Earning a Biology Degree from the University of Iowa, Jim King created Wheaton Website Services after creating Custom Creations Unlimited. He built his first e-commerce website for the business and has never looked back. Jim says, “As my invitation business was shrinking, I needed to find a new source of revenue. I learned website design, development, and hosting while running Custom Creations Unlimited. With so many other businesses online and needing website development and hosting, I took what I learned and started helping others.” For over 16 years Wheaton Website Services has technically designed, built, and maintained websites that run flawlessly and are always ready for customers.
I graduated with a degree in Biology from the University of Iowa. I spent the next 16 years in sales selling specialty medical products to anesthesiologists for three different companies. In the later years, I had the desire to do something for myself. I didn’t want to be selling for someone else the rest of my life. The opportunity came about in 1997 when my wife and I had our son. We bought cardstock at Kinkos, printed his birth announcement, and mailed it to friends and family. Three months later, we started Custom Creations Unlimited, Inc. selling invitations online. I built my first website that year, working evenings and weekends. I never planned for it to be anything but a side job to earn a few bucks for my family.
By 2005, I was working for Kimberly-Clark and was on probation for not making my sales quota. I was too busy working on my own business, so I had a choice to make. I chose to resign from Kimberly-Clark and haven’t looked back since. In 2008, the business got to the point I knew it wasn’t going to last and sustain my family. I evaluated what my options were and realized I had been running e-commerce websites all along. There were hundreds of thousands of other businesses running on the same e-commerce platforms. I knew I could help them run their online businesses as I had been doing it on my own. That’s when I started Wheaton Website Services.
Wheaton Website Services was created out of my experience building and managing websites for my first two businesses. I ran those for 11 years before starting Wheaton Website Services. During that time, I learned first-hand about the day-to-day operations of an online business and small business. It gives me a unique perspective that many website design and development companies don’t have. Many developed their skills by developing only for clients. They were never in the same shoes as their client, running an online business.
I’ve been there and appreciate all that these business owners have to understand and juggle. Everything from SEO and marketing, ordering shipments, customer notifications, and website updates and improvements. There is a lot on the plate for a small business owner and one of my company goals is to make managing and growing their website as easy for them as possible.
My day starts by checking my email. We have clients across the world and some of the developers on my team are in other countries as well. I get caught up on the status of ongoing projects and updating clients and field requests for new projects. As a small business, I’m responsible for running all aspects of the business. Some days I’m working on our monthly blog post and newsletter. Other days I’m at networking events connecting with other like-minded business owners. There is always plenty to do and I really enjoy the many aspects of owning and running a small business.
A client told me the other day that he feels we are like an employee. That we are an important member of their team. They can count on us for anything website related. They can delegate any issue, sometimes with only a few details, and know that we will get it resolved. Our slogan, “we build websites that run flawlessly” is something we take to heart. That is always our goal for every client.
Most clients come to us with an existing website so we take over the day-to-day management and make needed changes or additions. At some point, they may want to do a full redesign. For those, we start with a clean slate. We talk about their needs and wants and build out a new site that will work flawlessly for their business.
I love working with the small business owners directly. The process is so simple with no committee meetings or layers of management to make decisions. The other clients I enjoy working with are the marketing companies. These companies need a partner that can implement their marketing ideas and add conversion tracking so they can measure their results. We often work behind the scenes. I really enjoy being able to help them to help their customers.
I love working with the small business owners directly. The process is so simple with no committee meetings or layers of management to make decisions. The other clients I enjoy working with are the marketing companies. These companies need a partner that can implement their marketing ideas and add conversion tracking so they can measure their results. We often work behind the scenes. I really enjoy being able to help them to help their customers.
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