1. Be a Jack of all trades

It seems the conventional wisdom lies in how much you know rather than how well you know it. I see people who have skill sets that take up a lot of space on a resume. Admirable? I suppose so. Does it make you more valuable to a potential client? Absolutely not.

Think about it: has a client ever hired you just because you knew 8 programming languages and 10 web development frameworks? They hired you to work on a specific project that requires a specific skill set, and chances are you have represented yourself as an expert that is the best fit for that project.

If you can’t settle on a particular tool set, you won’t be able to gain that competitive edge we all desperately need to be successful. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but if you really think about it, no successful development company becomes so merely based on the size of their tool set. They become experts in a particular skill set, and they have value because they leverage their knowledge and find their competitive edge in that context. You can specialize in so many things; find a niche that works for you, and focus on that.

2. Take on every project that comes along

Getting work is great, isn’t it? As young, nubile professionals, there is a tendency to covet every job we get; billable time is billable time, right?

Inevitably, though, what happens as the workload increases? We gravitate towards certain types of clients that fit our skill set better, or people that we can tell understand our role as the experts versus "order-takers".

The point is this that you should be selective of who you work with. Don’t think of it as losing revenue as much as adding value for those you do choose to work with. Spread too thin, you lose the ability to be responsive to your client base; those people who are already sold on what you do, how you do it, and are willing to compensate you for the value you offer them.

3. Don’t have a business strategy

If business is good for you right now, then I would like to congratulate you on that. Often when business is good, it is easy to forge ahead and spend 8 hours in a day on billable work. You owe every moment in the office–and many of your moments out of it–to your clients first and foremost, right? It sounds harmless, but think of it like this: if you never sharpen your machete, how will you be able to cut a path through the forest?

It’s simply too easy to lose your competitive edge without knowing it, and then realizing as your clients move on one by one that the money didn’t come from manual labor, it came from your ability to continually improve upon the solutions you gave them in the first place, which in turn improves their ability to make money through the web channel.

On top of that, these are the people that are easiest to sell to. In sales, it’s called the low-hanging fruit.

4. Neglect your existing clients

Once you land a client and finish a project, be sure to put them on a nice ride that circles the park and walk away. They are happy and therefore they need nothing else from you. Time to hurry up and wait for the next word-of-mouth customer, right? Sounds like a safe plan. Occasionally you might need to call or email and see if they are doing okay, but that’s about it.

Now back to reality. When was the last time you reviewed your current client base looking at ways to improve upon their existing solution? Or talk to them for ten minutes and find out how things are going? If you are doing this, great, but all too often clients are left to grow old and hairy and slowly fade into the sunset.

Now imagine that there is a potential dollar figure that floats above each client and this represents lost potential revenue. You just can’t ignore your clients for long after that first project is completed. If they are happy with you, the first thing you have to do is think of another way to make them happy. You may want to give them some time to settle into their new digs, but at that point, you have a customer who understands the value you add to their company and will listen willingly to you for the next recommendation you can make to help increase their bottom lines. It really doesn’t get any easier than that to generate additional income.

It is good to talk to existing clients at least seasonally, but ideally to check in once per month and call it a value-added service because that is how attentive you are (to the money they are holding in their hand and ready to give to you for more awesomeness). Sounds exciting to me!

5. Don’t invest your revenue into your growth

Take the revenue, put it in the bank, and retire it from the business. "It’s been great working with you, but you can relax now and pursue whatever it is you like to pursue – maybe vacation in someone’s mortgage somewhere or take a ride in a 401K. Have fun".

Doesn’t that sound crazy? As crazy as that might sound, if you aren’t investing some portion back into growing your business (provided that is one of your directives), that is essentially what you are doing! You are sending perfectly good capital on a permanent vacation, perhaps eventually to be traded for a lifetime supply of unicorn glitter or a data plan for your cell phone.

It’s easy to be shy about using some of the capital you may have saved up to take a calculated risk on your business future, but then again, you took a risk going into business in the first place, didn’t you?

One entrepreneur thinks of his dollars as soldiers: they go out and they come back every day with hostages – more dollars. You can guarantee those dollars went out with a mission in mind though, not to wander aimlessly around waiting to be snatched up by someone else.

Related Content

• How to Design for Your Worst Client: You.
• A Simple Guide on How to Effectively Talk to Clients
• How to Get Your Ideas Across to Clients
• Related categories: Project Management and Web Development

About the Author

Fred Bliss is a slightly over-seasoned bleeding edge web-evangelist. He is a married father of 3 boys. He has been working for the past year on Isotope eCommerce (a hybrid solution built in with TYPOlight CMS/ Framework) as lead developer, and one third of Winans Creative.  Connect with him via Twitter: @fbliss and LinkedIn.

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Developers have the flexibility to display RiotWise ads in a way that best fits users of their particular application. For example, partners such as Digsby (the popular social messaging client) and ÜberTwitter (the #1 Twitter Client for BlackBerry) are showing ads directly in the real-time stream. Other implementations include more traditional mobile banner placements or the familiar AdSense-style text block.

OneRiot shares advertiser revenue with developers. All developers interested in monetizing their applications with RiotWise should email riotwise@oneriot.com.

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This is an era of products galore. Each product and producer is trying to outdo the other. Marketing costs are turning out to be more than production costs as marketing has an ability to take products and services to a new high, or bite the dust. Without marketing, a product is as good as non-existing. At the same time, clients and consumers do not have enough time to go around looking for everything that is offered. Clients want it all on their fingertips. Keeping this in mind, internet or online marketing has quickly come to the rescue. It bridges the gap between your service or product and client or consumer.

Having your own website has become an important marketing tool. Almost all products and services have their own presence on the internet in the form of a website. However, there are numerous websites trying to affect the decisions of clients. So, website marketing has become an important and integral part of every business’s marketing strategy. Let’s understand the five most important steps to website marketing.

Understand client requirements

Understanding what your clients are looking for is the key to effective website marketing. Amidst a plethora of websites on the same subject, a client will most likely stick to the sites that are focused on her unique requirements and give her exactly what she’s looking for; e.g. if a client is looking for a website on alternative medicine; the website must focus solely on the various alternative medicines and not generalize on all types.

Get the right design and content

The rightly designed website will catch and hold more eyeballs. Your design should not only have right aesthetic appeal but also facilitate easy navigation. To many flashes, to bright colors running at the same time, plus disturbing pop-ups are sure fire turn offs. Clusters of information placed on the homepage may dumbfound the visitor. At the same time, too little info will dampen her. Your site should strike the right balance of information and placement.

Once you’re done with the designing part of your website, comes another important part, content. Your content should always be current, crisp and clear. It should convey exact information without being verbose. It should be logical, smooth, and flowing. The language should be set keeping the client in mind. The quality of your content should reflect a professional attitude.

Make it user friendly

Once on your website, the client should get important information like variety of products, possibly with their images, price ranges and product availability. Your website should facilitate ordering products online with great ease. It should also give requisite information like contact numbers of the home office or representatives, firm’s location, previous track record and after the sale service.

As customer choices and preferences are always distinct and all of them cannot be addressed on the site; provide for direct contact with your customer service department in order to answer their queries. In case of an email, a prompt reply must be assured.

Blow your trumpet

Once you are done with your website, it is high time to get on the rooftop and tell people that you’ve arrived! What’s the use of a wonderfully designed, beautiful looking site that few know about or catches hardly any eyeballs? Avail other mediums of advertising viz. seminars, articles, television, newspapers,ect… to widen your client base and reach every possible client. Get press releases distributed. A good advertising campaign is essential to attract initial traffic to your site.

Utilize the internet to its fullest. Begin blogging about your site and products/services. Forward links to as many other websites as possible. Get links on social networking websites. In simple terms, talk, talk and talk more about your site.

Action backup

The types of services and products that you offer on your website must be put into action by an efficient team. Your client must feel she is getting a good value for her money, and also her time spent. This will assist to establish a reputation for your business and create your brand image. Website marketing will only be effective if and when your promises are fulfilled in reality.

And yes! Do not rest on your laurels. Continue updating your website with any new developments and also, continue to support it with on going action.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Top 5 Steps to Website Marketing

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Originally posted at The Download Blog

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There is an old saying that rings true, no matter what forum or context it’s applied in. ‘You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.’ We were thinking of this the other day, and how with some minor tweakage the statement could become a powerful statement of affirmation for designers, or at least it could lead us towards this freeing affirmation.

Recently a project came our way that we were extremely excited about, however, as things unfolded, we realized that the project was doomed from the start. Now as designers we are used to working with non-creatives, or at least people who are not in, or do not understand our field, therefore you have to work across an information gap. This is something we are used to dealing with, but in the context of the discussion about to take place, it only makes things, that much more difficult. This project had the gap, but beyond that, there was an underlying instruction from the client that let us know this would be an utter waste of our time. ‘We want it to appeal to everyone across the board. Consumable to all.’ It was at this point, that we walked away.

