Building India's FirstOfficial Webflow Chapter

0:00Janne Parri: Okay, Sandeepsingh, how did it feel like when you won the builder of the year award at the Webflow Conf?

0:08Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So, actually I never imagined that I will be in this stage and being recognized at the global stage. What I have thought I'm going at Boston hanging around with people, meeting agency owners, watching new updates and I'm going to come back but I never thought I will come back with recognitions and the credibility. So it's not just because of me but I immediately thought the things and the contribution that we made in the Webflow ecosystem through the Ahmedabad.

0:41Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So yeah it was very exciting moment and you know while I was traveling for the Boston it was a journey of almost 24 hours two connecting flights my schedule got delayed and my connecting flight was missed so it took me three flights to reach Boston and more than 50 plus hours and when the announcement came you know full frustration gone off and I was feeling like okay this trip is worth it.

1:09Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I can just imagine and I guess you didn't expect that. So has anything like changed after that? Have you gotten like more leads messages maybe clients or has the community back there changed somehow after that recognition?

1:29Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So honestly because I was in the finalist with other four people and so the calculation was there okay now I'm finalist and you know what should be done next what I have to do the things you know but eventually you know as a agency owners we plan you know projects so we plan everything around the projects okay this is the roadmap this is how we are going to achieve but you know nobody planned for winning a trophy.

1:57Janne Parri: That is beautiful. So I guess you haven't been to earlier Webflow Confs or have you and what how was the Webflow Conf experience if you don't count the like the award?

2:10Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So actually I was there in the New York conference in 2025. The story started with that. So it was my first Webflow conference and I tried to meet few people and then I tried to speak with Linda, the CEO, and Vlad, co-founder, and at that time the community was Veronica and Georgina both so I see a lot of community chapters around the global map but there was no such official chapters in Ahmedabad.

2:43Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So I talked with them I would like to start where I can contribute to the Webflow ecosystem and they said okay go ahead and start. So I have a few conversations around how what we are going to do, how we are going to do and then when I came back over here I started the community and it was really surprising like in the first meeting where we were not expecting some people but it goes houseful so we received 100 plus attendees in person we have to close the registrations.

3:15Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that was the response which I never imagined like this kind of response we will receive and look at if I circle back that whole year I never imagined this by contributing to this ecosystem I will be recognized at the global stage so the journey it's really I never imagined this

3:35Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah totally, totally okay I want to get us to the community part but let's do little intros before this so you are now listening to Webflow and Friends podcast and my name is Janne Parri and my guest today is Sandeepsingh Sisodiya a co-founder and CEO of Appsrow a Webflow Premium Partner in Ahmedabad India Appsrow was founded in 2018 it became a Webflow partner in February 2025 and earlier this year you guys started that official chapter that you mentioned and I believe what makes that chapter interesting thing is that it is the first in India and I definitely want to want to talk to you about that but I know that you are doing like coaching and speaking especially about sales in the IT sector and I believe Appsrow started as a more general IT agency and later became a Webflow focused agency.

4:36Janne Parri: So what is the story behind that transition?

4:40Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So eventually in 2018 I started this agency and I didn't started is like okay we are going to become a Webflow agency. So it was a general you know all the stuffs like designing, web designing, web you know stuff like that those services and one day we receive one inquiry from Singapore and they were talking like they wanted to use Webflow. Then we deep dive you know platform and because we are from a branding background we were providing the identity solutions and the marketing solutions and along with that the web development solutions and we understand the design aesthetics and the motion and the emotion inside the digital platforms or the print material or the digital material and we started using it and we like a lot because the way Webflow handle the interactions the animations It feels natural and it gives a different edge to the brands and we were positioned like a brand marketing agency and we like this platform so much that before 4 years ago we fully all in and we transitioned from you know general web design and brand marketing agency to fully focused Webflow agency.

5:58Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So basically we stopped trying to be like a digital supermarket. We decided to become a very good focused niche agency who can solve the clients problem around the digital experience the conversions the marketing infrastructure. On top of that you can scale your marketing campaigns. So that's the story that's how we transition ourself. Right now we have more than 300 projects that we have delivered. We have worked with you know funded startups from Y Combinator to enterprise customers.

