Half Fast Websites

This journey began when Ima Fast married a plumber named Eugene Belford. After they were married, Eugene was looking for ways to expand his business to support his beautiful new wife.

When Eugene learned that Al Gore created the internet, he instantly knew a website was what he wanted for his local plumbing business.

You see, Eugene's yellow page ads weren't working very well and he heard everyone was moving online. Eugene wanted a website that would make his business grow.

It's true, a professional website along with effective internet marketing can generate leads and customers for a business. When it’s done properly.

So Eugene set out to get a website and consulted a few web design companies and online marketing consultants.

They provided detailed reports and case studies showing how investing in online marketing would generate more customers. But these results required investment. They told him a high-quality site could cost a few thousand dollars and marketing would cost thousands more, over the course of a year.

No way Eugene was going to spend that for a website and marketing. There had to be a cheaper way.

At first Eugene decided he would save money and do it himself. He reasoned, you build it using a computer, so it has to be just a few clicks here and a few clicks there. How hard can it be?

So, he dove all in and spent hours and hours trying to figure out how to build his own website. After missing work for the better part of a month, he gave up and decided he needed to get someone else to do it.

How much did all that lost time cost him? Not enough for him to think of calling a professional.

Instead he thought "hey, my brother in law twins are real good with computers, I'll get them to build a website for me real cheap."

When Eugene asked the twins, Half loved the idea, but Notso was too busy connecting tubes for his hamster habitat. More on that later.

Half had never built a website before, but he liked working on a computer enough to think he might like building websites.

He had seen enough TV commercials from GoDaddy to think it was super simple and anyone could do it, no knowledge needed. That was perfect for him. After all, "who better to build the website than your brother in law" Half told Eugene.

Half also liked the idea of owning his own business. This was his chance. A lack of experience wasn’t going to get in his way. The Half Fast Website business was born. He snapped up his sweet domain name before anyone else could. But, building his company website would have to wait, because he had to build a website for Eugene first.

Only one problem. Half had never built a website before and Eugene’s plumbing business needed a website in a hurry.

Half was struggling. It seems even the website builders offered on TV that anyone can use, had a steep learning curve. It wasn't going very well.

Impatient as ever, Eugene was complaining to Half that his new website wasn’t finished yet.

Realizing he needed help, Half begged his brother to work with him, reasoning that two people that don't know what they're doing could double their productivity to get Eugene’s site finished.

Notso stipulated he would join Half's company and help only if he could have the title of Vice President.

Feeling partially defeated, Half told Notso, "I’ve always wanted to be Vice President of my own company.”

Knowing he really needed the help, Half reluctantly agreed to Notso’s demand.

“I’ll let you be Vice President. But, don’t forget, I’m still in charge!" Since his preferred title was now taken, Half decided his title would be "Visionary" since it also starts with the letter "V".

So, the Fast twins joined forces and started working on Eugene’s website. With the twins working together it was almost like having twice as much brain power, but not quite.

Eventually, they completed Eugene’s website despite their inexperience. It took way longer than expected, and parts of it didn’t work, but at least now they thought of themselves as professional website designers.

But Eugene wasn't happy.

"I paid you to build me a website, how come I’m not number one on the Google?" he complained. "Since I’m not getting any new leads, maybe you should just redesign the site again. It looks okay, but it doesn’t generate any business."

Over the next couple of years they rebuilt Eugene's website several times trying to get everything to work. They were happy to get the repeat website design business.

Meanwhile, when Eugene’s friends heard how cheap his website was, they wanted a Half Fast website for themselves. Things snowballed and the twins got busy.

Half and Notso discovered they were really good at building websites that would leave their customers wanting for more.

Half Fast websites were flying out the door like hotcakes. They couldn’t believe how many businesses wanted a Half Fast website.

It was like the business owners didn’t even care about website quality or even getting results. Half and Notso just told them how cheap it was and business owners couldn’t resist!

They were so busy, they couldn’t keep up. Missing deadlines and failing to meet clients’ expectations became more frequent. Nowadays, those two things are just automatically part of the Half Fast experience.