You see, going back to Honest Abe’s words of wisdom and tweaking them as we mentioned before, we work under the premise that you can appeal to some of the people all of the time, but you cannot appeal to all of the people some of the time. Perhaps we have too much of a cynical streak running between us, but as varied as the masses are, even when broken into discernible groups based on similar interests or occupations, we believe that there is not much that they will all find appealing. As designers, this is reflected easily in the fact that we all have differing tastes and opinions as to what designs and styles appeal to us.

Breaking Down the Myth

Universal consumability, in the creative communities, is a myth. Given that our tastes play such a large role in our creative consumption, finding a flavor that everyone is going to appreciate equally generally will not happen. The appeal of what we create will have a heavy draw for some and perhaps little to none for others. The sooner we come to that realization, the less stressful and more fun our designs will be to create, thus making our job easier. And if we compromise our creations to try to bring in that universal appeal, we will slight our audience, and our designs. Allow us to elaborate.

When we create something, it will automatically appeal to a certain crowd for a specific number of reasons (theoretically at least, we hope there will be some appeal, and for the sake of this argument, we will work under the premise that there will be some inherent draw). Now if we take away from those areas, to try and make it appeal to another crowd, we have already lessened the appeal of our design for the crowd that initially responded to it. The more aspects we include or alter to further that mass appeal, only takes the design farther from both its original intent and audience. Look at it in terms of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The PB&J Factor – An Analogy for the Ages

If you make a PB&J sandwich, then you are only appealing to those people who like PB&J sandwiches. There is really no way to alter the sandwich to make it appeal to those who don’t like PB&J, and if you tried, then it will tend to lose appeal to the PB&J crowd. And even in your group of PB&J fans, there are still degrees that affect the sandwiches appeal. There are those who like more PB than J and vice versa. Once again, you can alter the amounts of PB&J to try and appeal to both, but chances are, you are going to end up with a sandwich that still appeals to one faction over the other.

So what does this all mean (beyond the fact that we are apparently hungry for a PB&J sandwich and are a little particular as to its construction)? It means as designers, we need to accept that our work is not going to have that mass appeal and trying to design with that in mind can have more of a negative impact on the work, not to mention our psyche, than a positive one. Universal consumability simply means an end product that falls far short of its potential and intent, and since when has that ever been appealing to anyone? So when you are designing, do it with focus. Meaning basically do it with a particular audience in mind, and go for it.

The Client Variable

When working with a client, designing with focus may be a bit of a challenge, but it can be done. It is our responsibility as designers to lead our clients towards decisions and away from bad choices, this is simply one of them. If the client keeps pushing for more mass appeal, we need to be able to make them understand why that will effectively hurt the project. We need to make the client choose a crowd to appeal to, and work within those boundaries while not trying to reach out beyond that crowd so much that it no longer appeals to anyone.

In the case of the project we walked away from, we made our attempts to sway the client over to our side, but after a couple of attempts and lots of time wasted we surrendered and threw in the towel. Perhaps we should have tried harder, but we did not see our arguments as having any effect whatsoever. Not to mention, we had not thought of that whole sandwich analogy, so we walked away. With so many opinions, tastes, and overall individuals populating the masses, trying to design for them all is a mistake. But designing with focus, never will be!

Finding Your Audience

In order to find your audience and allow them to guide you in your work, you must make sure that you are doing two major things. One, connecting with your audience. And two, listening to them once you have connected. Now as we mentioned before, when we create, our product will have inherent appeal to certain members of the crowd, but you first need to find that audience that you are going to be designing with in mind to bring them in and make them aware of what it is you are doing. Reach out via the various social media outlets to find the fans that will be drawn to the designs you will be crafting. Other places to try to connect with the audience you are seeking are related sites and blogs who share a similar style or mission as you. By becoming more active on these related sites, you can easily tap into that necessary connection you are after for your business or blog.

After you have made this connection, then the next step is so simple to accomplish as you are engaging the crowd. Listen to what it is they are talking about, or moreover, what they are looking for. This is easy to find out because overall, people like offering their constructive critiques on where the community is lacking or letting them down. So ask. Get in there and mix it up a bit. Talk to your audience to find ways that you can improve your work so that its reach is much more effective. Take these suggestions and critiques that you find being repeated from various places and make adjustments to fine tune the direction of your designs. Afterall, what is the purpose of connecting with them, if you are not going to listen to what it is they have to say. You can also interview others in your field, who may share in the audience that you are seeking to tap into, and find out what they have done to connect and listen to their followers. What helped with their reach? It may be something that can help you as well.

Again, when dealing with a client, it is still important that you have this connection and avenue for access to the intended audience, so if the client is not already tapped in, then you both need to work out the best way to extend this reach before you begin. Having this understanding of who you are trying to appeal to with the design, can assist you invaluably, and making sure the client does as well should help ensure that they are not steering you away from their target with their input. So this is always a critical factor in the overall equation, and trying to reach out in a universally consumable way, is only going to close you off from your audience not widen them. So know which audience you are going to go after, and focus on them as you move forward.

That is All

So that concludes the talk from this side for now, but just use the comment section below to keep the discussion going and offer your thoughts and perspectives on this topic.

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There are very few who would argue against the notion that most freelance professionals, especially those operating in the design/development and writing arenas, tend to operate from a creative base. They are, by and large, a group that has chosen to let the right side of their brain steer them as far as the road stretches out before them. Having embraced their creative and artistic nature, merging it into their career path and never looking back. And for the most part, a creative mind fits well in this freelance environment because they ultimately call all the shots and are bound by very few restraints — for the most part.

This road, however, is not without its bumps, and for a lot of freelancers, these bumps come when the left brain must be engaged to navigate the terrain. Most of us are familiar with the concept of right brain vs. left brain, wherein it has been shown that the two hemispheres of the brain control different modes of thinking. The right is the creative and artistic side, the left being the more logical and analytical.

Given that most of us are less apt to be full-minded (meaning we excel in both modes of thinking), there tend to be some issues when it comes time for you to mentally cross over for a short time to the other side. This can be a problem in freelancing, because though we might prefer to turn right, we have to handle every aspect of our business and that means every so often going left.

The administrative side of the job tends to be left-brain-heavy, and can prove difficult for some right-brainers to tackle. Below, I have broken down the offending areas that often hang us up, and have provided some tips for how to make it through these left-brained business barriers.

Also consider our previous articles:

• 6 Simple Ways for Freelancers to Increase Productivity
• How to Find Time For…Everything!
• 8 Strategies for Successful Client Relations

Scheduling

The first administrative task we will look at is scheduling. Not only because of its importance to our freelance business, but because effective time management can aid with the other elements of your admin responsibilities. This tends to be very difficult for extremely creative individuals for the simple fact that right-brainers tend to be more random and less sequential in thought. And since scheduling creativity is not something we can always effectively manage, we tend to overlook the idea of scheduling our work altogether.

Ironically, this often-avoided admin element by creatives can actually help stimulate our creative workflow. Scheduling different left-brained administrative tasks to be handled throughout the day offers your creative mind a change of gears. It essentially unplugs you from the mindset you’re in when you create and gives your often overworked right brain a bit of a break. So when you return to the right side of things, you do so refreshed and recharged. Scheduling your day, therefore, can benefit both sides of your freelance business.

For more on this…

• 4 Steps to Creating a Freelance Schedule
• The freelancing business part 3: scheduling your projects
• 8 Simple Online Time Management Tools for Freelancers
• 13 Principles of Effective Time Management for Freelancers

Tips for Tackling

• The more fun that it is for you to use, the more likely it is that you’re going to use it. Find an easy-to-use time management app with a fun UI and you will find that it is easier to motivate yourself to open it up and dive in.
• Be strict with yourself about all the self-imposed schedules you have come up with. By enforcing the schedules and through repetition, they will eventually become second nature and will be easier to work into your routine.
• Do not be too hard on yourself, just let your system evolve with you. Chances are, you are going to have a period of adjustment for this, so let it evolve and grow to suit you better rather than get frustrated and give up. The better the fit, the better it will serve your business.
• Always set yourself up with a redundancy system! Given that you may not be used to scheduling yourself, it may behoove you to have to have a backup plan. Having the extra coverage may also provide some peace of mind.

Accounting

The next administrative task we’ll talk about is the bookkeeping side of business. I have always had an aversion to numbers, math and anything accounting related, so this was a big adjustment for me as I imagine it has been for a lot of other freelancers. The easy answer for these woes is to simply hire an accountant, but for some — especially those just starting out in the business — this is not necessarily an affordable plan of attack. So we have to take these tasks upon ourselves and be able to make sense of it all.

The great thing about this area of your freelance life is that so many application authors understand our pain and they have developed wonderful programs that take most of the guesswork out of the equation for you. Client, account, and project management are becoming easier-than-ever for the right-brained inhabitants with applications like Billings. In these cases the software essentially handles most of this for you, while you simply input a bit of data.

