I think every company goes through it at one point or another, where you look at your existing website and wonder “Is this really what we want everyone’s first impression of us to be?” When we stopped and asked ourselves that question, the answer was a resounding “NO”.

We’re usually deep in projects for other people; no time for working on our own home. But, last year while attending South by Southwest, Spheric’s lead designer Teddy Hwang and I became acutely aware of the fact that our site didn’t reflect us at all. It didn’t tell our story, our personality was absent, even the technologies we’ve mastered were missing. Inspired by all the enthusiasm and creativity at the conference, we set out on a mission.

Our goal? To create a site for Spheric that was not only sexy in appearance and communicated “what we do”, but also told our story, conveyed what sets us apart, and, maybe most important, convinced visitors what our current clients already know: We’re here to help our clients be awesome at whatever they do. We were also driven by the desire to tell really smart people out there that our company culture is much, much different than what you usually find in IT work. We want to keep growing, and to do that, we needed to show brilliant people that Spheric is the place they want to be a valued part of.

But we already had our hands full doing client work. We also wanted the objectivity of people outside of our company to point to what we couldn’t see right in front of us. It’s probably true for most companies, to one degree or another. A fresh pair of eyes, especially when those eyes have a lot of experience, was needed if we were going to meet our business goals. Teddy Hwang is an incredibly talented guy, and I’m amazed that he was humble enough as a designer to invite another designer to act as branding and design consultant on our project. That, to me, is the sign of an ace designer, and a true professional. Hats off to Teddy.

We brought in two incredibly talented women: Well-known designer Lea Alcantara of LeaLea Design, who kicks ass at branding strategy, design, and self-branding, and the ultra-smart Carolyn Wood of pixelingo, who has years of experience doing editorial/content strategy and copywriting, working with top companies and designers in the web world. Lea and Carolyn both put us through an amazingly thorough process, advising us at every turn, and opening our eyes to many ideas we’d never thought of, probably because we took what was special about us for granted.

We wanted people who really, really listened to us, and we got it. Lea got us to examine who we are and how we wanted others to see us, and we stopped to really look at that and give them the answers they needed. Then, we basically just gave them carte blanche to do anything they wanted. The result was that the site was completely transformed. Suddenly, all the words and pages came alive and were just “us”. Our message, culture, abilities, and personality were exploding from the page. We place a lot of value on collaboration, teamwork, and honesty, and their entry into our team was seamless—no uncomfortable moments. They also shared our philosophy of no BS. No marketing fluff. People on the web have had it with that and never believe it. It’s exactly the sort of stuff we can’t stand. We’ve got a site now with no false notes; we can back up every statement.

I’d be pumped each day to see what surprises Teddy had produced and I’d laugh as I enjoyed how Carolyn made our personality come across in every sentence. But, believe me, we had to do a lot of work, too. A lot of self-searching, a lot of thinking about our future direction. We had to work on making technologies clear, and countless other challenges. Our entire Spheric team had a chance to claim part of the site as their own, too, writing about themselves. Our team IS our company. We needed their voices.

We look over the pages now, and along with Lea and Carolyn can see possibilities for future iterations. But, clearly, this site is us. Most of our business comes through word of mouth, with more than satisfied clients passing our name on to others, or we would meet people face-to-face and they’d want to work with us, because we’d show them what we can do, or we just clicked. But finally, we also have an online presence that speaks for us, saying what we really want it to say, looking how we want it to look.

Our conclusion? That mission we set out on a year ago has been accomplished. We recommend that everyone step back and look at their own site and consider if it really says (visually and verbally) what it should about who they are and what they do, how they’re unique and, as the great writer/speaker Kathy Sierra always reminds us, how they can make other people awesome, too.