About Mark Sapusek:
Visionary Web - www.visionaryweb.com

I started doing web design in 1995 and we started Visionary Web Design in 1997. I started doing contract work out of Chicago, IL and Indianapolis, IN. We have done more than 1000 projects for companies throughout the United States. Today our primary focus is on web development work and the name of the company is now Visionary Web, LLC (a division of NCI Ventures, LLC). In the parent company I am the CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) and in Visionary Web my responsibilities are that of project manager and existing client sales. My current job title with Visionary Web is Director of Web Solutions. I have worked individually with 100’s of clients and my main focus is on ROI for those customers. We love to do work where the client can see their return on investment in measurable standards. Early on in my career I spent a lot of time working with and teaching marketing departments for large corporations the how’s and why’s of web design.

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ball State University (1992) and some Master’s level coursework and additional studies in technology. I have been on the board of directors of many organizations within our community including the Chamber of Commerce, Small Business Development Center, Broadband Vision Group of Wabash County and Kiwanis. My wife and I are very involved in our community and regularly work with schools and church groups to strengthen our young people. Being from a small town in Indiana makes it even more vital that we stay active in the community.

I currently reside in Wabash, Indiana with my wife, Christina, and two children (8 and 11). We attend Saint Bernard Church in Wabash and are involved in the school and church community there. Christina is the President and CEO of the company. Visionary Web, LLC currently employs 5 full-time and 2 part-time individuals. The overall company employs 13 individuals with the need for additional growth in the coming months.

<Drop the Mike> I am interested in touching upon your past experiences in working with marketing departments on the how’s and why’s of web design. First, how have the attitudes towards it of the types of companies you talk to changed over the years? Has the type of customer, or the verticals, changed much for you over the years?

<Sapusek> When we first started out I did mostly training and a few web sites for local businesses. Training was our bread and butter. Most marketing companies or marketing departments did not have the skills necessary to upkeep their corporate web sites. Over the last 5-7 years this has changed dramatically. Almost every marketing department or marketing firm out there now has a web design guru on staff or at the very least most of the staff has had some training in web design. Needless to say we don’t do as much training for this type of customer any longer, but we do still maintain some of those relationships and now provide programming support to marketing firms, marketing departments and other web design firms. We changed our focus from training to actual design and then over the last 5 years our focus has been on back-end development services. We have tried to change our focus as the needs of our customers have changed.

<Drop the Mike> What are some of the most common obstacles/concerns you have had to address? How do/did you address each of those?

<Sapusek> Early on the obstacles, locally, were that almost no business owners even knew what the web was or how it would affect or help their business. Focusing on training and being involved with economic development in our region early on helped us to teach the local businesses what the web was how and it could be useful for their businesses. Most of our work early on was done for clients throughout the United States, primarily on the coasts. We made many great contacts and still do work today for many of those clients.

Another obstacle to our success was simple lack of technology in our region to do the type of work we were doing. We made friends and partnerships with ISPs and other service providers to get the technology that we needed. Early on we used Frame Relay for Internet service and later our company was instrumental in bringing high-speed access to our community. When we didn’t have what we needed, we found someone that could do it and found a way to get them to provide service to us.

<Drop the Mike> When you say that you love to help clients where they can see their ROI in measurable standards, can you share with us how you do that? How has this process changed for you over the years?

<Sapusek>When we first started out there wasn’t a great way to establish return on investment for clients and in fact it is much more difficult with traditional web design than it is with using more advanced web technologies such as PHP or Ajax. When doing programming or database project we work with our customers to decide how the ROI on that project will be measured (savings in time, cost savings, more customers etc.) and then try to establish a means for measuring this. It really is different for every project. Some are easy like a programming/database project that allows a client to generate a report in 15 minutes when it took them 4 hours prior to the project. To show ROI for that customer we simply have to break out the savings in time (3.75 hours/day x the person’s hourly wage x the number of days for the period you are looking at).

For more traditional web projects we perform an analysis of the site’s users/customers before we begin the project - how many visitors are they getting, how many sales a day, like that. Then we do an analysis at the end of the project and for months following its launch. We often connect better statistical analysis than we had at the start and teach our clients how to analyze the results. This leads to more targeted advertising and a better understanding of their customers and users.

<Drop the Mike> With each passing year or even quarter, you are likely seeing an increase in the amount of new customers/prospects which are already online and are either looking for or are in need of a re-work. Have you changed your acquisition strategy in any way because of this? The ROI on a new site vs re-building an existing site, what is or would be some of the things you would look at?

<Sapusek> When we first started I would say 80-90% of the work we did was “new” web sites. Today probably 70% of what we do is updating or adding functionality to existing sites. I think if we look back this is one of the reasons why we began to focus on back-end development instead of new site “design” or even “re-design”. We still do a significant amount of this, but much of what we do is trying to add value to a client’s site. Our focus on back-end development and ROI has definitely changed our acquisition strategy. The ROI of building a site from scratch vs re-building an existing one really depends on the client, their budget and what the old site’s strengths and weaknesses are. We try to evaluate all of that when quoting a project. Sometimes it is not cost effective to try to complete a programming project that another firm has started. It is often better to start from scratch, but at the same time re-working or adding to an existing site can often save a customer money as well - it really is dependent upon the project.

<Drop the Mike> Chicago is home to HostingCon. A big hosting industry event. Do you use this (or any other show) as a platform to promote your business? What do you feel has been the best way to promote your services?

<Sapusek> We haven’t advertised at many large-scale conventions, although we go to them often. We are members of several chambers of commerce and do a fairly effective job of advertising online. Many of our clients have been with us for longer than 7 years and we work very hard to maintain those relationships. The best way we have promoted our products and services is simply word of mouth. Our customers regularly refer potential customers to us and we like that. I think as we grow we will probably more often utilize conventions and seminars to promote our products and services, but we have not done that much in the past.