You know the website is not working. You can see it in the numbers, in the fact that nothing on it can be searched, and in nobody daring to open the editor. But somebody else decides about money, and they look at the site twice a year and find nothing wrong with it.
The usual mistake at this point is to start talking about the website. Management does not care about load times or page structure. It cares what it costs, what it will produce, and what happens if nothing is done.
This article turns that into a one page proposal that survives a meeting. You need no tools and no budget for it, only two hours and figures you already have.
Short answer
- Do not talk about the website, talk about money and risk. The site is the means, not the subject.
- You need three numbers: how many people visit, how many of them send an enquiry, and what one job earns the company. All three already exist inside the business.
- The proposal fits on one page and has five parts. Nobody reads a longer document and the decision gets made without it.
- The strongest argument is not „competitors look better“ but lost opportunity expressed in money.
- Expect the first attempt to fail. The goal of round one is not approval but management accepting that a problem exists.
Why arguments about the website do not work
Sentences like „our site is slow“, „it cannot be edited“ or „it looks dated“ are true and will lose the meeting. Not because management is stupid, but because they describe a property rather than a consequence.
Whoever approves the budget is comparing your proposal with the others on the table: a new machine, a lease, another hire. Each of those has a quantified benefit or risk. A proposal without one loses even when it is right.
The translation you need to make looks like this.
| What you say today | What should be said |
|---|---|
| The site is slow | On mobile, some people leave before the page appears. At our traffic that is X enquiries a month |
| It cannot be edited | Every change costs an external invoice and waits a week |
| It looks dated | Customers use the site to check whether the company is still trading. On jobs above X that decides it |
| There are no prices on it | Enquiries come from people who cannot afford us, and sales spends time on them |
| Competitors look better | We missed the shortlist in the last three tenders. I found out why |
| We have no measurement | We do not know where enquiries come from, so the advertising budget is split by guesswork |
Notice that the right hand column never says the word website. It says loss, staff time and risk. Those are the three things budgets are defended with everywhere.
The three numbers you need
You need no analytics tool and no agency. All three sit inside the company and can be found in an afternoon.
- 1How many people visit the site each month. If nothing is measured, take the request count from the host or ask whoever runs the site. Precision does not matter here; the order of magnitude does.
- 2How many enquiries a month come from the site. Count phone calls too: a month of asking „did you find us online?“ and marking a tally is enough. Without it you will understate the site by most of its value.
- 3What one job earns the company. The margin, not the revenue. If you do not know exactly, estimate low; a proposal that works on a cautious estimate is harder to argue with.
Those three produce a fourth, and that is the argument: how many jobs you are losing. If one per cent of visits becomes an enquiry and you know comparable sites manage two, the difference multiplied by your margin is the annual loss. That is the sentence after which the meeting stops discussing looks.
The one page proposal
Five parts, three to five sentences each. A longer document goes unread and the decision gets made without it, so brevity is tactics rather than modesty.
- What is happening. One sentence about the state and one number. „The site produces four enquiries a month from four hundred visits.“
- What it costs us. The annual loss in money, calculated from the numbers above. Show how you got there so it can be checked.
- What to do about it. Two options, not one: a repair for less and a rebuild for more. Management given one option rejects it; management given two chooses.
- What it will cost. A range rather than an exact figure until you have a quote. And beside it, how long it takes to pay back.
- What happens if we do nothing. The most important paragraph and the one most people leave out. Without it the proposal is a wish.
A twelve slide deck about what a modern website looks like, with competitor screenshots and mock-ups. Budget at the end, benefit nowhere.
One page: four enquiries a month, estimated loss of 600 thousand a year, two options at 40 and 120 thousand, payback within eight months, and what happens if nothing is done.
Four objections and what to say
They come almost every time, and in this order.
„There is no money for it right now.“ Offer a smaller option with a quantified benefit, not a postponement. Postponing means starting from nothing again in a year. A rewritten homepage and a shortened form cost a fraction and show sooner than a rebuild.
„The site works, though.“ Here a demonstration beats an argument. Open the site on a phone in the meeting and let somebody from management find a specific piece of information. Ten seconds of silence does more than ten slides.