For more on this…

• Accounting Basics for a Freelancer
• 10 Dependable Money Management Tools for Freelance Designers
• 10 Costly Money Mistakes Freelancers Should Avoid

Tips for Tackling

• Find a program that is suited to your needs only. The bells and whistles that go above and beyond are not necessary, and may only cause confusion. Especially in the beginning, keep it simple so you do not get overwhelmed.
• Make sure that you stay on top of these tasks. The bookkeeping is what keeps you going and stable, so make sure you do not get behind in your billing…that’s the client’s job. Set billing reminders and collection reminders so that you do not let anything fall through the cracks.
• The less time it takes to get done, the less apt we are to put it off. Creating templates for your accounting paperwork can help cut down the time and thought that has to go into it. And that will naturally make us more prone to tackling.
• Help avoid penalties for your accounting practices. Each country and province has different laws and regulations that are governing your business and the taxes that accompany it. Be sure that you find out what they are and keep up with changes to avoid accumulating penalties and fines.

Correspondence

Another aspect of the administrative side to your freelance business that will often draw periods of procrastination is your business correspondence. This is not referring to replying to a pen pal or any kind of creative writing; this generally is detailed and contractual which immediately presents itself as a barrier to the right-brained thinkers. So it is a natural reaction for the creatively minded to avoid dealing with the inbox or returning messages that we cannot deny are important. Even though this is not occurring face-to-face, we still feel out of our element, so we put off until tomorrow what should have been done today.

Once again, the right-brainers tend to think more randomly than sequentially, so communicating our thoughts to those populating the opposite sphere can prove problematic. But this is where the scheduling can further assist you. Most of our business runs on some form of back-and-forth communication — be it with clients, users, colleagues, etc. — so making time every day to sort through your inbox will keep it running smoothly. Getting back in a timely fashion will reflect positively on you and build trust in your brand.

For more on this…

• Are You Managing Your Email Or Ignoring Your Clients?
• Client Tip #4: Stay in touch
• A Complete Guide to Better Email For Freelancers

Tips for Tackling

• Again, get time on your side and this will help get you going. If you find that you are regularly responding to the same types of queries, create copy templates to move your mail along.
• Prioritize and categorize and the task will fly past. Keeping a hierarchy of your correspondences and having them separated by types will keep you rolling through quick and easy. Again, this breaking down and separating of your messages may not be the easiest for the right-brainers to build into a habit, but it is certainly worth a try.
• Get in and get out! Try to keep your inbox empty and your messages filed away for easy reference and prioritization. If it is a message that can be replied to quickly, then go ahead and immediately get this done, otherwise file it for later.
• Brevity is beyond key; it is your best friend. Keep your correspondence brief and to the point and avoid venturing down unnecessary avenues that open yourself up to further questions. If you ramble on, you are simply wasting time that you could be using elsewhere.

Client Relations

Another oftentimes administrative nightmare that freelancers come across is the client relations portion of the position. There is a reason we like the solitude that tends to accompany the freelance career path, and so breaking out of that solitary shell to be able to effectively communicate with clients can be daunting. It’s no secret that in order for your business to thrive, you need to have a client base to build upon. And as should be no secret to anyone, the way you deal with your clients will often determine if they will return.

As a creative individual whose train of thought pulls right, interacting with those on the left side of the tracks will not always go smoothly. In fact, it may not translate well. The means and methods that right-brainers subscribe to, even in explanations and conversations, can tend to be hard to follow for lefters, and vice versa. So it is imperative that we try to make an effort to keep these interactions focused and on topic. And by understanding that such a translation gap exists, we can make more of an effort to bridge the gap when we deal with our clients.

For more on this…

• Effective Communication With The Non-Creative and Non-Technical Folks
• Client Management for Freelancers: 10 Tips for Better Management
• 5 Mistakes That Will Cost You Your Client (and How to Avoid Them)

Tips for Tackling

• Try to step outside your regular right-brained random ways. Momentarily leave them behind and organize your thoughts before meetings. Taking notes and outlining the points you need to cover beforehand can help you stay focused and have an easier time following.
• Just as we are often responsible for steering clients towards a decision once they employ us, we need to continue to make strides towards being able to steer the conversation. This helps to ensure we stay comfortable as we converse, and it keeps us in our element as much as possible.
• Since it is necessary for us to understand the project from every angle, have your clients explain their approach from many directions. This may help you find a way to relate to it when you otherwise wouldn’t.
• It may sound cheesy, but you may want to set up dry-run practices with some of your non-creative friends or family. Running through your side of the conversation with someone who does not work from a creative place may prepare you for meetings with clients.

Backups and Updates

When it comes to important administrative tasks that so many freelancers tend to let slip through the cracks, keeping up with backups and updates ranks high on the list for right-brainers. Creative people tend to work in the moment of inspiration, and we are enveloped by that moment. But the moment moves on, and when it does move on, we are swallowed up by the next task. With our ever-forward-moving momentum pushing against us, we forget to look back, let alone backup (…sorry). And stopping in the middle of our creative flow to update our software doesn’t exactly rank high either.

Naturally, as a freelancer you are going to be the only one managing and keeping records of what is happening on your end, including those ever-precious works-in-progress. Losing them would be devastating, but remembering to back them up, wouldn’t exactly be a right-brainer move …though I think it may be a both-brain sphere issue. It seems that most of us do not consider backing up our files until something actually happens to cause our drive to crash and we lose them all. But again, in the freelance field you are on your own when it comes to data loss, there is no IT department backing you up, so to speak.

For more on this…

• Backing up your data Part 3 – Backup strategies
• 10 Data Backup, Storage and Sharing Solutions
• List of Services and Tools to Backup Your Hard Drive

Tips for Tackling

• Automation is a right-brainer’s buddy, and it just means that you may actually get your backups and updates done! Finding a service that backs up your data automatically takes the stress off you and ensures that you won’t have to worry about any right-brained interference in this area.
• Take a moment, and take a hike! For many of us, as long as we are at our computer, we will not have the willpower to stop working and get our backups and updates done. So walk away. Give yourself a break, start the process and come back later ready to go.
• A lot of basic software updates are quick and easy and do not interrupt your workflow for very long. Scheduling can definitely work with you in this arena, as most productivity methods encourage you to take short breaks throughout your work day. Set up to run updates during these breaks so that you know they get done.
• Once again, turn to prioritization and a left-brained-style breakdown to get over the procrastination hump that bars most creatives (and so many more) from getting their updates and backups done. Decide what are your most important files and programs, and make sure that they get done first and foremost. Then as you work through your week, work through your lower-priority items.

Overall Advice

You are creative, so act like it!

Overall, you cannot ignore your administrative responsibilities and hope they go away. So do what it is that you do best — approach it creatively. The interwebs are alive with creative solutions to so many different problems that you are bound to be able to find one that fits yours. If not, maybe come up with your own. Nothing is out of reach for the creative mind, because we know no limitations…even the occasional cross-over to the left side.

Inspiration is the easy part, now lets talk motivation!

One of the hardest things for most creative-minded individuals to do when approaching the territory of the left, is getting motivated to tackle these tasks. Even those of us not prone to procrastination will tend to let the left work pile up longer than the right simply because it is a less comfortable fit for us. The thing to remember is that getting started is usually the hardest part. Not to go all Nike on you, but just do it. Force yourself to get started, and let it roll. Immerse yourself in as much of a creative environ as you can to help smooth the transition, and run with it!

Do not elaborate, that just complicates!

You know if it rhymes it’s got to be true (even though that absolute doesn’t rhyme, but still…). Another important thing to remember is to keep things simple to help with these momentary forays into foreign territories. Remember that this is not where your strengths lie, so it may be best for you not to take on too much in one bite. Keep things as concise and brief as you can, taking them a piece at a time. As right-brained thinkers we tend to see things as a whole rather than in parts, so try to find the different parts and break them down, tackling one at a time. That was the reason for breaking everything apart above, so that you could see a way to start separating the different parts from the whole. This can make the tasks at hand seem less overwhelming.

It’s in your reach, you just have to try for it!

An important thing to remember, overall, is that just because we tend to prefer one mode of thinking (be it right- or left-brained), we can improve our abilities within each side through exercises that stimulate the different hemispheres. The problem tends to arise when there is an imbalance in educational focus that fails to appeal to both sides of the brain. This doesn’t mean it is beyond us, just that we have not worked at improving the opposite sphere. So the more that we keep those sides stimulated, the easier the tasks that fall to that side of the brain will be to take on.

Further Resources

That was a look at the administrative side of the freelancing gig, from a right-brained perspective. Below are a few more resources that will further fill you in on the creative’s take on the linear-thinking side of the coin.

