Grant Kennedy

Lessons From My First Case Study: Mattress Clearance Center

1 min read
Case Studies Personal

A 2025 reflection on one of my earliest web projects—and the timeless lessons it taught me about messaging, conversions, and the fundamentals of building online trust.

Lessons From My First Case Study: Mattress Clearance Center

This project came from a Facebook message.
A small business owner in Northern Michigan wanted a website for her mattress store. At that point in my career, I’d built plenty of websites—but this one became my first real case study.

Nearly two years of iterations, mistakes, refinements, and eventual clarity went into it.
And even today, in 2025, I still reference the lessons I learned from this project.

Not because it was technically complex or beautifully designed.
But because it revealed what actually drives conversions online—and how important it is to understand the human behind the business.

The Backstory (Reflection)

The owner had a great product, years of entrepreneurial experience, and strong sales—but almost zero online credibility. In local Facebook groups, people would question whether her business was even real.

The lesson was immediate and obvious:

Online trust isn’t earned through effort. It’s earned through clarity.

Before this project, I thought “web design” started with layout, colors, and CMS choices.
This job forced me to understand that it starts much earlier—with positioning, message, and perception.

Condensed Case Study

Challenge → Solution → Results

The Challenge

  • Weak online visibility
  • Low trust from local customers
  • Need for a website that could generate calls and appointments consistently

The Solution

I walked the client through a simplified StoryBrand framework:

  • The customer is the hero
  • The business is the guide
  • The copy must reduce uncertainty and increase confidence
  • Every page must make taking the next step obvious

Then I built a lean, conversion-focused website with:

  • Clear trust signals
  • Calls-to-action placed where people naturally look
  • A contact form to request a callback
  • Imagery that blended aspirational and relatable

The Results

  • Inquiries quadrupled
  • Sales jumped from ~15k to ~40k/month
  • Her business became the local default choice
  • The website—simple as it was—paid for itself many times over

What I Took Away From It

Even now, working in IT consulting and enterprise support, the lessons still apply:

  • Clarity beats cleverness.
  • Trust beats design awards.
  • A website’s job isn’t to impress—it’s to convert.
  • Small businesses don’t need “templates.” They need understanding.

This was one of the first projects that made me realize I cared deeply about practical outcomes—not fluff, not trends, not agency vanity metrics.

It helped define my approach long before I had the language for it.

In hindsight, it wasn’t just a case study.
It was the moment I stopped designing “websites” and started designing outcomes.