6:33Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: We are working with other Webflow agencies as well. So yeah we are running in Indian based local Webflow official chapters and I'm contributing to the ecosystem as well as the global ecosystem of Webflow. So that's the journey of the you know our agency. That is

6:52Janne Parri: That is awesome. And I'm always curious where are the boundaries like what type of services you do nowadays? Obviously Webflow but you mentioned the branding side. So I believe you probably still do the branding side but on the technical side how far do you go? Do you do like web apps or do you utilize like Webflow Cloud or any anything to that direction?

7:21Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. So in Webflow ecosystem we cover all aspect. So we build our own apps which are live already we use the Webflow Cloud and almost everything which is inside and around the Webflow ecosystem. So because we have gone through with 300 plus projects. So we have used it we have integrated it. Yeah, I mean around everything which covers the Webflow we use we use that and

7:50Janne Parri: That is nice. So I guess you are excited about Source by Webflow. What are your thoughts on that?

7:58Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. So I spoke with couple of other agencies at the Webflow Conf and everybody was excited and some people were like, okay, the Source is going to steal our work. So yeah, there's a different opinion but in my case and what I understood is see if you are just a agency whose values are around moving pixel from pixel to Figma and Figma to Webflow then definitely the Source going to take your work okay But if your values are around where you provide consultations, you provide experience, you provide a complete solution, a strategy, a content marketing.

8:40Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that is where your value will be. So instead of general freelancer or developer type agency who just click on buttons and build the website if you are architect who understand the business logics who understand the revenue models who understand the return on investment that's where the value is and that's where the Source going to help you

9:02Janne Parri: Okay this is this is awesome because I know as said you do coaching and sales stuff so I want to ask if there is that sort of freelancer or agencies listening, how do they get to the point to become like an actual strategist or someone more than just a pixel pusher?

9:23Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. So they as I told you they need to understand the whole business angle of the client's projects not just moving pixel from here and there how did your client makes money? what is their revenue channel and if they invest this much amount of money when they are going to receive a return on investment of that. See nobody comes in the Monday morning once they wake up and they say okay I need three CMS collection item I need two blogs and I need some Webflow GSAP animation nobody comes with that kind of requirement.

9:59Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: What client comes to you is I'm getting lesser leads, how can I increase more leads okay my marketing team is not able to update the website how can I increase that how can I remove the dependency on the that or how can I reduce that time. Okay. My sales team is not able to perform or not able to achieve the targets. My website is not know able to update frequently. How how can I change that? How can I change my pricing page better? So my campaigns deliver more return on the clicks.

10:34Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So if you understand those things then and then you will be able to you know able to survive otherwise see, Claude or ChatGPT, they have lots of capability right now client comes with AI based sites okay and then they see okay I have developed this now can you make it much better or I'm stuck right now I cannot do such things I cannot do these things so yeah the generic stuff is gone

11:01Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah and I would imagine if someone wants to take that step, they should be able to show that work and all the results in their portfolio or on their on their page. So, they would be known as more of the strategy guy than just a just a Webflow guy. And yeah, in general there is this kind of move in the past there were a lot of people, me included, who branded themselves as a Webflow guy, but nowadays there's more platforms.

11:33Janne Parri: There's AI mixing the pot and people are going back to maybe website guy or some sort of not Webflow branded work. So what do you think of that like progression that move and how do you think Appsrow, in Appsrow's case are you open to using like other platforms if clients asks for them?

11:58Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yes. So that's completely depends on the customer. Sometimes clients also don't know what tech stack they should use. So that's where our responsibility comes you know. So that's the beauty when clients comes to you, you need to ask the right questions to understand their needs, their requirements and based on that you have to suggest the right tech stack and so if client comes with a requirement which is you know more aligned towards Webflow and his needs definitely can be fulfilled using the Webflow platform.

