I came across an interesting article in my RSS reader last week, and since it’s a sales blog, the headline instantly caught my eye — Seemingly Little Mistakes That Cost You Big Opportunities. When reading the section about doing a poor diagnosis or needs analysis, I couldn’t help but think about how the same mistake is made in planning websites.
We put in a lot of time up-front meeting with clients and discussing a project while quoting it — long before we send the proposal or win the job. Some of my peers think I’m crazy for doing this work up-front, and I even know of one firm that charges for quoting jobs.
Fact is, most companies and organizations think they know what they want, but we as designers and developers know that when we learn more about a project, there are more opportunities to build a better, more technologically sound site than clients know about.
Doing research and having meetings with prospects up-front is worth the time because a) it will never cause us to lose the job, b) we can help the client understand possible ways to meet their goals that they may not have thought of, and c) we develop a rapport with the client. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate thought leadership.
To us, web design, development and online marketing requires significant planning and analysis. It’s the foundation of a well-planned project. This prevents re-work during the approval phase and in the end, gives our clients a solution that will often exceed their expectations.
Do you need a firm that is willing to immerse themselves in your business? Contact us.
June 7th, 2010 at 11:03 am
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July 22nd, 2010 at 10:51 am
David Zemens says:
Without sounding too cliche, “The early bird gets the worm” comes to mind when I read your article Rick.
I, too, put plenty of time into working with a client before the proposal. I pride myself on great response and customer service that is often not provided by bigger firms. Do I always get the project? Nope. But more often than not I do.
Being the early bird has been a successful approach for me.
July 28th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Arturas Kvederis says:
I would say that in most cases customer actually don’t know exactly what they need, and it is up to us to guide them through the decision making process. There are a lot of ways to do that, e.g. we’ve developed an online website ROI calculator (http://sysiq.com/conversion-funnel/) that allows customers before hand to see the details of missed revenue opportunities.
Regards,
Arturas
July 28th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Rick Whittington says:
Arturas,
You’re correct that clients don’t always know what they need, which is why we put so much time into the planning end of the project. We also like to allow time for gathering technical requirements so we build something that’s useful, and brainstorm ideas to make their websites better for customers.
Thank you for your comments, Arturas and David!
December 23rd, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Why we don’t do spec work | Rick Whittington Consulting says:
[...] single most important reason that we don’t do spec web design work is that we must understand the goals and objectives of the website. Our clients hold us accountable for the effectiveness — and in some cases specific metrics [...]