• Billings – Billings 3 is a great user-friendly accounting app for Macs built with right-brained creatives in mind.
• Dropbox – Dropbox is a great automated backup system with a range of packages and benefits for keeping your data safe.
• Collabtive – Collabtive is web-based project management software geared towards freelancers and small businesses.
• Invoice Journal – Invoice Journal is an awesome open source app for invoicing that is web-based so you can access your account from anywhere.
• Skype – Skype is a fantastic communications tool for freelancers to contact their clients and colleagues via their computers.
• Left-Brained vs. Right-Brained – The Developer/Designer Paradox – A great article on My Ink Blog which looks at the different sides of the brain in relation to designers and developers.
• Understanding Your Brain for Better Design: Left vs. Right – Web Designer Depot’s post which examines the brain and the different hemispheres that operate within it.

By the way…

Smashing Magazine is offering a student trainee position in Smashing Magazine’s Office in Freiburg, Germany. We are looking for a motivated trainee student who wants to learn about online publishing and editorial work. You can gather a first hand experience from one of the most successful blogs by working side by side with the Smashing Magazine’s editorial team. Details.

And for our German readers: Smashing Magazine sucht Unterstützung für die Redaktion — Stelle: (Online)-Redakteur m/w. Details.

(ll)

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Hi Kalena

In the past, I made sure I was not logged in to Google when I checked my Client website standings in search. But, now are we going to have to clear *Web History* and Disable customizations every time we want to check our client’s rankings manually?

This article claims that Google’s new ‘cookie’ extends Personalized Results to All Users. Here’s a quote: “Google has begun using a cookie placed on users’ machines to track their search behavior and offer personalized recommendations, even when they are not logged into a Google account.”

Regards

Mitch
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Hi Mitch

It’s true that Google have extended Personalized Search to all users, whether they’re signed in or signed out of a Google account. But you can turn history-based customization off – both temporarily and permanently. The method of turning it off differs depending on whether you’re logged in or out of Google, but in both cases the instructions are very simple.

Probably the easiest thing is to run your searches as normal and check to see if the SERPs you’re seeing have been customized based on personalization. As per Google’s official blog post:

“You’ll know when we customize results because a “View customizations” link will appear on the top right of the search results page. Clicking the link will let you see how we’ve customized your results and also let you turn off this type of customization.”

You can then choose to view the same SERPs without customization to ensure you know how the results look to persons who have opted out of personalized SERPs. But keep in mind that personalization has been in place since 2005 and SERPs all look slightly different to everybody.

There’s really no such thing as a consistent SERP in Google so traditional *rankings* are somewhat meaningless today. I know that’s sometimes a difficult thing to explain to a client, but it’s true!

For more on how Google Personalization does or doesn’t impact SEO, you might like to read my SPN article: Can SEO Exist Beyond Google Personalization?

————————————–

Got a Reader Rescue question of your own? Send it to kjordan [ at ] sitepronews [ dot ] com and you might see it featured here.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Reader Rescue: Do I have to disable Google personalization settings to check client rankings?

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By Thursday Bram

Pricing a website design can seem impossible. A good website design can cost anywhere between thousands of dollars and under fifty dollars, depending on the type of site, how you build it and a hundred other numbers. Those numbers can make it difficult to decide where the right price point for your own work is: how do you know what your work is worth when other designers’ prices are all over the place?

All prices are not created equal: while it may seem to the lay person that all websites are similar, differences like the framework the site is built upon and the process the website designer uses can require drastically different prices. A website design that doesn’t require you to do much more than design a new theme for WordPress probably shouldn’t be priced the same way that an e-commerce site that expects to see plenty of traffic should be. It comes down to the question of what’s in your price. In this article, we’ll look at how four web designers set their prices — and how you can learn from their experiences.

The Basics of Pricing

At the most basic, your prices must cover your expenses with hopefully a little extra left over, unless you have another source of income. The standard advice for determining your prices is to calculate what you need to live for a month — and then break that down to what you need to earn per hour. There are some nuances: it’s rare for a web designer to have 40 hours of paying work every week. It’s not impossible for a freelancer to have only 20 billable hours a week, especially when he’s just starting out. The rest of the week may be spent marketing to new clients, handling paperwork and other necessary tasks.

There’s also the danger of underestimating your expenses when you decide on your rates. It’s easy to miss one or two expenses, like health insurance, and wind up with prices that just won’t work. It’s important to build in a buffer when estimating the money that you need to bring in: your income needs to be able to cover savings, emergencies and even price hikes on your standard expenses. These factors mean that the price range you find by estimating what you need to cover your expenses should actually be the bottom end of where you set your prices. Your own expenses are only a small part of what goes into the price you charge for a website design.

1. Deciding Between Per Project and Per Hour

One of the biggest decisions you have to make as a web designer is whether you’ll charge per hour or per project. Most website designers think in terms of how many hours a project will take them to complete, which translates easily to charging by the hour. There are some other benefits, as well: an hourly rate makes it easy to revise an estimate if a client suddenly changes a project or needs an extra round of revisions.

Should I Charge Per Hour?

Mary-Frances Main is a web designer based in Colorado. She chooses to only work on an hourly basis. As Main says:

“We only quote per hour. Very very occasionally we will get a ballpark complete project cost, but rarely… We find that project bids very rarely end up in our favor. It’s too difficult to adjust for design dilemmas or changes in direction or lack of organization from a client. We make up for not giving whole project bids by only charging updates with a base rate of a quarter of an hour.”

The type of client Main usually works with is a big factor in her decision to work on an hourly basis. She prefers clients that need a web designer for the long haul — they need the web designer to handle updates, maintenance and any adjustments the site needs. Because Main charges an hourly rate, she can comfortably handle those updates, while still making enough money to cover her needs.

Charging per hour makes sense if:

Project requirements may change after you’ve already started working,
It’s hard to tell exactly how long a project will take,
You’re handling lots of small tasks or projects as they come up,
Your client wants something beyond what you ordinarily offer.

Should I Charge Per Project?

While charging per hour makes sense for some web designers, it doesn’t always make sense for everyone. There are drawbacks to pricing by the hour, as well. A client who doesn’t really know what to expect in terms of the amount of work it takes to create a website can look at an hourly rate and quickly become concerned. Having a rate of $100 per hour can scare off a client who thinks in terms of people working 40-hour workweeks. If you say that you can have the project done in 3 weeks, you can wind up with a client picturing a bill in the tens of thousands of dollars, no matter how large or small his project actually is. Giving a set rate for a whole project can eliminate that sort of pricing confusion.

Noel Green, a web designer based in New Mexico, takes a per project approach to pricing his work:

“While we have a per hour rate, we prefer to quote per project rather than per hour. After 8 years of doing this, we’re quite good at knowing, approximately, how long a project is going to take us, so giving a client a ‘flat fee’ lets them feel more comfortable with the process.”

Pricing per project has had other benefits for Green, as well. He’s found that clients are less likely to add on to the original project if they know that they’ll have to pay an hourly rate for any changes.

Charging per project makes sense if:

You do this type of project often enough that you know how long it should take,
Your client has a budget that doesn’t allow for an open-ended number of hours,
You want to offer a package deal, such as a website and hosting for a certain price,
The project is relatively short and specific.

Price Per Project And Per Hour

There is one other option, which Dixie Vogel, a web designer with more than 10 years of experience, uses. You can use per hour pricing in some situations and per project in others:

“For larger projects, I price by project (after figuring out a time estimate to multiply against my base rate). I dislike time tracking and the feeling of rushing through work to keep my clients from being overcharged. I’m also frequently interrupted, which made tracking difficult. For small, limited scope projects, I do bill hourly as I tend to underestimate the time on simpler tasks and ended up undercharging. Either way, however, I give my clients a range at the outset and stick very close to that.”

How Low Should I Go?

It can be tempting to price yourself below your competition, especially if you can bring in enough income to cover your expenses even at those lower prices. It seems like a lower price would get you more work and more clients. But it’s a temptation you should avoid: not all clients assume that a low price means that a particular web designer is offering a deal. Instead, many prospective clients will think that there is a reason your prices are below other web designers with similar portfolios and skills. Maybe there’s something wrong with your work or maybe you’re a particularly slow worker — a low price could be more easily explained by a problem than by a web designer trying to set a price lower than his or her competition.

Charging For All The Time You Spend

There’s a more subtle version of this problem that can appear depending on just what you charge for. Many new web designers charge only for the time the spend actually creating and implementing a website. When Main first started designing websites, about nine years ago, she fell into this trap. Now, her prices cover a lot more:
We used to have entire email exchanges and design processes that went uncharged, we now log all of that time and charge for it accordingly.
Beyond the actual time you spend on designing a website, you can and should bill your clients for the following:

Revisions: It’s rare for a client to like a design exactly the way you come up with it, but you can bill them for the time you spend revising your designs.

Education: With some clients, you can spend hours going back and forth, educating them on what a website design actually includes. That is time you’ve spent on your project and it’s time you can bill to your client.

Set up: Some designers take care of setting up hosting, if not providing it entirely. The time it takes to get everything ready on the hosting end of things is an expense your client can cover.