12:35Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So we definitely recommend Webflow but sometimes client have a just idea just thought process and they come to us, they don't know about the tech stack. So we have to educate them we have to guide them okay based on this conversation you have this much options every platform has some pro and cons. So we explain them if you go with this, this is the pro things and this is the cons of this platform and then let them decide what is best for them.

13:02Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. And do you do you think that there is still place for a just Webflow focused agency or freelancer or should everybody try out new tools?

13:15Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So see I believe the innovations will be there and if you see before 10 years ago knowing how to execute that was the advantage but now because of AI and LLMs knowing how to execute is not an advantage anymore, it's cheaper but what kind of experience you can provide what kind of look and feel you're going to provide what will be the strategy behind this platform Oh, if you provide such things then and then you will be relevant in the market.

13:51Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Okay. So it doesn't matter which tool you use but I will believe if there is new innovation is coming and just like AI revolution right now the agentic platforms those are coming including in Webflow they have moved towards a complete marketing operating infrastructure where you know MCPs, AI agents inside the platform the Source the campaign the assets so if you see the trend every platform is moving toward this direction okay apart from that, not just Webflow, every other player in the market whether it's HubSpot, Wix they are also trying to move their themselves around this but I see Webflow has a advantage because other players are like Titanic ship if you talk about the WordPress it will take time to move their direction but Webflow is like cruiser boat they are small active they can pivot themselves very quickly and That's what I have seen in last one year.

14:52Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: If you see the pricing has been changed in time, the positioning has been changed more than two to three times. We are moving from low-code, no-code to positioning them as a agentic marketing solutions. So if anything is coming in the market, you should definitely try first to see what kind of capabilities you receive using those tools. Make sure nobody become if you give someone you know a drill they will not become an architect. So again AI tools have a power but you have to become an architect who understand the whole ecosystem business and the then and then you will be able to use that you know the power of AI.

15:36Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That's an interesting take that Webflow is the more nimble one the smaller one. I believe there's many, many like Webflowers in the community who wish that Webflow would like move quicker like the Source would be out there and all the AI features would be on par of what you can do with the static sites and so on but that is true there's even bigger, bigger boats bigger companies that take even longer to change but I'm curious with Appsrow like how do you like how do you react with your agency to all of the changes?

16:18Janne Parri: Are there something practical you are like trying out right now and what can you tell us?

16:26Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So for me we inside my agency we are from the day one we started using AI implementing AI inside our workflows as well as on the client side. So for us it's like we are implementing we are creating our own workflows our own apps to manage the agency you know as a agency you need to use lot of tools for proposals you know for chats you know for lead management you know project management so we started using all the apps created by our own team so that's how we are using it we recently if you see the launch of MCP so in Ahmedabad I have launched the MCP challenge and I'm glad to inform you that once I came back from the conference the two winners out of all five winners around the world.

17:16Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So two winners are from my community from Ahmedabad chapter. That's awesome right. So we are not just you know inviting the speakers for presentations. We are doing and building actually hands-on workshops around the community at as well as inside my agency. So we are closely watching all the developments and we are implementing all those stuffs inside our agency. We are doing experimenting with a lot of stuffs in around our workflow as well as the platform. That is

17:49Janne Parri: That is great. And you mentioned like you have your own tools. Can you give us an example what sort of tool even a tiny one you have that has helped your workflow?

17:59Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So yeah, we built our own project management system to manage multiple projects. So we have our own tool. Previously we were using other tools which are available in the market but based on our needs and our requirement we have created our own. Apart from that we built our own proposal making tool because it was taking a lot of time to create a proposal and share it with the client. Now we can share within an hour and it goes with our brand name and with our own URL to the client.

18:31Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So it takes less time and it gives us to track all the conversation and we can manage the multiple proposals in this single dashboard.

18:41Janne Parri: Yeah, that is awesome. That is awesome. Even though I'm just a one guy, one freelancer, like I have the same challenge like doing those proposals always takes time and you want to do that in a in a good way to have a chance to actually get the client and so on. So yeah, that's an awesome tool. But we have been circling the community part for a while now. So let's get on the community. So I believe at the beginning of this year you had your first meetup and as you mentioned you had a bunch of people show up even more than you expected and that is the first official Webflow chapter in India.

