Some things overheard in client conversations recently…

• Typography in a logo acts as a kind of signature for your brand… If your company was a person, this is how it would sign its’ name.

• Advertising in Google requires common sense. If someone clicks your link, -how much would you be willing to pay to have them look at your site? What if it was redesigned?

• There are a number of ways that your brand could be perceived that would sell products, -but which one represents you? A logo is a representation of personality…. Your personality.

• That change sounds like it would cost hundreds of dollars, -not thousands of dollars… It sounds like a quick fix, let us know if you want to get started, or if you need a more firm estimate…

The perceived ease of tasks.

There are restaurants in the world that let their customers set their own price. It sounds crazy but it works for them… It works because we’ve all tried to cook something for ourselves and struggled. Anyone who has ever tried to make their own chicken kiev, or vegetable lasagna has a finer appreciation when they experience the same dish in the hands of an expert. It’s worth an extra buck or two. Not everyone is respectful, -but for every cheapskate, there is a rewarding connoisseur.

Would a lawyer, an accountant, or graphic designer survive by letting clients set their own prices? Have you ever audited an S-corp? Designed a tri-fold brochure? Would you know excellence if you saw it? Would you have a concept of how long it might take to do it yourself? or what could go wrong? Would you be able to assess the worth of the service?

Technology has spoiled us when it comes to purchasing professional services. Why pay an accountant when you can just use Quickbooks. Why pay a designer when you can just throw something together in Front Page. There is a perceived ease that technology affords us. But how much does the legal fee cost vs. the long drawn out court case? How much does the web designer cost vs. the ecommerce site that crashes?

Just like good food or service at a restaurant we all look for quality in our service providers. We look for trust. You’ll probably never use CSS to change the size of the header on a 500 page website. You’ll likely never color correct a brochure on press before 10,000 copies are printed. You may never get to set up a database that powers a content management system. If you ever do, you may gain some insight into how we spend our days. We might even consider the voluntary payments. In the meantime, we hope you trust us to find every efficiency, and optimization we can, and we’ll keep billing by the hour… We won’t even put out a tip jar.

Bits of wisdom

[Work] below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle only five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.
Picasso

The business community wants remarkable advertising, but turns a cold shoulder to the kind of people who can produce it. That is why most advertisements are so infernally dull…. our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent, I believe, is most likely to be found among non-conformists, dissenters, and rebels.
David Ogilvy

…I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and you couldn’t replace one of these people with 50 average people. They could just do stuff that no number of average people could do…small and medium-sized teams of these people could accomplish extraordinary things and run circles around large teams of normal people.
Steve Jobs

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

A good plan violently executed today, is far and away better than a perfect plan next week.
Patton

Glimpses of genius beauty and novelty – Groundhog day

* dotherightthing.com – let consumers speak [This website is no longer active.]
* The design disease – it’s catching
* Punxsutawney Phil – history of a furry weatherman
* 5ives – half as many as a top 10 list

Fundamentals – Website scope

We all know that no project should start without a clear set of goals. The hard part is determining which of these goals are absolutely imperative for a successful first phase of a website, and which ones can be saved for later. It helps to think of your website as an ongoing process. It should continue to grow and evolve to meet the needs of your customers and your employees, but should always remain simple in focus.

Once you relax, and embrace the idea of “phase one” your life will be much easier. Giving yourself permission to think simply will allow you to see what you are really doing. Nobody builds a website because they need a website, they build one to solve a problem. The first step of determining scope is to find some focus.

The first phase of your website should have a clear call to action such as:

• This website will introduce our new company to the public
• This website will make it easy for customers to purchase our most popular products online.
• This website will provide our customers a tool to learn about our services.

More specifically:

• This website will increase revenue by 7%
• This website will decrease customer support phone calls by 10%

With some rephrasing, you can see how scope relates to budget:

• How much would I spend to increase revenue by 7%
• How much would I pay to decrease customer support phone calls by 10%

Start by making the most simple statement possible that fulfills an objective you would be happy with. Choose succinct goals and determine the amount of money that it would be legitimate to spend for that result. It becomes very easy to define the scope of a project when you break it into small parts that are easy to explain in one sentence.

If you are realistic with your goals, and keep them concise, it will always be easy to determine if you are on the right path with your project. It will also be easier to determine if you’ve achieved your goals once the website is launched.

Things to say to a developer

• Have you built websites that have solved these problems before?
• Do you think you can realistically meet these goals? – Within the budget?
• Do you think these goals adequately address our future needs?