Explaining Your Prices

There may be a client or two who questions your prices. It seems to happen more with clients that aren’t familiar with the work necessary to create a website, but it can happen with a wide variety of client types. As long as you can explain your prices — and you remain firm on them — clients are typically willing to work with you. Green has had clients try bargain and barter with him on his rates:

We didn’t budge, so they chose someone else…the client who left because we wouldn’t go down in price ended up coming back to us after the company they DID go with didn’t deliver what they’d promised.

When a prospective client wants to argue prices with you, it can be hard to stand firm, if only because you want the project even if it means dropping your rates a little. But there are a lot of reasons that a web designer can ask for high prices and get them:

You can complete a project significantly faster than an amateur. It’s cheaper to pay your hourly rate and get a good design quickly than to let a non-designer drag out the process for weeks or even months.

You do more than just design — you manage the project as a whole, from creating a design to coordinating content.

You’re a professional. Your clients wouldn’t ask a vendor to drop their prices.

It can be hard for a new web designer to price a project high enough, simply because of a lack of confidence. As you build your skills and gain confidence, it becomes easier to quote higher prices to clients without worrying that the price is too high. Stephanie Hobbs, a web designer based in South Carolina, has increased her prices along with her confidence:

When I started in 2003, my first paying website was $450 for 5 pages. Once I figured out a reasonable time estimate, I offered a four page site for $600. As my skill level has increased and I’ve raised my hourly rate, that number has gone to $800, $1000, and now $1200. My hourly rate started at $40 (I think, it might have been $50) and is now at $75. But I’ve raised my rates because I was very low to begin with because I didn’t have confidence in myself.

When Should I Increase My Prices?

What you charge today isn’t necessarily what you should be charging for it a year from now. As you add to your skills, as well as your reputation, you’ll not only be more valuable to your clients but you’ll be able to demonstrate your worth with a larger portfolio of completed projects. You’ll be able to increase your prices — and you should.

Vogel started freelancing at $25 per hour. She actually considers clients not complaining about prices a bad sign: “If no potential client complains, you’re not charging enough.”

As she raised her prices, Vogel would start quoting new projects at her higher rates, as well as informing her existing clients.

For any rate increases, I’ve always sent out notices to my clients explaining what I was doing beforehand and giving them all plenty of opportunity to opt out. I’ve never lost a single client raising my rates.

Timing A Price Increase

Timing when you’re going to announce your rate increase can be tricky, especially when you have existing clients or you’ve already offered an estimate for a new project. New clients are much easier to deal with: it’s just a matter of quoting your new rate as you talk about new projects. With existing clients, however, you may find that they’ve gotten used to your old rates and aren’t prepared to budget more for your services. There are a couple of times that it can be easier to announce those new rates:

The New Year: With the end of the year approaching, you can simply send out a notice that your rates will be going up on the first of the year. The same approaches works with the beginning of a new month if you aren’t prepared to wait until the end of the year.

New Projects: If your client brings you a new project, it can be an ideal time to make the switchover. You can explain that for future projects, you’ve increased your rates, which provides you and your client a chance to talk about the matter.

Contracts: If you have a contract with your client to provide certain services, like maintenance, on a continuing basis, that contract should have an ending date. That date gives you an opportunity to renegotiate your rates.

Increasing your prices may not always be just a matter of making more money. If you want to be able to offer a discount on your work, as Hobbs does, having higher rates is necessary:

I do offer a 20% discount for people in my networking group, and a 30% discount to nonprofits (which is part of why I raised my rates from $1000… I’m actually making closer to what I intended to make, since many of my clients are from my networking organization).

Prices in the Wild

All the information on how to set prices may not be enough to help you decide what is a reasonable price for your web design work. Actually seeing what other web designers charge is necessary to decide if your prices are comparable.

Mary-Frances Main charges $60 per hour for most web design work. For programming, her rate is $72 per hour and for Flash, her rate is $65 per hour.

Noel Green charges between $2,500 and $5,000 for a complete website, guaranteeing a 4-week turnaround on projects. Projects at the upper end of that range typically involve more complex features, such as shopping carts.

Dixie Vogel charges between $60 and $80 per hour for most web design work.

Stephanie Hobbs’s rates start at $1,200 for a 4-page website, add to her estimate for larger projects and sites with extra features, like Flash.

These prices differ due to factors like the designer’s location, their experience and even the type of clients they prefer to work with. But, in each case, the web designer in question has thought through not only what he or she needs to earn but how comparable those prices are to other designers and where the prices can be increased.

About the author

Thursday Bram is a full-time freelancer who has been working on her own for more than seven years. She writes about the business side of freelancing and maintains her own website at ThursdayBram.com.

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ShootQ is your virtual studio manager, assisting you from the moment a prospective client contacts you until the final product is delivered. ShootQ keeps your job leads and workflow organized, always reminding you what needs to be done next.

http://web.shootq.com/

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Originally posted at Rafe’s Radar

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Have a pet project to collaborate with your friends

It’s not uncommon to find me staring at my screen, looking at beautiful websites my friends have made, grinning inanely because I feel so honoured to know such talented individuals. But one thing really frustrates me: I hardly ever get to work with these people! Sure, there are times when it’s possible to do so, but due to various project situations, it’s a rarity.

So, in order to work with my friends, I’ve found the best way is to instigate the collaboration outside of client work; in other words, have a pet project together! Free from the hard realities of budgets, time restraints, and client demands, you and your friends can come up with something purely for your own pleasures. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to work with other designers or developers whose work you love, the pet project is that excuse. They don’t necessarily have to be friends, either: if the respect is mutual, it can be a great way of breaking the ice and getting to know someone.

Figure 1: A forthcoming secret love-child from myself and Tim Van Damme

Have a pet project to escape from your day job

We all like to moan about our clients and bosses, don’t we? But if leaving your job or firing your evil client just isn’t an option, why not escape from all that and pour your creative energies into something you genuinely enjoy?

It’s not just about reacting to negativity, either: a pet project is a great way to give yourself a bit of variety. As web designers, our day-to-day work forces us to work within a set of web-related contraints and sometimes it can be demoralising to spend so many hours fixing IE bugs. The perfect antidote? Go and do some print design! If it’s not possible in your day job or client work, the pet project is the perfect place to exercise your other creative muscles. Yes, print design (or your chosen alternative) has its own constraints, but if they’re different to those you experience on a daily basis, it’ll be a welcome relief and you’ll return to your regular work feeling refreshed.

Figure 2: Ligature, Loop & Stem, from Scott Boms & Luke Dorny

Have a pet project to fulfill your own needs

Many pet projects come into being because the designers and/or developers behind them are looking for a tool to accomplish a task and find that it doesn’t exist, thus prompting them to create their own solution. In fact, the very app I’m using to write this article — Ommwriter, from Herraiz Soto & Co — was originally a tool they’d created for their internal staff, before releasing it to the public so that it could be enjoyed by others.

Just last week, Tina Roth Eisenberg launched Teux Deux, a pet project she’d designed to meet her own requirements for a to-do list, having found that no existing apps fulfilled her needs. Oh, and it was a collaboration with her studio mate Cameron. Remember what I was saying about working with your friends?

Figure 3: Teux Deux, the GTD pet project that launched just last week

Have a pet project to help people out

Ommwriter and Teux Deux are free for anyone to use. Let’s just think about that for a moment: the creators have invested their time and effort in the project, and then given it away to be used by others. That’s very cool and something we’re used to seeing a lot of in the web community (how lucky we are)! People love free stuff and giving away the fruits of your labour will earn you major kudos. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with making some money, either — more on that in a second.

Figure 4: Dan Rubin‘s extremely helpful Make Photoshop Faster

Have a pet project to raise your profile

So, giving away free stuff earns you kudos. And kudos usually helps you raise your profile in the industry. We all like a bit of shameless fame, don’t we? But seriously, if you want to become well known, make something cool. It could be free (to buy you the love and respect of the community) or it could be purchasable (if you’ve made something that’s cool enough to deserve hard-earned cash), but ultimately it needs to be something that people will love.

Figure 5: Type designer Jos Buivenga has shot to fame thanks to his beautiful typefaces and ‘freemium’ business model

If you’re a developer with no design skills, team up with a good designer so that the design community appreciate its aesthetic. If you’re a designer with no development skills, team up with a good developer so that it works. Oh, and not that I’d recommend you ever do this for selfish reasons, but collaborating with someone you admire — whose work is well-respected by the community — will also help raise your profile.

Have a pet project to make money

In spite of our best hippy-esque intentions to give away free stuff to the masses, there’s also nothing wrong with making a bit of money from your pet project. In fact, if your project involves you having to make a considerable financial investment, it’s probably a good idea to try and recoup those costs in some way.

Figure 6: The success of Shaun Inman‘s various pet projects — Mint, Fever, Horror Vacui, etc. — have allowed him to give up client work entirely.