Every few months though, Eugene would complain about not getting results. Eventually the Fast twins would redesign his site on the cheap and Eugene would go away for awhile, only to return months later with the same problem.

Always the visionary, Half realized clients really needed more than a Half Fast website to be successful.

Clients were coming to them with proposals from other companies with this long list of services that would need to be provided in order to get the desired results, drive traffic to a site and generate customers. While the twins knew customers needed those things, they didn't know how to do them.

So, they decided to hire an Online Marketing Consultant that knew what she was doing. Surely this would enable Eugene to get the results he wanted.

The Online Marketing Consultant put a plan together that would generate new customers. She knew it would work because the same plan had worked for countless others.

But, when Eugene and the other clients found out they were going to have to pay more if they wanted results, they refused.

“Why would we spend money to market our websites?", Eugene said.

"Because you need more than just a website to get new customers" the consultant reasoned.

"I’ve already paid to have my website rebuilt several times! And I'm spending money on advertising in the yellow pages and that's not working either. No way I'm spending any money on my website", Eugene said loudly.

After not hearing from him for a few months, Eugene contacted the twins again to complain about his website not generating any customers. Finally, the Fast twins told Eugene, "another Half Fast website isn’t the solution. Remember what the Online Marketing Consultant told you? If you really want to get results you need to invest some money and devote a little time to support the efforts of a real online marketing campaign."

That upset Eugene because he just wasn’t willing to invest any money into his business.

He could have been successful by investing a little time and resources to get it done right. Instead, he chose to go the Half Fast route over and over again.

Eventually Eugene gave up. He convinced himself the internet doesn’t work for getting new customers. His old Half Fast website just sits there and doesn’t do anything for his business.

He blames Half and Notso for the lack of results. But the Fast twins feel they can’t help it if a client chooses something cheap and ineffective, they provided exactly what the client asked for.

Needless to say, this project didn’t end well. Eugene went to work for another plumber in town.

Interestingly, the plumber he works for is busier than ever thanks to implementing a variety of online marketing strategies from the very same Online Marketing Consultant Eugene rebuffed.

But, Eugene’s website wasn’t the only one with problems. The twins had many clients with the exact same complaints Eugene had. They realized something needed to be done.

They began to tell new and existing clients that to be successful online takes more than just a Half Fast website, or any website for that matter. It takes online marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, social media and more.

They had the Online Marketing Consultant prepare a plan for each client to help them get the results they wanted.

Do you know what happened? Their clients refused the marketing advice.

Even when the consultant and the twins told clients they needed more than a Half Fast website to get the results they wanted, clients would still say they weren’t interested.

When they tried to educate their clients about what was needed to be successful, Half Fast clients would refuse to take action.

That’s when frustration set in. They couldn’t get clients to do what was needed to succeed. But, clients were still complaining when things didn’t go as they hoped.

It was like working with Eugene over and over again. These customers looking for Half Fast websites couldn’t care less about proper internet marketing, publishing content, making site improvements, or building marketing funnels to generate leads and sales.

The Fast twins were sympathetic with their clients' situation. They tried to get their clients to do more than just a Half Fast website, but clients just weren't interested.

Apparently, Half Fast clients think building and launching a site is the only thing to do for online success. As if it’s a one and done task like getting business cards.

Since nobody would take her advice anyway, the twins parted ways with the Online Marketing Consultant, and instead stuck to giving Half Fast clients the cheap services they wanted.

For the first time in the company's history, things weren't going well. They tried to increase their prices and add marketing services but clients wouldn’t go for it.

Half Fast websites weren’t getting results so clients were leaving. The company was really struggling and a change was needed.

Remembering the inspirational phrase 'Failure is a Step to Success' Half knew it was time to take another step of failure. How would he get the business back on track?

He would get some outside help!

Not another Online Marketing consultant. No, they need someone who understood people and sales.

Fortunately, someone answered Half’s craigslist ad looking for an expert that could help grow their business. That somebody was Dewey Proffitt.

The twins told Dewey the problems they were having with customers and how business had slowed. Dewey didn't seem concerned with the customer complaints. Instead, he introduced the Half Fast company to business tactics like churn and burn, fire sales, undercutting competitors and slamming and cramming.