19:24Janne Parri: So my first question is that India is a huge country. Why on earth there hasn't been a official Webflow chapter before? What do you think?

19:35Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So I will slightly correct this like yeah of course you're right India is a big country and before this there was many freelancers agencies and a small local gatherings around Webflow topics but yeah there was no official chapter around this but yeah people were talking inside WhatsApp groups and local meetups around this subject. Okay. But then when I you know visited New York and I talk with Linda and Veronica I said why don't we have an official network where you know people can contribute and they can also connect with the direct global ecosystem of Webflow.

20:20Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that's why I decided like everything was unstructured, unorganized and I thought if someone is not doing it let's not wait let's start from us. So that's why we started over there as a official chapter and scaled it on. Our first meetup was as I told you it was more than 100 plus attendees. It was very houseful. It was around bringing the people. Second meetup was around the MCP, AEO playbooks and the conversions and the new way of you know ranking on AI and search LLMs and third meetup was directly a hands-on tactical sessions where you know we didn't invited speakers for the just present it was a direct hands-on challenge and you see the result now the two winners from the Ahmedabad community that shows the potential and that shows the energy over here.

21:23Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. As you have seen the people say the China is the factory of factory for world. So India is the factory for talented people around the globe.

21:38Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. That is so, so awesome. And you have already had like three meetups in this year. So what are you planning next?

21:48Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So next as I just came back from Boston with you know the recognition and credibility of course trophy has my name but there are lots of fingerprints inside that trophy which is my community and the people around here who are contributing are participating who are winning the MCP challenge around the globe. So of course we are going to celebrate this moment. So we are planning a fourth one very soon with all the latest updates and this award winning celebration.

22:21Janne Parri: That is so cool. I always want to ask if there is someone who is thinking of doing their own meetups, how would you recommend them to get started? Like obviously the first one is kind of the hardest. How would you how would you advise if someone wants to do their first meetup? What should they do?

22:42Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: First, you should have a mindset of contributing to the you know the local ecosystem. So that mindset is required because see over here I'm running my agency. We are a Webflow Premium Partner agency and building a community is required different energy and focus apart from managing your own agency right so if you have a mindset where you would like to contribute more apart from just building your own agency then and then you will be able to succeed in this community building area if you don't have a passion to contribute you will not succeed because I have seen a lot of I'm part of a lot of network over here in Ahmedabad lot of communities you know came into the picture and eventually after 6 months or one year because there is no one who would like to take ownership and who would like to perform consistently you know because it requires efforts it requires energy and it requires focus if you are individual you have a time energy and space to do that but if you are agency owner you're running agencies lot of stuff going in your mind and you have to focus on those things which doesn't give you a revenue.

24:00Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So yeah, I believe the right mindset is required.

24:03Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. That is that is so true. In a long, long run you kind of have to have that passion or else it will just wind down. Do you think even though you are doing this as a volunteer, do you think that there is some benefits for Appsrow from this community that you have built or are you just like not thinking about it in that way? thing

24:32Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Where you have to contribute while thinking back in your mind okay you will receive this benefit that then you will end up those things because you will not able to see the benefit within a few years but eventually because I'm myself a community leader part of multiple chapters over here I was running other communities as well over here so I have that passion and I'm doing it since longer period I know what it takes and what is required and years of experience into building the communities that's why I get you know so much results or outcomes within a year otherwise it takes lot of efforts and yeah it's not that much easy to build and run a community if you start with thinking like you will receive such benefits there it is not going to work out but in a longer run of course there are benefits so people recognize you a network of people around the agencies and around the people So it gives it gives you a upper edge.

25:34Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: It gives you a identity right open the doors of other collaboration opportunities. So yeah it helps it helps to it helps you to build your career. It helps it helps you to build your agency. It helps you to attract a good talent inside your agency. So those are the

25:54Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Tell me tell us about those other communities and what have you learned from those.

