that's why we ended up going with him. He was actually a little bit more expensive than the some of the other vendors, but not prohibitively so. What he had to offer was worth the price.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

Probably the only thing to improve was our email communication. We had these long email exchanges. A particular update might get skipped, and we'd have to remind him because it was lost in an email. Then, we started doing more bite-sized stuff in headings, which helped. It was a communication thing that was resolved.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Washington Rock Quarries is an aggregates and material supplier. Basically, we're a rock quarry. We blast for materials and crush them for use or screen and grade them. We produce gravel, sand, topsoil, and ground rock. I am the media specialist for Washington Rock Quarries. I help with various projects and assist the sales team in creating advertising materials and maintaining the website. I was the project manager for the website creation.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

The son of one of our employees built the old website, and the only experience he had was a high school website design class. Our old website wasn't doing much for us. It provided contact information, but that was about it. Our website didn't show up on the first page of the search results on Google. I think if you went a couple of pages in you might find it, but we were competing with many local businesses to place on search results.

A big challenge was figuring out how to display our materials. The previous website just had a couple of pages with a bunch of pictures on them. It was disorganized and not very helpful. I had a rough idea of what I wanted the website to look like and how it should function. I had text and photos. We needed to come up with an overall design and figure out how to display the products in a way that would be useful to users.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Sayenko Design helped present our company through text so that we would rank in search results. They did SEO [search engine optimization] and organized the home page so that it was user-friendly. Google has certain algorithms to determine how your website will rank. They helped to eliminate some of the problems we had like broken links and pictures that weren't the right size. They also helped us figure out keywords and phrases that would help us rank better.

Sayenko Design built an entirely new website on the WordPress platform so that I could edit it. They added a blog, and they organized our service pages. They made our contact information more accessible. They added a form so that people could contact us. It was a complete overhaul.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I Googled a bunch of companies, and I must have talked to 10 or 15 of them. I interviewed a couple based on their price points. Then, I made a preliminary decision about which one I thought would work best. I presented it to our sales team, and they agreed with me. I thought about a place in New York, but I went with Sayenko because they're local, and they had consistent reviews on Google. I also liked their portfolio.

How much have you invested with Sayenko Design?

We spent about $15,000 on the website itself. Sayenko Design also has a maintenance fee, around $70 a month. We paid about $800 upfront.

What is the status of this engagement?

We decided to work with Sayenko Design in the beginning of March [2016]. The website was completed in the middle of May.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

We've been getting about 1,000 new sessions and about 30 to 35 form submissions on the website per month. We've received a couple of new clients, large contractors who found products or information about us on the website. Contractors would typically call us on the phone to ask for a quote. Now, many of them use the Contact Us form on the website to ask about materials and other information.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

I mentioned in my Google review that Sayenko Design had some room for improvement in this area. Sometimes, I wonder if they had an account manager who manages everything. Overall, they seemed to be not communicating with each other about the project. There was some disorganization. For example, I worked with Matt [Sheeks], who was the SEO guy. It was good working with him, but I didn't start working with him until after we had decided on the overall format for the site. The problem was that he had some suggestions about content organization and the different sections of our website. That was a bit frustrating because we had already decided on the design. To take some of his suggestions would have required us to change some aspects of the design.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

Mike was the project coordinator for our account, and I liked that he had a solid vision for how to make our website work. He was willing to talk to me about some of the ideas that I had and what might work better. I have a little bit of experience with WordPress and some HTML. The scope of the project was complicated, but he made it easy to work with him. He was good at pushing back on ideas and helping to develop them. He even showed me how to set up and fill in the information for a template so we could save money on having someone else do it.

Mike was also prompt about responding to email. He was easy to get hold of and personable. I'm not sure how big their organization was or how many clients they had, but I got the idea that they had a lot of clients. They were still able to make time to do fixes when I asked them to.