„Surely we can do this ourselves.“ Quantify the time. How many hours of your people's work it means and what an hour costs. The point is not to win the argument but to get the cost of your own labour onto the table next to the price of the website.
„And how do you know it will help?“ You do not, and claiming otherwise is pointless. The answer is: we will measure it. Before launch and three months after, and the numbers go on the table. A proposal promising measurement instead of a result passes more often than one promising a result.
Timing decides more than arguments
Three things worth weighing before you submit.
The budget round. In most companies next year's money is decided in the autumn. A proposal submitted in March ends up in the „when there is budget“ folder; the same proposal in September gets into the spreadsheet.
The trigger. A lost tender, a customer complaint, a new product, or the departure of whoever looked after the site. A proposal submitted a week after such an event passes far more easily than the same one submitted in calm times.
An ally. A proposal backed by sales carries different weight from one coming out of marketing. Salespeople have the numbers on jobs, and management believes them on the question of whether enquiries are being lost.
When not to submit it
There are situations where waiting is better, and it is fair to name them.
- When you do not know what is wrong. A proposal without a specific cause can be taken apart with one question, and nobody opens it a second time.
- When the site genuinely works. Enquiries arrive, it can be edited, it is fast. Then a new site is a purchase of looks and management will see that.
- When the problem is traffic, not the site. A site with ten visits a day does not need rebuilding, it needs visitors. That is a different budget and a different proposal.
- When you tried a month ago. A second attempt soon after the first reinforces the impression that this is your pet subject rather than the company's need. Wait for a trigger.
How we can help with it
This section is deliberately short, because the article is meant to help you win an internal argument rather than to sell you a website.
- An assessment of your current site, free and in writing. Speed measured with an independent tool, the number of pages that get traffic, and a list of what is a repair and what is a rebuild. That is exactly the material a proposal needs.
- Two options with prices, so there is something to choose between in the meeting. We state the whole price upfront and it does not move within the agreed scope, so the proposal does not fall apart when the invoice arrives.
- Measurement before launch and after. On our first projects we cut the price in exchange for permission to publish the figures, whatever they turn out to be. That gives you precisely what you promised in the meeting.
And if the assessment concludes the site should be left alone, we will write that. It saves you an argument you would have lost.
Frequently asked questions
How do I justify a website budget to management?
Do not talk about the website, talk about money and risk. You need three numbers: how many people visit, how many of them send an enquiry, and what one job earns the company. From those you calculate lost jobs per year, and that is the argument. The proposal fits on one page in five parts, of which the most important is what happens if nothing is done.
Which figures should I prepare?
Monthly visits, monthly enquiries including phone calls, and the margin on one job. All three already exist in the company and can be found in an afternoon. Take the margin low: a proposal that works on a cautious estimate is harder to argue with.
What if management says there is no money right now?
Offer a smaller option with a quantified benefit rather than a postponement. Postponing means starting from nothing again in a year. A rewritten homepage and a shortened form cost a fraction of a new site and, on a site with traffic, show sooner than a full rebuild.
When is the best time to submit the proposal?
In the autumn, when most companies decide next year's budget, and above all shortly after a trigger: a lost tender, a customer complaint, a new product, or the departure of whoever looked after the site. The same proposal submitted in calm times does far worse.
Should I include competitor screenshots?
Only as a supplement, never as the main argument. „Competitors look better“ is a statement about taste and can be disputed. If you do use competitors, tie them to a commercial consequence: that you missed a shortlist and know why.
What if they ask whether it will definitely help?
Do not promise a result, promise measurement. That the state will be measured before launch and three months after, and the numbers put on the table. A proposal promising measurement instead of a result passes more often, because it does not sound like a bet.
Summary
- Management does not care about the website but about money, staff time and risk. Every argument translates into those three.
- The three numbers already exist in the company: visits, enquiries and the margin on one job.
- One page, five parts. The most important is what happens if nothing is done.
- Two options rather than one. Management given a single option rejects it.
- Do not promise a result, promise measurement before launch and after.
- Timing decides more than arguments. Submit after a trigger, not in calm times.
Need figures for the proposal that will hold up
Send us your website address. We will measure it, work out how many pages get traffic, and send a written assessment saying what is a repair and what is a rebuild. It is free, commits you to nothing and is usable even if the work then goes elsewhere.