Sayenko Design

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.

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.