Lead list for web design: ten real examples

At a restaurant, a dental practice or a barbershop, the person who signs off on the website is usually the owner, so the owner is who a web designer's list should hold. The ten rows below came back from three real sample requests, whose descriptions are merged in the one quoted here.

What went in

What you sell: a new or rebuilt website or app, plus the things that make it bring in customers: online booking and ordering, fast replies to enquiries, reviews, local search, AI agents that take the bookings.

Who buys it: the owner or founder of a business of 2 to 50 people that depends on being found locally, like a clinic, law firm, restaurant, salon, home-services or real-estate firm, and whose site is out of date.

Who doesn't: agencies, freelance designers and developers, companies with an in-house marketing team.

What came back

Role	Company	Region	Why it fits
Restaurant owner	Independent restaurant and events venue	Texas, US	Dining and event bookings come in through the website, and the owner pays for any work on it.
Owner	BBQ restaurant and catering business	Texas, US	Catering orders depend on a site that shows the menu and takes enquiries, and the owner decides on it.
Dentist and practice owner	Family dental practice	Manitoba, Canada	New patients find the practice through its website, and the owner picks who builds it.
Dental practice owner	Cosmetic and implant dental practice	California, US	High-value patients choose on reviews, the website and how fast an enquiry gets a reply.
Dental practice owner and CEO	Growing dental practice	Arizona, US	Runs the practice by KPIs, so lead-response automation and analytics are an easy sell alongside reviews.
Realtor and team lead	Real-estate team inside a national brokerage	Texas, US	Agents win clients on reviews, social posts and how fast they answer a lead, and the team lead pays for those tools.
Barbershop owner	Independent barbershop, one location	Los Angeles area, US	An owner-run shop that would buy a site with online booking, or an AI agent that takes appointments.
Barbershop co-founder	Independent barbershop	New York, US	Handles the shop's operations and growth, so a website, booking app or automation would be their call.
Founder and chef-owner	Plant-based restaurant	Northeast US	Runs the place they founded, so a site redesign or an online-ordering app is their decision.
Owner and manager	Sandwich shop	Minnesota, US	Owns and runs a small shop that could sell more with a better website and online ordering.

What made someone fit

Every fit runs an independent business, or a team inside one, and decides what gets spent on its website. Most near misses had a local business attached but weren't the person who buys its website. Franchisees of Cinnabon, Pure Barre and a pizza chain came up, and the brand runs all of those sites. So did a clinic manager inside an insurer-owned dental network, and individual agents at realty brokerages whose marketing is bought centrally, where a team lead who pays for the team's tools made the list. Some profiles were a restaurant's own page with nobody named on it. The word "restaurateur" pulled in a French furniture restorer and a film restorer. Staff at Alphabet and other large companies were dropped for having their own web teams, and a branding studio for being a competitor. Two fits were rated weaker. One practice gets most of its patients by referral, so the website matters less. The other has been open for more than forty years and may have a site already. Dental practices outnumbered everything else across the runs. Their owners' profiles tend to name the practice, the role and the town, which is enough to judge a fit.

Get yours

Describe what you sell and who buys it, and I'll send you ten of your own for free.