A very common way to do that in both the online and offline worlds is to get some sort of advertising. For a slightly different approach, try contacting a company who are relevant to your audience and ask them if they’d be interesting in sponsoring your project, which would usually just mean having their brand associated with yours in some way. This is still a form of advertising but tends to allow for a more tasteful implementation, so it’s worth pursuing.

Advertising is a great way to cover your own costs and keep things free for your audience, but when costs are considerably higher (like if you’re producing a magazine with high production values, for instance), there’s nothing wrong with charging people for your product. But, as I mentioned above, you’ve got to be positive that it’s worth paying for!

Have a pet project just for fun

Sometimes there’s a very good reason for having a pet project — and sometimes even a viable business reason — but actually you don’t need any reason at all. Wanting to have fun is just as worthy a motivation, and if you’re not going to have fun doing it, then what’s the point? Assuming that almost all pet projects are designed, developed, written, printed, marketed and supported in our free time, why not do something enjoyable?

Figure 7: Jessica Hische‘s beautiful Daily Drop Cap

In conclusion

The fact that you’re reading 24 ways shows that you have a passion for the web, and that’s something I’m happy to see in abundance throughout our community. Passion is a term that’s thrown about all over the place, but it really is evident in the work that people do. It’s perhaps most evident, however, in the pet projects that people create. Don’t forget that the very site you’re reading this article on is… a pet project.

If you’ve yet to do so, make it a new year’s resolution for 2010 to have your own pet project so that you can collaborate with your friends, escape from your day job, fulfil your own needs, help people out, raise your profile, make money, and — above all — have fun.

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1.  Let Your Clients Know They Can Trust You -  Building trust is essential, you are the middle man or woman between your company and the client’s office.  They must feel secure that the work can be accomplished on a period agreed upon and the requirements given must be translated.

2.  Let clients know your limits – Its a misconception for some account management teams to think that they must give everything to their client just to make them happy.  There is such a thing as boundaries that i am sure your clients already know.  What is essential here is that it is discussed at the beginning of the projects.  What do i mean here.  One is the work time.  Of course, there are occasions where you need to do overtimes, but working 24/7 can really drain you, plus always consider the scope of work agreed upon again at the beginning of every project.  You can be a  more efficient worker, if you are happy and have sufficient amount of rest.

3.  Never say I Don’t know right away. Of course, we don’t know all the answers  to everything our clients asks us, but never use the words I don’t know, you can always say, you will find out, or you are not sure and you would get back to them.  Making them feel that you are open to their suggestions and you just need some time to figure things out will make them feel more at ease with you and assure them that you have their best interest at heart.

4.  Write everything down – Doing the minutes of any meeting is a must.  Sometimes, people tend to forget what transpired after a meeting, so doing a call report is always beneficial both for your and your client.  Make sure you send a copy of the minutes to your client and don’t let 12 hours go by without you sending it.  We often times get so busy and tend to forget ourselves.  You can use the call reports as basis to any queries or issues that might arise as your projects progress.

5.  Do Your Homework -  Read up on topics, do your own research about the products that you are working on.  It is always great to be well prepared before any presentation or meetings you have with your clients.

6.  Be on Time -  When you are on time for any meetings, this shows your clients that you value their time as well.  Be at the meeting at least 20 minutes ahead of the agreed time. This also allows you to make the necessary preparation, meaning setting up your computer etc.  Just in case you know that you will be late, it is always good practice to text or call your client and tell them that you are on your way.  Most clients appreciate that.

7.  Dress Appropriately -  Wear a business attire for client meetings or presentations.  Being well groomed will tell others that you mean business.  You don’t need to be in designer wear, but being suitably dressed will earn you client’s respect.

8.  Always be prepared – Never assume.  If you need to make a big presentation, make sure that you have the right equipments or gadgets with you all the time.  Check your presentation and see that it is working.  Proof read your copy or letters and even your emails before sending them.

9.  Call Back Right Away when You Missed their Call - Some clients gets so dependent on you that they will always look for you when they have inquiries.  Of course there will be times when you are busy and missed their call.  Call back as soon as you can.  They will appreciate that very much.  What I usually do is i text them back ans tell them that I shall call them asap.

10. Be a Good Listener. – Only when you listen, will you be able to give them the best advise and recommendations possible.

Experience will always be our greatest teachers.  Always learn from your mistakes, its not an easy job but can be fulfilling once you have mastered the skills in handling your day to day dealings with your clients.

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I read somewhere that showing your client the full range of your creative ideas during a project is important, the rationale being that the client is entitled to see the ideas coming from the creative professional who they have hired and invested in. While this approach has some benefits, in some cases showing too many ideas is counter-productive to the natural flow of a project. Proof of how imaginative you are can be shown in other ways.

Spoilt For Choice

Scenario 1

You look at your Illustrator pasteboard and see half a dozen cool logo ideas… not just cool, but super-cool… not just super-cool, actually, but practical and appropriate. You have translated the brief brilliantly. You feel rather pleased with yourself. However, the last time you showed a client all of your ideas, you got caught up in a dizzying merry-go-round, forced to mash up parts of one logo with parts of another, using unsuitable and under-baked concepts.

That client was overwhelmed with ideas and unable to choose one or the other: too many directions, and too many good ideas. You offered all your super-cool ideas on a platter, convinced that you had nailed all possible directions. You worked hard to pre-empt your clients questions and suggestions. But with all of this hard work, you unwittingly set in motion a series of events that many designers before you have experienced.

Putting your client in the position of a kid in candy store can lead to some of the more frustrating experiences in design work. Are we undermining the flow of a project with our need to have our creative ego stroked by the client?

Too much choice can be a bad thing for clients.

Scenario 2

Again, looking at your Illustrator pasteboard, you see half a dozen cool logo ideas: super-cool, practical and appropriate, in fact. You have translated the brief brilliantly, as before.

The client is impressed by your imagination, your interpretation of the brief and your ability to think outside the box. They feel embarrassed — even spoilt — by the choice of amazing ideas; not what they were expecting, given their previous experiences. The client looks at the ideas and realizes you were the right person for the job. They go away to mull over the ideas.

You’re pleased. The client is pleased. Time for a beer.

The client returns with a decisive plan of attack. They have picked out one or several potential winners from among your ideas and are keen to walk through tweaks and changes with you. By showing the client all of your ideas, whether cool or funky, practical or safe, you have covered all bases, left no room for misinterpretation and accounted for that notion of “subjective perceptions.”

As is almost always the case, you have your own favorites, but prior experience has shown that you mustn’t assume the client will feel the same.

Fewer Ideas, Less Choice

We could alter these two scenarios by changing the “showing all ideas” to “showing just a few.” The advantages would be that the client would not be overwhelmed: you will have provided just a few promising ideas. This way, you are being assertive and confident in your ability to interpret the brief. You also believe that the client would be handicapped by more choice.

In both cases, the client might be pleased with the ideas you have picked out and your ability to get the job done. You are a creative laser-guided missile. You don’t need your ego stroked, and you don’t need to show off your awesome imagination to every client. Your portfolio does that just fine.

You have many other cool and practical ideas up your sleeve, but putting all your cards on the table at this time is not necessary. Save them. If the client does not buy any of the ideas you’ve filtered for them, even after you have justified their suitability, you can fall back on those. Even if you lose round 1, you’re prepared for round 2.

Be Aware

Consider these points before attempting a full-360 triple-duck-tailed high-board dive. This is not a comprehensive list but a good starting point when deciding whether to show some or all of your ideas.

Knowing Your Client: A Psychological Angle

Ultimately, your flexibility in your presentation of ideas will be determined by how well you know the client: getting a good sense of their personality, their brief and other personality- and business-related issues. You will also have to know the process that your contact will go through back at their base: are they the decider, or do they report back to a board or senior staff member?

When a group of people is involved in making decisions, you may want to keep a tighter reign on the creative process. Presenting too many ideas to one person can be overwhelming, but too many ideas for a board of six spells disaster.

Being able to read people is not only useful: it can save your sanity over time. Design and creativity are one thing, but if you want to excel at business and attract new clients, especially as a freelancer, being well versed in basic psychology goes a long way.

Cover Your Back: A Solid Brief

A tight brief is always essential and one of the first things to cover before doing anything creative. A firm and assured hand is often required. Research the company. Understand its decision-making structure. Your point of contact may not always be the decision-maker; you don’t want to pander to the wrong person. Pre-empt undesirable outcomes by familiarizing yourself as much as possible with your client and their business. For example, you may have been given a thorough brief, but if the person who prepared it is not responsible for making decisions, it could be all for nought.

The brief can change during a project, and it can change significantly without you being aware of it. The very nature of the creative process and your collaboration with the client can unearth ideas not previously considered. Be fluid and organic in your approach. When you feel the brief no longer reflects the direction of the project, be prepared to revise it with the client.

Take a time-out, and give yourself time to breath and re-evaluate. Don’t feel pressured to commit. Assess the situation and determine whether a realignment is in order. Better to backtrack a little now, because at the end you will just have further to backtrack.

