Name of your website?Financial Excellence.net
Your name?
Matt Wegner
Your Location (city, etc)
Sheboygan, WI
Please give us a short summary of your website?
We provide real solutions for L.I.F.E. (Living In Financial Excellence) in all areas of personal finance and small business operations. We specialize in coaching our clients through the process of budgeting, eliminating debt, saving for emergencies, planning for future needs and more.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I wanted to reach out to the multitude of people struggling with their finances and help them gain control over their situation. Personal finance is 80% behavior and only 20% head knowledge. I want to teach people how to establish the good behaviors and habits with their money and to make sound financial decisions in their lives.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website was www.mattwegnercoaching.com. It was a previous version of my current website, launched in 2007. Our new website at www.financialexcellence.net has much more functionality and better features, as well as easier site navigation.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
We strive to provide the tools for LIFE, where LIFE stands for Living In Financial Excellence. Financial Excellence represents all that we teach and stand for. There's an amazing sense of relief and freedom that comes from being debt-free, and we want everyone we meet to share in that feeling.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
Why we are different from financial advisers or investment brokers: We don't sell investments, insurance, or other financial products. We don't operate on commission like most financial advisers. We simply provide life-changing advice for a reasonable fee.
What sets us apart from credit counselors, debt management companies or debt consolidation programs: We believe the key to success in personal finance is changing your behavior. Debt consolidation or debt management plans are quick fixes that don't change the behaviors that brought you to the financial situation you're in. We focus on changing the habits and decisions relating to money so we can reverse the trend and eliminate debt forever.
What is your eventual goal?
The goal of our business is to reach out to a larger portion of the community as a whole. We are expanding our technological capabilities so we can provide the same level of service to people in all geographical situations.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
As with any venture, success is directly related to effort. But you have to be smart with your efforts to maximize your time and the results of your efforts. The amount of money spent isn't always proportionate to success. Many businesses, websites, etc. are started on a shoestring and become wildly successful with only low-cost and no-cost marketing plans.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
We would add more interactive features with advanced software to provide an online version of the process we teach to our clients. The process is already simple enough but we are always looking for ways to make the process more readily available.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Absolutely. We have doubled traffic to the site in the last few months and our goal is to double traffic every quarter for the year, then taper off into sustained growth targets after that.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
Every small business has unexpected costs. Ours have come in the form of the true cost of good website development. We have committed to learning to do some of our own web development to save costs until revenues hit specific targets, then securing strong web talent to take us to the next level.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge we face is promoting awareness of the service we provide. What we do is so different from our competitors that many people look at us like we're crazy when we describe what we do. Who gives investing advice without selling investments? Who helps you eliminate debt without a debt consolidation loan or debt management plan? Who instills hope and inspires the personal accountability to take charge of your own situation rather than having someone else clean up your mess for you? WE DO.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Social networking (Facebook, Linked In, etc.) and appearances on talk radio shows, as well as through the blog on our website have generated the most traffic to our site.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Many business owners have a vision of the day they turn on their website and the phone starts ringing. Our vision wasn't much different. You have to understand how to promote your site and get people to want to look at it. They won't find a single site among the millions of other sites out there unless they're looking for that specific site or its content. Learning that one valuable lesson has made all the difference for us.
What is your website address?
Financial Excellence.net