26:01Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So building a community I learned like right now nobody has a time everybody is engaged into their own stuff but when you build and run community you got a connection you got a with whom you can you know talk with whom you can take advice. So sometimes if you're stuck at certain level whether those might be your agency problems those might be a technical level problem so you get help from your network.

26:33Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that's the beauty of you know participating in the communities and meetups and eventually you build your connections your customers or your colleagues your founders co-founders throughout this network. So it helps you to grow your career as well as your business.

26:51Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And I have seen that there's quite a few Appsrow employees taking part in the Webflow community. So is that like encouraged like do you do you wish that all of your employees take part in the communities?

27:09Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah because before 5 years ago it was a game of headcount, you know as a agency how many people you have in next five year it is a game of how much capable people inside your team who can use the intelligent and the intelligent will be on their hands. So I want a small boutique studio with bunch of people who are superb and who are intelligent enough how to use you know the tools which are available in the market whether it's MCP, ChatGPT, Claude, Figma Design so I want I want to encourage them so that they understand how the things work the market works just like I told you they I don't want them just to click on buttons and you know moving pixel from Figma to Webflow I want they understand the whole scenario.

28:04Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that's why I encourage them I encourage them to participate in the meeting become a speaker, share their voice in the market because once you start sharing you get more ideas and understanding around you know those topics you have to prepare a lot things to say you know if you have to give 30 minutes speech it requires two three days of preparation so you prepare yourself

28:28Janne Parri: That is true and that's good exercise for every one of us and that is kind of like both taking part in the community but also like figuring out stuff learning stuff so that can be thought as a as a learning opportunity too. That's so that's so cool and yeah it's cool to see like Appsrow and the community they are separate things but they are kind of like intertwined there. there is this layer between them. So it's cool to see and I'm glad that you have come up with that.

29:05Janne Parri: Okay, let's move on to the other topics. So you have also done coaching and especially like sales coaching. So most Webflow people are builders who hate selling. So what would your advice for those people be like? How should they approach selling?

29:25Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So stop selling Webflow because you know nobody wake ups in the morning and comes with like I need five CMS collection item I need three blogs and I need some random Lottie animations. Okay so what people actually need is they're getting lesser lead the conversion is very less their marketing team is not able to update the website frequently. So you have to diagnose the requirements and you have to diagnose the people because you need to learn ask right questions to your prospect before jumping into the solutions and that's how you should start and lead the conversation any prospect comes to you.

30:10Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So think like if doctor comes to you and he says I have 100 medicines would you going to purchase? What mostly people do whenever you know prospect comes they say okay I provide this service I provide that service I provide this service. So instead of providing your services in a call or in a conversation you should not talk 80% about you and about your services. It's like let them ask right questions and let the client realize the bigger picture of his problem and how you going to provide a solution.

30:45Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So Webflow, that's how we provide a solutions of clients problem. Webflow is not itself a problem. So that's my advice

30:55Janne Parri: That is totally true and I believe people who have tried out that have probably seen that that is basically the only way to go. But if there's people who are still on that kind of product mindset that they are just the executor the pixel pusher let's say that they get their work from Fiverr or some of those platforms how could they move from that point to this more strategist role where they can actually diagnose the problem before giving the solution what do you think

31:30Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So those who are you know on Fiverr and Upwork, they need to train themselves first on the consultation part on understanding the business communication and business systems then and then they will be able to move at this level because the role which they are performing right now lot of things can be executed by AI itself at the moment at this time

31:59Janne Parri: That is true I'm also like thinking you have worked with companies all around the world. And again, if there's someone who is not in the United States or not in the UK, maybe even a little country like Finland, how could they like break the borders and get more international clients? Do you do you have any solution for that?

32:25Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So definitely if you like to attract international customers or international clients you need to visible where they are where they are hanging what they are searching it's like a two-way inbound channels and outbound channels. So inbound it's like your own website. Your website is your 24x7 salesperson who doesn't take leaves who don't ask for a increment. So you have a good proper website which is visible in the Google search engine which is ranking which has a good authority plus it is optimized for current AI search visibility.

