The value in being so much more than just a “web designer”
To be honest, at this point in my career, I actually take a little offense when someone refers to me as just a “web designer” or “web developer”.
The real value in going down these career paths is growing to be much more of a higher-level strategist – really more of a business & digital consultant.
Often a client will come to you to “help build a website”… and once you start talking you’ll uncover other areas that might tie into the website (or might not), that need to be worked through first.
Real example here for you: I just met with a local client in my office this morning.
This guy is a serial entrepreneur and has numerous businesses himself and with his family in the area. Lots of cool stuff that’s mainly offline.
While the conversation was framed to talk about the simple 1 or 2 page site we’re building, it quickly shifted focus into other, more important areas too.
Things like: payment processing – how will customers purchase online? (That one is easy).
How will customers purchase offline – what are the POS options, what about physical card processing? How can manage check payments for in-person and out-of-state orders?
How should we design & manage leave behinds for our sales team? Is social media marketing & content creation worth doing for this business?
These are not “website” topics. These are business topics and decisions. But ones that you probably know pretty well if you’ve been in the “web design” space for any number of years.
One of the coolest parts of being in this space, is the different types of businesses & operators you’ll meet. The knowledge and experience gained over even just a few years really starts to stack up and compound.
THIS is what makes you so dang valuable to your clients.
It’s not just about knowing a framework, or being great at WordPress or Webflow, or knowing how to get 100 on PageSpeed Insights. These things are all great… but they’re niched down so much into just the creative or technical aspects of the craft.
In my experience, overtime the expertise can and SHOULD shift into being able to point out blind spots in other ares too, and provide solutions and feedback to help these people hit their actual BUSINESS GOALS.
This is how you start off by being called on to “build a website”, and instead end up being a continuous trusted partner for your clients for so much more.