W Christian Consulting

I just picked up dinner at this restaurant around the corner.  The catfish tasted great, as did the cheese grits and the cajun corn!  I would point you to the website, but I can’t.  They don’t have a website yet even though they’ve been open for maybe two months.  That’s a shame because the menu changes everyday and you’ll have no idea what is on it tomorrow.  Tuesday, rather, because they currently close on Sundays and Mondays.  That might change during football season, but I won’t know unless I stop back in.

I mentioned the Build Your Business Online! seminar that I’m doing in October and the woman at the register, the owner’s sister, was interested and offered to spread the word.  She asked if I wanted to put some flyers in the restaurant, but I explained that I wasn’t sure how much advertising I would do since the seminar is free and I don’t even get paid by the library to do it.

So, why do a free seminar?

I have been working on websites since about 1995.  Although web design has never been my primary job, it did help pay the bills in graduate school and kept me stocked with all the biking gear that I needed.  One of my sites was the most popular bicycling site in Houston! Because too much of design work is subjective, I stopped doing it and have kept to some informal consulting for friends and people whom I know (think: unpaid).  Unfortunately, with all the different options and things to consider (e.g., HTML5, Flash, GXT/EXT, Java applets, mobile, Facebook, Twitter), I have seen people (including the people at my previous church) get so confused that they either do nothing or spend too much money on a solution that doesn’t truly satisfy their need.

For example, did you know that a business can have a website for about $10 a year?  I mean a real website with its own domain name, hosting, email, et cetera.  You know, a website.

The goal of this workshop to help business owners and decision makers sift through all the Internet hype and figure out what makes sense for their situations.  I gave a similar talk several years ago and I give an updated version whenever I start helping anyone begin to establish or re-establish their business’s online presence.

In short, I decided to give a free seminar because God has given me knowledge to share and, especially in this economy, I don’t want people to waste their money as they try to build their business online.