33:06Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Then you need to hang around where your prospects are. So for example, go and attend specific networking events where you think your potential prospect will be there. Talk to them. Try to understand their problems and that's how you can you know reach to the international customers from Finland.

33:30Janne Parri: Yeah, that's solid advice. Obviously you have to have some something well in English that shows up. But I'm curious with Appsrow, how did you do it? Did you already have like a global audience? I know that you have a lot of history from all the way from 2018. So, how did you find all those like big global clients?

33:54Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yes. So, it's because we are in the business. We started small, you know, studio and then we scaled it to 20 people agency as of now. So yeah, that's the transition and it takes time. I'm not saying from day one you will start getting international clients. Start building your portfolio around your local region. Start working in the local market. Build a portfolio. Build good website, good presence, invest in SEO and AEO.

34:25Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: And then once you have good portfolio, good connections. Try to attend networking events outside your region. try to build connections. You have a lot of tools right now. You have LinkedIn right now. So you can start engaging into the conversations around the world and you can you know create you can eventually generate leads from other channels other digital channels like LinkedIn as well as attend conferences. That's my advice.

34:54Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. actually about conferences. I haven't visited too many but are those like actually a good way to get clients? What's your experience?

35:06Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: First my advice is don't attend conference to get clients. If you go with this mindset, you will disappoint yourself. Attend conference to meet your industry leaders, your I would say competitors as well. You will get lot of understandings in market insights, new trends, new challenges that they are facing. By doing it, you will have curated network of people who are similar to you or above you. So they this will become your go-to network first and then once you understand the whole ecosystem the trends challenges you will have a better understanding and you will be able to talk to your consumers or your prospect in a better way and then eventually you will start converting you know prospects.

36:00Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So I see in this I don't go and visit any conference to get clients. I visit conference to meet few extraordinary people who are well known in the market. I try to understand how they solve the problems what are the challenges they face because whatever challenges you are facing they might face the same and they have a solution for you.

36:25Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. It's it's funny like almost in almost every time in sales it's more like this long, long game like if you go in with a mentality that I have to get a client right now that's usually a bad position to be in but if you have the time if it might be conferences it might be like content like blog posts AEO SEO all of those things social media if you have time to build the foundation and the network that's so much better position than I need a client right now don't you think?

37:02Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah because lot of young folks who you know getting started so they were like you know I have to close the deals I have to make a sales on this but see if you are in the service industry it's not that much easy and that's a wrong mindset I would say because see if there's a difference between selling the services and selling the product. So if I have to sell a product it's easy because I can show it to you. I can show this is the color.

37:33Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: You can touch it, you can feel it and you know 100% what you're going to receive. But in service it's everything inside wordings, calls, mails. Once we sign a contract after 1 month, 2 month, 3 months you going to receive what I have promised to you. So it's very hard to sell a service. It's not that much easy. So you need to be patient and yeah as you're right you mentioned you have to play a long game.

37:59Janne Parri: Totally. Totally. And do you think AI has or will change the sales part of this? Obviously, it has changed the SEO thing, some of the website technical aspects, but has AI changed the sales aspect of our work.

38:18Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Definitely AI has done lot of changes in respect to the selling side I would say because now you can generate 500 proposals in not weeks in days. You can write 20 50 personalized custom emails in minutes. You can do the research within hour. Right? So lot of mechanical work from sales has been I would say completely reduced before it takes a lot of time to create a proposal lot of time to draft a customized emails but that friction has been removed so definitely that's the beauty of AI to use the AI but the one thing anybody can write a perfect email anybody can draft a perfect proposal still there is the human angle and the trust is required to close and win the deals because that's the only part which is not perfect which is natural and that is where I think the more deals going to close because you are playing that part and you should and you have to play that part client will not able to understand the feelings you know how you understood about his business and how you going to perform Although everything looks perfect, your proposal looks perfect, your communication, email communication perfect looks perfect but how you going to transfer that feeling that you are genuine person the client can trust you only when you understand the client problems.

