StevesIdeas is a consulting firm that specializes in sales and marketing for mid-size corporations, as well as websites for individuals and firms of all sizes.

I conduct sales/marketing engagements which include product launch, salesforce assessment/training and major account planning. I also develop marketing collateral and advertising campaigns, both with the web and through print media.

I also provide feature-rich websites for specific lines of business, including entertainment, real estate, web merchants, funeral homes, car/truck dealers, talent/modeling agencies and general business/non-profits. These websites are unique in that they provide out-of-the-box capabilities that each of these lines of business need in order to be successful. This means that custom coding of web pages is unnecessary, and my clients can easily maintain their own websites without having knowledge of web programming techniques. In a business environment where do-it-yourself websites have significantly lowered the standards for professional implementations, the ease of navigation, maintainability and functionality of StevesIdeas websites set them apart from the crowd.

I have more than forty years in sales and marketing-related work, and have learned from some of the finest sales and marketing professionals ever. I frequently speak at sales meetings, kickoff events and seminars, where I discuss sales and marketing concepts. I became interested in website sales because it's my opinion that the web is the most important development in marketing since the invention of the printing press. Fortunes are made largely because of a web presence, and yet many people achieve dismal results with their websites. I think that my approach ensures the very best match-up of functionality and cost for business, entertainers, medical professionals and others.

There's a common misconception that a website cannot be attractive, functional and affordable. The reason for this is that "stock" websites and those created by "sitebuilder" software are often cheesy, unattractive and lack the flexibility and functionality needed for the particular business. But custom websites that do provide business functionality can be very expensive, and the expense of developing and launching the website is only the tip of the iceberg -- maintenance and modifications can add huge costs to the overall financial outlay. 

For years, I designed and implemented custom websites for small to medium size businesses. Increasingly, I was getting requests from businesses that needed site modifications, and their web developer had either gone on to other endeavors -- like taking a new job, or graduating from high school and leaving for college.

I asked myself, "why can't there be a way to quickly develop highly functional, attractive websites, that the customer himself can maintain?" Because my wife is in the entertainment business, I also wanted to find a system that would be so inexpensive that even an actor, musician or stunt person could have a knockout website that he could maintain without the assistance of a web programmer. 

I began looking for such a system, and although I found a number of low-cost "sitebuilder" and "template" systems, those systems required extensive additional programming to provide business functionality, which defeated the entire idea. And, of course, there was some functionality that just couldn't be accommodated by sitebuilder systems.

Eventually I found a company that had developed an ingenious solution to this problem: by using pre-made industry-specific modules, websites could be not only inexpensive, but quick and easy to design and implement. And they could be maintained by the customer, reducing the overall cost by thousands of dollars! The concept is so effective that it even allows individuals (actors, musicians and stunt people) and small businesses to have a website that fits their particular needs, at an affordable cost. To better understand the 'module' concept, click on "Compare Products" above.

StevesIdeas websites offer not only high functionality for your business or activity, the total cost of ownership is much lower than comparable websites, and here's why:

There are three major steps involved in launching a new website:

(1) Ascertain the functionality that the business needs and write that functionality into the html (program). This is one of the most labor-intensive parts of the entire project, and can take an extremely large amount of time and money to complete.

(2) Upload and integrate the data for the business (that is, photos of products, prices, etc). Only after the data is uploaded can the programs be completely tested.

(3) Maintain the system, adding new products, photos, audio, video, etc, as needed. Although this phase can add up to as much - or more - time and costs as the functionality phase, even small changes can add considerably to the cost of the overall project.

Here's how StevesIdeas websites are implemented:

By working with businesses in our target markets, we've built modules that provide the functionality those business segments need. That functionality is available right out of the box, with no additional programming required. For example, if you're a real estate agent, you'll need a module that allows for listing of properties, with prices, descriptions, exterior and interior photos, etc. But if you're an actor, you'll need a module to make it easy to keep your professional resume updated and in industry-standard format. Each business segment and activity has its own specific needs, and although some modules could be used by several segments, they might be used in different ways. For example, the photo album module might be used by an actor to display his headshots or on-the-set candids, while a real estate agent might use that same photo album to display photos and testimonials from satisfied clients. Bottom line: the cost of the "Functionality" phase of the project is cut drastically -- as much as 90%.

The Data phase is pretty straightforward: the client's data is uploaded so the modules can access it. Although we always upload some portion of the data (so that we can advise you of any deficiencies in the data itself), we ordinarily plan to have the customer upload the bulk of that data, which avoids the cost of having us do it for them. There are facilities built into the system that make that task simple and fast. We also provide an online training session of 1-3 hours (depending on the type of website) where we show you how to upload the rest of your data, as well as how to make changes, additions and deletions. And because the modules have already been thoroughly tested, there's no need to expend the time and money to do so for every customer. Bottom line: the cost of this phase is reduced by as much as 50%, depending on how much of the data you wish to upload yourself.

The final phase, the "Maintainance" phase, is virtually eliminated from the project's costs, because the system has been designed to allow you to perform your own maintenance. That includes adding photos, audio, video, new pages, catalog entries, etc. And because you're able to perform your own maintenance, it can be done on your timetable, without the worry of finding and paying an outside "webmaster" to accomplish that task. And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to keep your site up-to-date - It's been our experience that an individual who can handle email and a word processor can do 95% of the maintenance himself. The other 5% - which is mostly things that the client does so seldom that he doesn't remember how to handle when he needs to - is easily handled by a free phone call to us for help. Bottom line: the cost of continuing maintenance is reduced by as much as 95% or more - from now on! 

So that's how we do it: by reducing the up-front costs of developing the needed functionality for your business or activity, and by providing a website that's easy for you to maintain, we reduce the outside costs of your website dramatically. And just because you don't see your particular business or activity in the list, that doesn't mean that we can't address your needs. It's just that the closer your business or activity resembles one of our targeted segments, the more out-of-the-box functionality you'll have.

Finally... You're in control!

By the way: to show you just how flexible StevesIdeas websites are, the website you're seeing now - all of the pages, from funeral home to talent agency, with eight domains pointing to different sections of the site - are running on ONE website, with all the sub-sites linked together. That would be complicated using html programming, but it would be all but impossible with conventional "sitebuilder" software.