Boyink! - Spring Forward on the Web

Hey Folks -

Just a quick announcement.

As of today, Boyink Interactive will no longer be providing quotes for church website projects.

This decision comes after much deliberation and realizing that in six years of being in business I have talked with literally dozens of churches and have only ended up doing one site.

One.

As conversion rates go, that’s abysmal.  And not at all what my experience has been for projects coming out of the business world where my success rate is much higher.

And yes - it usually boils down to an issue of price.  I’m just not able to build sites with the level of design, content and functionality that churches are after for the budgets that I’m seeing churches come in with. 

Don’t get me wrong - I still have a passion for seeing the big “C” Church use the web in better ways than in the past.  But it’s clear that the way for me to have the most influence on getting the Church there isn’t to build better websites for a large number of (little “c”) churches.  So rather than attempting to hire myself out to find fish for churches, I’m going to focus on teaching to fish instead—which currently will be through the Building a Church Site on ExpressionEngine series on Train-ee.com.

If you represent a church and are seeking a web designer or developer, I’d suggest registering and posting in the Godbit Forums for some leads on help.

Comments are closed, but you can read the comments other people left.

1. Rick on May 05, 2008

   Bravo!

2. Peter on May 05, 2008

   Can only understand you too well ;)

3. Nathan Smith on May 05, 2008

   Mike: I feel your pain, and respect your frankness.

4. Leovenous on May 05, 2008

   Mike, this doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I’ve had somewhat similar experiences. Here’s to the big “C”.

5. James Higginbotham on May 05, 2008

   Mike, great decision!

   It can only improve your ability to serve customers that have the budget and intent for your services. As a benefit, it will prevent churches from spending their time and yours going through the motions only to realize they probably can’t afford your services (or aren’t as serious about their web initiative as many think they are).

6. Tony Whittaker on May 06, 2008

   People want everything free online!

   If it helps any churches looking at how to create a website that reaches out into the community, Internet Evangelism Day has produced a church website design self-assessment tool ( InternetEvangelismDay.com/design )
   to help.

   Blessings

   Tony

7. David Reimer on May 06, 2008

   Mike writes: “...I’m going to focus on teaching to fish instead…”—*greatly* to the benefit of those wanting to fish more effectively. Makes (sad but) eminently good sense.

8. Deborah on May 06, 2008

   Mike,

   I can understand what a difficult decision this was for you. However, the advice and support at your training-ee.com site will benefit many more churches.

9. Ty on May 07, 2008

   I wonder how many of the churches that you spoke with ended up with a dynamic CMS site? Probably the same number 1.
   They maybe ended up with a hosted service provider, site builder type of setup, or somebody’s kid had a copy of dreamweaver or frontpage and through something together.
   It takes a piece of work to keep a site updated, and in the end it is what serves the purpose, and who is dedicated to keeping the site updated, so that the site gets plenty of use.
   I bet they all settled for less than there expectations.

10. Brandon Steiger on May 09, 2008

    Hey Mike,

    While I understand your frustrations I can tell you that more and more churches everyday are being filled with powerful thinkers and dreamers when it comes to the Web. This new generation of movers and shakers are realizing that to do great things on the web they must also pay the price.

    We have continued to see a number of churches come our way that want to do it right but are just scared to spend that type of money, but we have learned with the right guidance from internal champions that more and more churches are doing it right.

    While we respect and honor your decision I think the trend is slowly changing…

    Brandon

11. Crissa on May 09, 2008

    I’m glad to hear that Brandon:

    I’ll be the first one to suggest that the issue could be entirely on my end - either it’s my own branding and personality that isn’t attracting the churches willing to pay the price for quality, or my business model just isn’t right, or I don’t know how to find those internal champions. 

    Or, maybe I’m just tired..;)

    Regardless - I’m feeling like it’s time for me to step away from church websites for now.

    I’ll be happy to refer future church leads to you guys if you want.

12. Crissa on May 09, 2008

    (And yes, once again it’s Boyink posting from the wife’s laptop…

13. Brandon Steiger on May 10, 2008

    Thank you—but its not saying that we have had our fair share of churches that have high demands ands incredibly low budgets. I’m sure we have all heard the lines, “We have a volunteer….”

    bjs

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