40:01Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that is where you have to play around. That is

40:05Janne Parri: That is actually a tough, tough challenge especially if you are not yet like actually talking with the client. you are just trying to get your foot in the door like you are emailing the client and so on and you want to build this trust but you kind of need to get the attention of the client and there's a high chance that the client has a bunch of emails from other service providers and how do you differentiate in that maybe it comes down to those conferences like you have to do some face-to-face, in-person time.

40:42Janne Parri: Yeah. How do you how do you think about that challenge? Like how do you first get in touch with the client or should it be the other way? Should it should you be like so good at what you do so that the client comes to you? What do you think?

40:59Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So it's it at this stage it happens. Client comes to us 80% of the time 20% we go and reach out. It was just opposite before 2 years ago. When you are new with the market or building your capabilities or building your skills, you're building your portfolio, then you have to reach out in the market, you have to shout in the market. Okay, I'm doing this. I have this capability. So yeah, I mean if you're new, you have to reach out to the people. If you are experienced enough, have a good testimonials, good customer reviews.

41:33Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So for us, Appsrow, it's like more than 100 plus positive reviews on different channels. So we receive a lot of inquiries from different sources.

41:44Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I'm still like wondering do you have any practical advice if there's someone who is who is not yet getting those inbound leads who is still like struggling and doing the active sales what should they do in this AI era?

42:01Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So that's completely again depend on that person whether those are individuals or small agencies or just two three people inside you know the studio inbound channels or small public studio so you have to do both outbound activities attend meetups, building your inbound channels. Both the way you should start.

42:22Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah, that is that is true. And this is obviously a like challenge that everybody will face at some point. But as we have talked, it's usually a good idea to play the long game. Hopefully one has time for the long game. But I wanted to visit one kind of extra topic kind of relating to this AI and sales thing and it is it is like pricing like how do you how do you define the price for your services especially nowadays when AI does the heavy lifting and maybe even the client thinks that with AI everything is so easy.

43:09Janne Parri: And you mentioned also that Appsrow has that offer building tool that you have created.

43:16Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Let me rephrase it. It's like if AI can build a websites now, why does somebody still need Appsrow? Why someone will come to Appsrow? Because it's easy to build a websites.

43:27Janne Parri: Yeah, kind of that. And obviously there are still use cases where Appsrow is great. And I'm like curious how do you price those services? But yeah, we can go with the with the if AI does all this thing things for us websites and so on, why do we need agencies, Appsrows, or even freelancers like me? What do you think?

43:53Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yes. So because I believe clients never hired us to push the buttons into the Webflow. Okay. They they hired us to reduce the uncertainty. They they hired us to provide a proper solutions of their business around the web platform. You know what their website should do, what their website should be positioning for, what kind of things inside the CMS structure should look like, what should be the architecture of their whole website, how their website going to perform in AI search and Google AI Mode.

44:32Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So those are the things where client hire us. How does the marketing team going to use this websites? How does the sales team can take use of this website? So these are the areas where you know client hires us. So that's what I

44:49Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Maybe the clients that think that AI can do everything for them, they might be doing their own websites already and those are not the greatest clients for us. But I'm also thinking that has this AI thing changed how you price the services? Like what kind of price tag do you put on your services or is it just the same as before AI?

45:19Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Pricing I would say it depends on requirement to requirement and it frequently change the way before if you say before 3 or 4 years ago it was like you know hourly models now it has become like a outcome based model client don't care how much time it will take client just cares, will you able to reduce my page load speed from 3 seconds to 2 seconds so that's the outcome based models are coming. Yeah. So pricing has been changed and so I'm not going to deep dive on project business but the current market is working towards the outcome basis.

45:59Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. That is a challenging thing like I know that that's the way it is supposed to go like I deliver this and it's the value of this is let's say x dollars or x whatever currency but the usual like hourly work like I do x hours for you that is so, so simple and that's probably the reason why many people use that and it is kind of kind of safe for the for the like supplier for the one doing the work but that is obviously not the best way to way to price anything.

