Sayenko Design

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

I’ve tested all the links, and the site is pretty solid.

How did Sayenko Designs perform from a project management standpoint?

They got back to us the same day or within a day. They hit all project deadlines, and if there was a delay, it was because of us.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Mike did a good job — he delivered what he said he would. I thought the website came together really well and looks great.  Sayenko designed a fresh and contemporary website that allows us to stand out from our competitors.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything.

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

Now, the site gets lots of visits and comes up on Google more than it used to. People weren’t finding us before I worked with Sayenko. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from customers saying the site is easy to navigate and very informative. It looks really professional. People think we’re a huge company, but we’re rather small, but growing steadily.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

Mike did a great job. We had timelines, and he would touch base with us to explain different options. He met with us in person at times to show us what he had and allowed us to give feedback. He completed the project in a timely manner.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

Mike has an art background, and his knowledge spoke to me. I’m very creative and really wanted the graphics to look good. His background made me confident in what he was putting on the page. The site is designed really well, and it’s beautiful to look at, which was important to me.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

My partner and I are both women, and Mike would always call us “guys” in our communication over email. I thought that was funny. I would suggest not doing that to other clients. 

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

It’s still early for us to have hard metrics because the website was only launched in January. I think SEO stuff can take up to a year before you know where you sit. We checked the website about a month ago, and the traffic had gone up sevenfold. But, it’s hard to look critically at that because a lot of the traffic may be due to the fact that it’s new, we have employees visiting the site, etc. I wouldn't use that figure as a good benchmark, but at least it’s promising.

We have about 13 subsidiary companies, and this website is by far the best we have right now. We’ve received a lot of complimentary feedback from our other companies who are now looking to do something similar because of the quality of this project.

I don't think our team is leveraging the website as much as they could from a sales and an SEO standpoint, but that’s more of an internal issue than it is an issue with Sayenko. Our team does not have a dedicated website manager, so in terms of updating the blog and site, it could be a lot better. Again, we’ve gotten a lot of anecdotal feedback from other business leaders saying that they’ve been impressed with the website.

How did Sayenko Design perform from a project management standpoint?

I worked mainly with the owner, Mike, who is great, and another gentleman, Matt, I believe. I know they’re a relatively small team. Mike was the project manager and kind of our overarching point of contact. He drove the visuals and the strategic direction of the website, and then Matt did more of the technical work and helped us with some of the SEO copywriting. He also helped with uploading content and images as we finalized those on our end, and I believe he was also developing the pages.

Sayenko did really well from a project management standpoint. I think they struggle with some of the same limitations that any firm of their size does; because they’re a small team, there are always going to be little kinks or hiccups related to that. We did have to work through some of those challenges, but overall, they did a good job of managing the project and driving the process forward, and the product was great as well.

What did you find most impressive about Sayenko Design?

We have the experience of redesigning both our corporate website and our subsidiary website, and the redesign process with Sayenko was well ahead of the redesign we did with the corporate website. The subsidiary website is much more user-friendly, including the content management system on the backend, which is focused for our organization’s workers. Our employees, who are not technical or IT-specific, are able to use it and manipulate graphics and text pretty easily, whereas we’ve had a number of issues with our corporate website. There’s a huge contrast between both websites.

Are there any areas Sayenko Design could improve?

The only challenge we faced a couple of times throughout the project was regarding change orders, and I think that goes hand-in-hand with any IT-related project. With website design, particularly when you’re working with people who are not web designers, you don’t know what you don’t know. There were a few instances where our team ran into things that we knew we wanted, and Sayenko would come back and say, “That feature will cost you another $1,000.” We had assumed that we would be building a standard website. I think there was a little bit of a communication gap in the initial process, especially when you’re dealing with non-technical people who might not be flagging issues, such as a sticky menu bar that still shows no matter how far you scroll down the page. Things like that that you wouldn’t think to outline in an RFP [request for proposal] because you're not a website person, but when you get there, you realize, “Oh, we really do need that.” It might have been nicer to know some of those things up front that would be recommended to include on the site, rather than having to come back and do change orders down the road. But, I think that’s just a learning process for both sides. 

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.