Great Ingredients

My cousin is a fine dining chef and he once told me something I’ll never forget. “I’d rather spend 80% of my budget on ingredients and 20% on tools. In fact, I’d rather using a hand mixer all day if that’s what it took for me to get decent meat, veg and spices.”

Like I always say, I want you to have the same quality web site as the big boys. The only way to do that is to do exactly what great chefs tell you about cooking: start with great ingredients. We take -great- photos. We write -great- copy. We do not settle for 80%. Ever. We don’t start cooking until all the great ingredients all laid out. Because the secret to great cooking is a great mise en place. In fact, it’s pretty tough to make bad food with great ingredients.

The reason so few small business web sites look really great is this: they started with weak ingredients. When you pay an expensive ad agency to do your site, they make sure the raw ingredients are great. -That- is the time consuming and expensive part! The good news? There is no reason why you can’t get the same quality for a lot less if you force yourself to start with great ingredients.

Now, why do small businesses settle for cheap ingredients? Reasons that sound so petty you won’t believe it when you read it, even though you know it’s true: “My people hate having their pictures taken.”, “I don’t have time to write down my ideas, I have a business to run!” In short, it’s annoying and I can’t force you to do it, so most clients get lazy.

Seriously? You’re jeopardizing your web site, your very image, for those reasons? With all the things in life you can’t control? And yet this thing (which is completely within your power to do well) you’re going to leave to chance because your staff hates having their pictures taken. Hmmmm…

Put another way, when you pay an expensive ad agency, they take the pictures—whether you like it or not. They nag you to give them material on your products and ideas. And they don’t stop until it reads well. You pay them big money to do things you can easily do yourself but are simply too lazy to do (There’s my personal trainer metaphor again!)

The ironic thing is that most people look at a great web site and they respond to the very things they don’t want to do—great photography and copy. As we’ve discussed, what do people generally not respond to? Web gimmicks. But what kills me, time and again, is that clients think -anyone- can magically create something cool, using weak ingredients and gimmicks–the very things they themselves don’t respond to!

So if you want a great web site, do what great chefs do: insist on great ingredients. Either pay someone to get them for you or don’t be lazy: -make- the time to get that world class mise en place. And then build your web site.