Ask a lot of questions. The more you immerse yourself in the project, the more familiar you will become with the subject matter. Don’t be afraid to keep asking questions if you feel they are important to the outcome of the project.

Communication

For many freelancers, meeting the client face to face is not always possible, and you may run into complications if you haven’t made provisions. Personally, I liaise with clients through email or Skype, but only when the brief and communication are solid. If the responses are short or not forthcoming, then I take it to the phone. Only then am I able to get a sense of what the client is about.

In my experience, we are getting lazy as communicators, trying to deal with all aspects of life — business and personal — via email and text messages. Some clients I’ve had have refused to speak with me by phone, while their written communication failed to inspire me with confidence.

If this happens to you, reflect on whether the project is worth taking on. If you have problems communicating before the project has even started, you will likely hit a brick wall when trying to get feedback on creative ideas or dealing with set-backs. I have on occasion “fired” clients because they were not pulling their weight, yet expected me to bust my gut. It doesn’t work like that.

A true collaboration requires the commitment of at least two people: the designer and client.

To Conclude

There is no right or wrong answer to the question of whether to show all of your best ideas right away. Assess each client on their own terms and figure out what’s best. Would the client be overwhelmed by too many choices, or would they welcome the variety? No one size fits all. On occasion, your experience or a hunch will tell you to focus on only one concept, with perhaps a few minor variations. The work period may be slow, and you have only one project on the go and are happy to spend the extra time on what may be a valuable repeat client.

Sometimes sticking your neck out and giving more than you are being paid to do is worthwhile, but that’s a choice only you can make. Don’t make it a habit, or your clients will come to expect that extra workload of you all the time: a quick path to freelance burn-out.

Being a good judge of character, understanding human interaction, being able to see past the here and now to pre-empt later problems, all of this helps you keep your sanity. Spend time learning and researching not only creative techniques but people, too. Your job and overall quality of life will improve as a result.

Your Thoughts

Are you guarded or care-free in sharing your ideas with clients? Do you have a one-size-fits-all solution, or do you approach each client on their own terms? Have you discovered certain winning methods of dealing with particular situations?

We can all learn from one another’s experiences in dealing with people in business. If you are starting out as a freelancer, take whatever advice others are willing to give.

Image Credits

• Choices by andreiz
• Be aware by pictureperfectpose
• Creative Brief by meine-erde
• Communication by larskflem
• Conclusion by mrtea

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© Graham Smith for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: brief, ideas, logo design

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There’s very little to stop anyone becoming a freelancer. In a highly competitive and, in most places, saturated market, you need to make sure your reputation as a freelancer is well-managed and continues to grow. It’s very possible to get a good reputation without being the best in the world, and it’s even easier to lose that reputation. In this article, we’ll explore 15 habits that are essential in helping freelancers effectively safeguard and grow their reputation, and we’ll also discuss how to make freelancing work for you. The habits are split into 3 sections:

• Marketing
• Business and time
• Specific business areas

Marketing and Relationships

1. The Presentation Habit

Your website should be at the centre of your marketing strategy. It’s where people go to see who you are, what you’re about, whether you know what you’re talking about and what work you have done. It’s your silent 24/7 salesman, and it needs to be right. Fortunately, what your website needs is straightforward:

• Well-presented work with a good description of the roles you played
• A brief history of who you are and why you’re where you are
• Contact details that are easily accessible
• Content that is continually tweaked, added to, and updated

Other than that, you can go wherever you want with your own website — and so you should. Personality is key. Some great examples:

Elliot Jay Stocks carries a very clear message on his site

Ian Coyle goes for pure simplicity

Jason Santa Maria goes the whole hog with a new design for each post — a lot of work but he stands out from the crowd as a result

2. The Networking Habit

They say that within 6 degrees of separation, everyone knows everyone. So you need to make sure that everyone within your 1st degree (i.e. people you know), know exactly what you do. It needs to be exact as well. If you’re a developer you don’t want people saying you’re a website designer, and so on. Your current network of friends, family, and associates are your free word-of-mouth marketing – so get them talking about you right now.

Once this is done, your network needs to be extended and enhanced. Register with any social networking platforms that can work for you — LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Within those places, start getting into the right circles. On LinkedIn you may join some appropriate discussion groups that are either local or skill based. On Twitter you may start tweeting and including appropriate hashtags so more people can see your tweet on that subject.

There are many ways to network and connect with people, so it’s crucial that a freelancer not be afraid to talk to people and share information and contacts. Learn the networking habit and get yourself known.

3. The Niching Habit

Freelancers can get into the habit of not only finding their niche, but creating niches. A niche in this case is an area in your overall field of work in which you particularly specialise. If you’ve become very good at creating websites for golf courses, for example, then that’s a great niche.

The reasons having a niche is valuable are simple: It’s easier to become an expert in a niche. It’s easier to sell to other prospects within that niche as they can see what you have done before. As an expert in that niche you can charge a premium for your depth of knowledge.

The key to this habit is to proactively build your own niches. Seek out profitable areas in which you can work and concentrate on building niches.

4. The Pricing Habit

How you price your projects can easily be the difference between winning and not winning some work. Your pricing needs to be transparent at all times and should be agreed upon up front. Things go wrong when hidden costs appear later on. Clients like to know how much they’re paying, when they’re going to pay it, and what they’re paying for. So make it clear from the start.

Second part of the pricing habit — protect yourself. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in winning a project that you forgot some simple rules. If you have never worked with a client before, ask for a small percentage of the fee before you do any work. At this early stage, you won’t know whether they will pay! Reduce your bad debt by either only working for clients you trust or having some remuneration first.

Third part of the pricing habit — be flexible. Make sure you find a way to make the commercial deal a win-win for both parties. This could be:

• Monthly payments (regular cash flow over the course of the project)
• Payment when you hit certain project milestones (e.g. project performance)
• Deposit and balance on completion (best avoided for cash flow reasons)
• Possible exchange of services

5. The Growth Habit

It’s been claimed that it costs seven times as much in resources to acquire a new client than it does to grow an existing one. So the growth habit is about proactively looking at your clients in detail so you can discover new ways to help them.

One practical way to do this is to cross reference. Write all your services across the top of an excel sheet, then put your clients down the left hand column. Now place an X in the box where a service you have done matches a client. The boxes without X’s are potential growth opportunities and should all be explored before spending too much energy trying to acquire new clients.

Business and Time

This section is less screenshot, more serious business.

6. The time management habit

Lacking good habits in time management could cause you to over-committing yourself at certain times, which could lead to:

• Missing a deadline and disappointing a client
• Producing sloppy or inaccurate work
• Causing yourself stress because of the pressure to get everything done

The solution to this is an effective planning mechanism. Estimate how long the work will take you, then add a buffer to your estimation. This will ensure that, if it does take longer, it won’t eat into other projects. A 50% buffer works well. That may sound like a lot, but if you go over by 25% and then there are additional client emendations, you’ll need it. Once you have the total time allocation, add it to your diary. Now, here’s the crucial part: Do not move it, shrink it, or change it in any way. If you have to do something urgent that will interfere with that scheduled work, make sure the time is reallocated elsewhere.

A simple calendar application like Google calendar or Outlook can help you plan your time as a freelancer. If you struggle with where all that time goes and want to get serious about making improvements in time management, something like Rescue Time can really help.

7. The Flexibility Habit

Being flexible, responsive, and effective at what you do will allow you to handle unexpected situations, such as when a client contacts you with urgent needs and expects you to help. Having set aside time in advance for such urgent situations will ensure that you earn a reputation as a flexible worker.

What happens if nothing comes up to fill that pre-allocated time? Well you might finish that other project early and can add something special. What happens if the whole day is taken up by urgent project? No problem, you had already planned this might happen, so you won’t let anyone down.

Of course you’re not going to be able to foresee everything, but a certain level of flexibility will allow you to please your clients and be relatively free of stress because of time constraints.

8. The Honesty Habit

Agencies will not use you again if you let a client down, and your chance of repeat work is slim to none. In the same way, you should not over commit your time, but stay within your capabilities. We all need to stretch ourselves on new projects and learn new techniques and practices — that’s not what this is about. This is about promising to do a task in a specified time when, in actuality, you don’t have any idea whether it’s feasible or not. Above all else, people appreciate honesty. You’re better off being honest about whether you can handle a project rather than taking the risk of letting them down.

So how can you grow your skills and help your clients? By being honest and asking some good questions:

• “I don’t think this project is right for me. I don’t have much experience in [insert technology here]“
• “I can really help you with the [insert service here] part of this project, but I know another freelancer who can help with it. Would you be happy if I managed the project for you but outsourced this other work?”
• “I’ll need more information before I know how long this project will take. Would you mind if I spent a couple of hours doing some research so I can give you an accurate timescale?”