The geek twins were intrigued. "Could this really be the answer?" they asked inquisitively.

Half and Notso knew clients really needed the services recommended by professional internet marketing companies like ongoing content marketing plans, progressive website improvements, email list building and advanced SEO strategies.

They asked Dewey "can you sell those services so clients can succeed?"

"You know Half Fast customers will never go for that," Dewey replied. "They want something cheap, with little to no effort."

"What about results?" the geek twins asked.

"Half Fast customers want quick fixes and don’t want to spend money. They don’t want to be bothered with things like SEO, content, actual marketing strategy. It just sounds like a hassle."

That seemed to fit with what the twins had experienced and is the reason they became frustrated about the situation to start with.

Dewey told them "your success depends in part on your attitude. Stop worrying about what clients need and give them what they want."

Dewey told them that they should just sell what sells and don't worry about clients that complain about results. He explained  "if a client complains about results and decides to go elsewhere, then they really weren't a Half Fast customer after all."

That made sense to the twins. Maybe they didn’t need effective marketing services for clients, maybe they needed a better salesman. But they wondered "what would Dewey do to get the business back on track?"

Dewey explained, "my experience selling printed brochures taught me what will work for the web."

"Wait, what?", the twins replied.

We don’t want to embarrass anyone, so let’s just say he previously worked for a company named Shminuteman Press.

"When I worked at Shminuteman Press I saw that small businesses will repeatedly buy something cheap even if it doesn’t work, as long as it’s easy. I made a killing selling brochure printing services to small businesses in years past, before everything moved online. Why can’t you make something like brochures, but on the internet?"

That’s when it hit Half and Notso. "This could work!" they shouted excitedly. That’s really all a Half Fast Website is, an online brochure!”

They knew their Half Fast Websites were every bit as effective as brochures that get printed, thrown in a box and sit in the closet unopened.

Dewey assured them, "customers will buy a cheap website because they know they have to have one. They just don't want to spend enough money to make it successful."

"Could they pull it off? What would customers do when they figured out they need more than an online brochure to get results?" they asked.

Dewey confidently replied, "When I sold a coupon service for Shmalpak" (again, name changed, we don't want to embarrass anyone), "I found that nobody knows what part of their marketing spend is working or not. They just spend money and hope for the best. Or, they refuse to spend money and wonder why it's not working. So, cheap prices are a sure-fire way to get more customers."

The twins chewed on that for a moment and thought "this approach sounds like a great way to attract Half Fast customers."

Dewey is really good at sales and after that conversation Half and Notso realized to get somebody of his caliber they better hire him on the spot, otherwise he would just keep working at the used car & vacuums store in town. So they welcomed him aboard.

Preparing to launch this new sales campaign Dewey declared "let’s call these Half Fast websites 'brochureware'. It will make these plain websites sound more high-tech, like software."

So, the plan was set. Dewey hit the streets cold-calling every business and hammering the phone lines about this brochureware. His persistence paid off and he was able to sell a crap-ton of Half Fast websites.

Just like he told the Fast twins "businesses would buy them all day long because they sounded like an easy solution, and it was cheap."

Business was booming like never before. Now they needed help to handle the overwhelming influx of work.

Never one to worry much about experience, Half decided nepotism was the best route to grow and began hiring his siblings and cousins to fill out the staff. Still, that wasn't enough to handle the onslaught of work.

So, he made a few more hires and now the team was set. They were churning out cheap Half Fast websites like crazy. They were amazed at the success they were having.

Unexpectedly, the twins created a revenue generating machine when they put this idea into motion.

They began to call it the IUC - Infinite Upgrade Cycle. How does it work?

Notso Fast explains, "a client buys something cheap while hoping it solves their marketing problem. When it doesn’t work, they need to try again. Since they're Half Fast clients, they come back to us and get another Half Fast website and start the process all over again."

"We even came up with a snappy slogan," Half said grinning widely, "Save Now, Pay Later."

Notso added, "That's exactly how it works. If you’re not part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem. Half Fast customers and Half Fast websites are a perfect match for each other."

But that's not quite the end of this journey.

