When I’m talking with a possible client about their web site I do 2 things.
1. I’m constantly trying to quantify the benefit the person will receive from our work
2. I tell lots of stories
I tend to be a bit harsher these days when I speak with prospects. I don’t sugarcoat it if they have a terrible web site. I basically say “You have a terrible web site and it needs fixing.”
I had a lady in today to whom I said something similar. She’s a no-nonsense, down to earth lady who quite happily accepted the comments about her current site (it’s a bit outdated and a little confusing to navigate through) in the spirit I intended them – to give her the information she needed to make the right decision.
I think that, intuitively, we all tend to speak to clients the way we think they’d prefer. If the person with me today was different I may well have been much gentlier (but wasting her time which I wouldn’t want to do).
Getting your message across takes time and skill. Sure, we all make mistakes by misreading the situation on occasions but it’s well worth being bold in an effort to be better.
Cheers
Brendon
Hello
I’ve just removed the spam comments (about 2,000). You’ll need to register to comment for now.
Cheers.
Brendon
2005 Hot Products
Based on Black Friday and Cyber Monday (Thanksgiving in the US) consumer demand at Shopping.com, the hottest products for holiday 2005 include:
— Apple iPod Nano
— Canon PowerShot A510 Digital Camera
— Casio Triple Sensor Pathfinder Watch
— Dyson DCO7 Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner
— Garmin Global Positioning System (GPS) Receiver
— Humax T800 TiVo Video Recorder (80-hour)
— LeapFrog Leapster Children’s Multimedia Learning System
— Leather Hobo Handbag
— Microsoft Xbox 360 Console
— Panasonic 42 inch HDTV Plasma TV
Can you or your clients sell aqny of those?
Cheers
Brendon
I was just reading the excellent MarketingSherpa site and they’re saying “100 million consumers have downloaded the Firefox Web browser in the past year. If you market to a cutting-edge demographic, up to 35% of your traffic could be from Firefox users.”
Lots of things break in Firefox (i.e. shopping carts) so it might be time to check back on old site designs and offer clients a rebuild based on Firefox issues.
Cheers
Brendon
“Oh Brendon, we don’t have more than $1,000 to spend on the web site! Can you do it as cheaply as possible……. if you do a good job we’ll be sure to give you more work later.”
When I go to ring them back the next day I can’t speak with them. You see, they’re off to London for their annual 4 weeks holiday with the entire family.
And they take the Nanny too!
Be Tough
Be tough in your negotiations because that’s what business is about. Don’t compromise and do a job at a ridiculous low rate. You’ll hate doing the job and you’ll actually lose money.
Don’t be that sucker.
These days I don’t even entertain the tought of working with someone like the above (when I was starting out the clients all said “If you do a good job we’ll give you more work. That new work never eventuates.).
Cheers
Brendon
PS: The only bit I made up of the above is the Nanny. She didn’t go with them!
Howdy. We’re just about to launch our podcast over at Tailored Podcast. Come and have a listen to yours truly talk for 20 minutes on marketing, media and the web and you could win a Mini iPod.
Podcast launches 2 pm November 22, 2005.
Regards
Brendon
I had an interesting meeting today with a guy that I quoted a web site for $17,500. The competition quoted $4,000.
The prospect had me back in the justify my pricing. I did that by talking about the value of what we provided. Not:
* hours of work
* resources used
* software required
Anyone can quote on those things. And, truth be told, we’d probably take less hours than our competition because our experience and expertise means we’ve done this 100 times before.
So the last thing I want to quote on is hours. Because we provide better value, that’s what I want to be quoting on.
It would be an interesting job to do and one where we could provide the client with a sensational site…..I’ll let you know how we go.
Brendon
Google have done it again with great free stuff for web developers.
They’ve just released free web analytics which look to be very powerful.
I feel like a Googlelite now – I have Google Talk, Gmail, Analytics, I use Adwords and Adsense.
My home page is personalised courtesy of Google.
I use Google Desktop Search.
I use Blogger (owned by Google) on other sites.
But, on the flip side, I’m using Microsoft Office OneNote and loving it.
Here’s some other stuff I use regulary:
Skype – free and paid for VoiP. I have a New York number as well as my Skype username. I use Skype because I have other people I call on Skype (free calls….and very easily done from my computer).
I need the New York number for our eczema and psoriasis care web site. And I pay 10 Euros for about 10 hours talk time with the account. I try and remember to call mobile/cell phones and home with that.
I use Hot Recorder in conjunction with Skype to record telephone interviews.
I have also just bought another VoiP facility that will hook into our Commander system and we’ll be able to make all outgoing calls over VoiP. That will save the business thousands each year (and the quality is, we’ve seen, better than using Skype).
You can’t tell the difference between the VoiP service from Engin and the ‘normal’ phone line. (The only difference will be the close on $2,000 a year savings we’ll make.)
I use Google Talk regularly as well. That’s 3 VoiP services. Oh my goodness, I’m a complete bloody geek!
I use Bloglines as my aggregator for the blogs I read. Here’s one of the better blogs I read: Jim Boykin’s search blog.
I use Audacity (excellent free audio program) for recording and editing my audio.
Looking at my digital life has me saying thanks to Google. A little sad, but true.
Cheers.
Brendon
Howdy. It’s been a while since a post – I haven’t died. Just been running around like a crazy man from dawn to dusk and beyond to try and get things under control here.
I’ll add a few bits and pieces here to get up to date with some nice new tools that have come out.
Cheers
Brendon
Hello. My last 4 leads have come from here:
1. Link from the bottom of a web site (very rare) – $4,000 lead
2. Speech spectator (common) – $3,000
3. Radio Show (common) – $12,000
4. Client referral (most common) – $8,000
What I like about that is they’re all from different sources.
And none of them cost me a cent to get.
Brendon