In addition, Sayenko Design was flexible about how we paid them. In general, making a website for a quarry is kind of challenging because the construction industry is not that exciting.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

I would have appreciated more clarity about how their contract works. They based the contract on the number of hours it would take, and I think the initial quote they gave was unrealistic. It's probably because the scope of the project wasn't clear because they had never worked with a company like ours before. They didn't realize we had 100 products, and they're all rocks. The creation of the catalog threw them off a little bit.

I was a little bit disappointed because I think our initial estimate was like $9,800. I was surprised when they told us they ran out of hours. A little bit more clarity about how the contract works would be nice. Sometimes, I got a little bit irritated when I would ask Mike if his team could do something. Instead of giving me a quote, he would say, "Well, I don't think you guys need to do that." Most of the time, I just wanted a quote. Maybe he needs to be more open-minded and just give the customer what they want, regardless of whether he agrees with it or not.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

My company is a social networking platform for professional networking and identifying economic opportunity.

What is your position?

My role is senior global wellness manager. I oversee our wellness program across all of our offices.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Sayenko Design?

We do not have any dedicated resources to create our marketing collateral. Our program is heavily based on promoting the events that we've put on and any opportunities for people to engage in wellness. We have one internal resource that just couldn't handle the workflow, and so we went to Sayenko Design to support our effort to turn around and create marketing materials.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their involvement in detail.

We provide Sayenko Design a drawing and they turn it into a digital asset and draft up designs for us to consider. This is all internal. Our program is only for our employees, and so we don't do any external marketing of the program. Now, we do have some things that Sayenko Design has created for us like the design of the T-shirts that we give to our employees at a running event that we sponsor. That could be externally facing because people are seeing those, but everything was for our people and promoted internally to employees.

Ultimately, what everything resulted in was some sort of asset for us to promote our wellness program, whether it be through our digital displays, email marketing, print posters, or things of that nature.

How did you come to work with Sayenko Design?

I met Mike Sayenko [principal at Sayenko Design] through my relationship with some folks at my company. We were chatting one day with a coworker. I was expressing my need to find a reliable and cost-effective design partner, and they recommended Mike. I had the chance to meet Mike, and that's how we got going.

Could you provide a sense of the size of this initiative in financial terms?

We do on average between $15,000 to $30,000 a year with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started the program in 2011, and I believe we started working together in 2012. Our need has not diminished in terms of needing that external support to complement our one internal resource, so I don't see any end to the relationship. It's also been very effective for us. It's a great resource for people on my team when they need things turned around that our internal resource can't meet a deadline of. Sayenko Design is always our first choice for an external vendor.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any statistics or metrics from this engagement?

I think that measuring success is challenging with this particular line of work. I would say failure is easier to measure which, in our book, would be missing a deadline. That's never happened with Mike, and so I would say that's a measure of success. He's never missed a deadline for us and is always responsive and takes care of us.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

They are very organized, which is good. He gets the details. He has some templates that he works off of in order to gather the info. In our growth with him in time, he's very thorough in making sure that he has what he needs to do a project from the outset, which helps us avoid a lot of the back and forth. His structured approach allows for a lot of fact gathering so he knows we want to have. He's also a great instruction taker and knows what our end goal is.

What distinguishes Sayenko Design from other providers?

The thing I'd like to highlight is the personalized touch and the level of understanding that Sayenko puts into the project. Just in terms of working with him, much of what we do is very much a matter of trust. From a billing perspective, if someone says a project took them six hours to do, there's no way to prove it, so it's great that things get done in a timely and consistent fashion with Mike. He's always been very forthright and honest, and it's great to be able to work with someone of that nature. His integrity in that capacity and his openness with how he spends his time is always very much appreciated.

Is there anything Sayenko Design could have improved or done differently?

No. I wouldn't say improve. The only time that there could be improvement would be if his workload maybe surpassed our needs. We haven't had that happen yet, but we always run the risk of going to him with a tight deadline and him not being able to handle it because of current workload. Aside from that, I don't think there's anything I would highlight that could be improved upon.