Major year over year growth and the fact that Dewey continued to sell a crap-ton of websites, they experienced even more growing pains.

The Half Fast team at times struggles to keep up. They don't finish all the projects they start. The ones they do finish, often received complaints about the lack of results and other problems customers were having with their Half Fast websites.

"I'm tired of handling all these customer complaints," Half said sharply one day, "it's time we do something about it so someone else can deal with it."

The solution? They called in a professional. No, not a professional like in the movie The Professional. They weren't going to try to bump off all their unhappy clients! That's crazy talk. Besides, there's too many of them.

They called in a professional problem solver. The kind that can kick butt, take names and get things done!

Ms. Waite came on board and customer service hasn’t been the same since!

As soon as Ms. Waite was on board, Half wasted no time informing everyone of the steps they took to change how customer service was handled.

The email to all clients, sent from Half himself, explained: "With this change in procedure, I want to be crystal clear what clients should do whenever there's a problem or you have a complaint. Call Half Fast and go directly to Helen Waite."

On-hold times are up, but Half feels it's probably because Ms. Waite is so chatty.

While hangups have dramatically increased, Notso thinks it's because people are solving problems on their own.

One thing’s for sure, the number of customer complaints that get reported to management are down and that's exactly what Half wanted. Problem solved.

Now things are smooth sailing for the company and business is just humming along as far as they can tell.

When asked about the future of the business the Fast twins stated in unison "we believe the sky has no ceiling and we don’t see an end to the massive growth we're experiencing."

Notso said assuringly "as Vice President of the company I have a pretty good idea where we’re headed. It looks good from where I sit."

Looking at Notso sneeringly, Half said, "Let's not forget, I'm the company Visionary. Nobody has a better view of where we're headed than me. It looks even better from where I sit!"

When asked about how online marketing is changing constantly Half replied, "too many people try to keep pace with all the change in the online marketing space. All you really need to do is stick to the same old way of doing things you’ve always done. Sure, you’ll lose some customers because of the lack of results, but there’s enough new business owners coming online that we can snatch up right away. If there's one thing I learned from Dewey Proffitt it has to be 'churn and burn baby, churn and burn'."

Looking back on their long journey, Half and Notso have different perspectives than when they first started. And they both eagerly look forward to what's next for them.

Notso Fast got the entrepreneurial bug and wants to start more businesses.

He kept thinking about how he used to put those tubes together for his hamster habitat and it dawned on him “the internet is like a bunch of tubes!” So, he decided to start a complementary website to HalfFastWebsites.com bearing his own name, called NotsoFastHosting.com.

After reminding Notso that web hosting is a crowded space he quickly replied, "Our servers will be crowded too! Don't worry, I’ll use the same methods that we use here. Customers don't understand how hosting works or how important having fast, secure and reliable hosting is to the success of their website. We'll take advantage of that by offering cheap hosting services, oversell our resources and bandwidth, and make up for the difference in price by cutting corners. That how they do it at SlowDaddy (again, name changed, we don't want to embarrass anyone) and it works for them."

Sounds like another cheap service inspired by the sales genius of Dewey Proffitt and the Fast twins.

What about Half's future? Half looks forward to time away from business.

"I long for the old days" Half said pensively, "when customers were uninformed and had no idea what to expect. It was easier to provide Half Fast solutions back then."

Half still manages the day to day operations of his company, but he tries to spend more time outdoors.

His side hustle right now is breeding two-legged donkeys. "It’s taking longer than I expected because I just have the one donkey right now, but I'm hoping that will change soon."

He related "it’s relaxing just being in the fresh outdoors with my donkey. Donkeys are actually very smart, and everyone knows they have a great sense of humor."

"Sometimes when I’m out in the field talking to Pokey my two-legged donkey, Pokey gives me one of those looks as if he thinks he's smarter than me. I just look back at him and say: silly two-legged donkey, I’m smarter because I'm the founder and Visionary of Half Fast websites".

Hold up! I know I’m just the narrator here, but this is unbelievable.

I had to interrupt and ask him, “You’re standing in a field talking to a two-legged jackass?”

"Oh, so you’ve met Half before", the donkey said laughingly "hee haw hee haw!"