46:40Janne Parri: So, how do you think people could transition from the hourly work towards that outcome based thing or is it just like try out with one customer see if they pick you and move from there? What do you think?

46:56Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: I certainly believe that this model is already there and the people who are still working with the old models they should start thinking on the outcome based. Now building a software or building a website it's a commodity right. So just simple understanding is like your website is generating I would say 50 leads per month and if customer is coming okay I'm not getting enough lead I would like to increase my I would like to take it from 50 leads to 100 leads.

47:26Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: So it's up to you whether you provide a revamping services or CRO services or simple you said okay give me all your website last 3 to 6 months data I would like to see all the users user behaviors traffic and based on that I think I just yeah I will provide your AI chatbot services and it will increase your lead generation by 25 to 30%. And if it is increase, I will charge this. And it doesn't matter what is the charge of building AI bot, what how much hours it's going to look like.

48:00Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: But the outcome is if I increase 25% lead generation, then you have to pay with this.

48:06Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of like the value based pricing. And this all ties to together with all the things that we have talked about before like you have to be the one who does the thinking the strategy behind the thing like if you just wait for the customer to say that do this let's say new page or new section that is that is not the way to go but I'm curious how did you find those agency partners who you work with where did you Where did you find those?

48:42Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Mostly as I told you, we are in the business since almost 7 plus years. So we have a lot of different channels. So we don't go and find partners, we receive inquiries inbound because right now everything is available on fingertips. People do their research and come to us Yeah.

49:04Janne Parri: Yeah. I'm not sure if I was expecting any other answer. That's simple, simple and beautiful answer. Okay. Okay, Sandeep. we're coming to the end, but is there anything you'd like to add to the community thing, to like agency building, sales, pricing or whatever topic that we have talked about.

49:27Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: I think we have covered almost all the aspect on in this podcast which is good enough and engaging enough. So I think this looks perfect.

49:40Janne Parri: Beautiful. Beautiful. There's one weird little section at the end. But before that, if the audience wants to check you out, maybe check Appsrow out or follow you, maybe even contact you, where should they go?

49:56Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: I believe they should search www.appsrow.com and they will find all the details about me, my agency, our services, our solutions, our products and everything and they can reach out to me from there.

50:12Janne Parri: Yeah. And I believe the community stuff is also under Appsrow's website. Am I correct?

50:18Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah, it is there.

50:20Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. I will put the links down in the description. Obviously, you can find those out there. But the last section, the last section is this weird little Finnish section. It's a kind of like a surprise, a thing that I do with every guest. And what follows is that I will give you a Finnish saying and I will obviously translate that to English and your job is to guess what that means. Is that clear? I'm sure. Okay. your saying firstly in Finnish is jäädä suusta kiinni and in English it is to get caught by the mouth. So what does it mean if I say that? Okay, I got caught by the mouth. I can give you a little bit of a hint. This is usually said in a context that let's say I'm late. I'm late to this meeting and I as a excuse I say that okay I got caught by my mouth or from my mouth.

51:27Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Okay, I understand.

51:29Janne Parri: What do you think that means?

51:32Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Yeah. So it usually happens when you share proposal after discovery calls to client once you share the estimation and timeline and then client say okay I will respond you in a day tomorrow but they you never receive their responses and once you take followup so the exactly the words you have mentioned okay I was stuck here my partner didn't responded so I think that's a similar scenario which I see.

52:04Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. it's close but it's not quite accurate. So what this usually means is that I had a lengthy conversation with someone and I was obviously not planning to do that. So if I'm late to a meeting that's because I had this conversation with a with some friend of mine and that's why I'm kind of late. So, I got caught by my mouth with that guy and now I'm now I'm late. Okay.

52:35Janne Parri: So, okay. So, that's the Yeah, this is just this funny little thing I need to do at the end of every episode just to root for our little country up north. So, yeah. But, okay, Sandeep, this has been great. Thanks for being a guest and for all the listeners and watchers, we'll see you in the next one. Bye.

52:56Sandeepsingh Sisodiya: Thank you so much.