9. The Over-Delivery Habit

Do not deliver your projects early. Sound strange? It’s not. If you deliver early, there’s a possibility the client will think you overcharged, and may expect part of his payment to be returned. They might also expect future work to be completed ahead of schedule, which may set a bad precedent.

Instead, use the extra time to focus on whizz-bang elements — those extra bits of polish and creativity that will gain you the reputation you deserve and let you grow. For a designer this might mean spending time adding nice touches to your graphics; for a developer, it could mean more time to implement a cool piece of JavaScript to replace the plain functionality you originally settled for. The “over-deliver” will earn you a solid reputation, whereas finishing early could get you into trouble.

10. The Business Advice Habit

Although as a freelancer you’re skilled at what you do, don’t assume you’ll be able to do your accounts and bookkeeping, fill in tax returns, produce an invoice or write a proposal all by yourself.

Seek regular advice from respected professionals to help you with these aspects of running your business. This might include speaking with people who run their own operations and understand the ins and outs better than you do. Learn as much as possible from their experiences and mistakes.

Specific Business Areas

What’s out there to help you run your business and what areas do you need to focus on? In this section, we’ll discuss some applications that have earned reputations for helping freelancers do their jobs and be more professional.

11. The Email Habit

Email is toxic. As a freelancer you can easily become what’s commonly known as a busy fool. You might spend a significant part of your day just sending and receiving email without ever getting any work done. Instead, be in the habit of controlling email, and not letting it control you.

To do this you need to:

• Turn off all the little reminders, message counts, and other indicators that may catch your eye
• Configure your email client to run a “send and receive” at longer intervals, maybe as little as once per hour
• Set aside blocks of time in the day to deal with all email, then switch it off; if something is urgent, people will use the phone
• Use the ‘touch it once’ philosophy; fully read and deal with every email you open, instead of half-reading some and coming back to them later

12. The Project Management Habit

Some clients will want you to fit in with their processes, while others will not enforce this. You need to have very clear processes for how you start working with a client and start a new project. What questions do you ask a new client? Where do you store the information they tell you? How do you keep track of how close the deadline is? Where do you store all the files they send you?

Email is not sufficient for this! Things will get lost, forgotten or overlooked. You might prefer cardboard folders or ring binders or whatever works for you — but use something and stick to your own system. There are applications like Basecamp and activeCollab that can help with this.

Basecamp is used by many to manage their projects at low cost

activeCollab is a source code editable alternative to Basecamp

13. The Research & Development Habit

Sounds like a big company thing to do but R&D is essential to a good freelance operation. You need to be ahead of the curve or at the very least on it to be servicing your clients most effectively. Be in the habit of investing time for research and development. Expand your current skills and learn new ones.

Never designed a billboard before? That’s development.

Don’t know which email marketing system might help your clients? That’s research.
(Campaign Monitor and MailChimp are good options).

Set aside time every week to do R&D. Build up a list of blogs that feed you new thinking and new ideas. Listen to informative podcasts (Boagworld is a good one).

14. The Sales and CRM Habit

How can you allocate your time and resources and figure out whether or not you need to be hunting for new work or concentrating on servicing current clients? You should know at any given time what your work pipeline looks like, how likely is it all to materialize, and at roughly what value.

There are various applications out there to help, such as Salesforce, SugarCRM (open source edition), as well as 37signals’ popular Highrise.

Highrise is used by many to manage their sales and leads at low cost

15. The Accounts Habit

Making sure you have any easy way to produce, send, and track invoices is essential, as is getting into the habit of running your accounts professionally, because such habits will ensure regular cash flow. Applications like Blinksale, Freshbooks or Simply Invoices can help formalise the accounts side of your business and give a good professional feel to how you operate. Clients will need invoices for their accounts — make sure they’re not hand written or unbranded.

Blinksale can help you create, send, and track professional invoices

Further Resources

• Freelance UK
  Host of articles to help freelancers.
• BestWebGallery
  Inspiration for those times of creative block.
• Elance
  A place to get freelance work – referral work is better though!

About the author

Rob Smith is the digital director of Blueleaf – helping clients with their digital needs from their website to email marketing to analytics. He also writes in his own blog on digital media and ecommerce

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© Rob Smith for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: freelance

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Although there is hardly a shortage of desktop Twitter clients, the native client options for Mac users remain more limited. A few weeks ago, Realmac Software introduced Socialite 1.0, an app that manages Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds and more.

Now another new Mac native client has entered the ring — Kiwi by YourHead. Kiwi doesn’t do multiple social networks like Socialite — its focus is Twitter. It’s a deceptively simple-looking client, but under the hood, the real audience is the power Twitter user.

Look & Feel

Similar to apps like Twitt and Bluebird, Kiwi offers users a number of different themes — they can even create their own. Kiwi’s theme API uses HTML and CSS, which makes creating and altering themes pretty easy.

YourHead is a big player in the RapidWeaver community and already some other RapidWeaver theme designers have created themes for Kiwi. The built-in selection of styles offers lots of different options for the customization junkie.

The first thing I noticed about Kiwi as an application is that it is FAST. Like, extremely fast. Switching from one account or group or saved item to another felt seamless and instantaneous.

For power users that don’t like to leave the keyboard unless it is absolutely necessary, Kiwi has a ton of keyboard commands. Creating tweets, going to replies, direct messages and favorites, selecting accounts, retweeting and more can all be done from the keyboard. Speaking of retweeting, you can do it the official way, and there is also an option to edit and retweet. One really nice feature — you can view a user’s timeline instantly or in a browser from their tweet.

When composing tweets, you can easily append pictures and shorten URLs before hitting send.

Groups, Account Types and Regular Expressions

Kiwi 1.0 does NOT support Twitter Lists. The feature was simply rolled out too late in Kiwi’s development process — but YourHead says it is planned for a future version — probably Kiwi 1.1.

That said, there are lots of options that can create a list-like effect. Kiwi is designed to be used not only with multiple Twitter accounts (if you have them), but with multiple types of accounts. For instance, you can group together a bunch of different Twitter followers’ timelines into one group and then view updates from all of them together. You can also add certain searches or certain search rules to these groups.

In addition to grouping those items together, if you want to keep a certain search term on tap for easy access, you can add it as an account type. Kiwi has a slick little quick account window that you can choose to have open that lets you switch from one account or search term to another.

Perhaps the most advanced feature Kiwi possesses is support for rules and regular expressions. This has tremendous potential, especially if there are terms and phrases you want to keep tabs on. For instance, you can create a rule to automatically hide tweets containing a certain phrase (so if there is a popular twitter meme you want to avoid, you can just add that hashtag to a rule and all of those tweets will be hidden from view). You can also create rules to highlight and color-code content so that you are able to spot it in your timeline.

Other Thoughts

Kiwi is a really impressive Twitter client. It takes the same vertical menu design that has been popularized by the earliest desktop Twitter clients and adds in a lot of features without cluttering things up. Other than lacking List Support and Growl notifications (that’s being worked on, too), this is easily as advanced as any other Twitter client, regardless of platform.

My biggest takeaway with Kiwi is that it is fast. Really, really, really fast. Switching between timelines, searches and search combinations is quick and easy, and updates come in elegantly and without any sense of slowdown.

Kiwi requires Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. It’s $14.95, but you can download a free trial and see how it fits into your work flow.

Tags: kiwi, mac, twitter, twitter client

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Now if only that were true, right?

The truth – and I think most creatives will agree – is that the creative juices that lubricate and facilitate the flow of unique and effective ideas sometimes dries up and you need, from time to time, to refill and ferment those juices before it’s once again ready for public consumption.

One of the most effective ways to inspire creativity, I’ve found, is to do some self-initiated work; its what’s best described as personal design projects.

Whether it’s just sketches, creating a poster, or designing a super awesome personal blog, there’s something to be said about doing things for yourself that really brings out your creativity and nurtures your passions.

Why should you work on personal design projects regularly when you get paid do it for other people?

1. Personal design projects are challenging

Challenging is good. It’s challenging because whether you’re a designer, an illustrator, or any other kind of creative, you’re more an artist than anything else. And if artists have taught us one thing throughout history, it’s that we’re never happy.

There’s always more you can do. There’s always perfection to strive for. This is good and bad.

It’s good because it challenges you to produce your best work. It’s bad because with nobody to tell you stop, you’re more likely to keep working to the detriment of your project. The key is to know when your work is the best it can be.

Working on personal design projects is great practice when it comes to testing the limits of your work. It gives you a chance to set goals for yourself even if you think you should keep going. It teaches you about your own work ethic and can test your self-restraint.

At the end of the day, this practice will be valuable in delivering not only on a client’s deadline, but delivering your best work. 

2. They will help you find your personal tastes

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of what you find interesting when you’re working for someone else. You always make design decisions for the good of the client’s project. In many instances, it may even be choices that you’d never accept if it were entirely up to you.

Doing work for yourself allows you to focus on what you like since you don’t have to take orders from bosses, clients, and managers about what they would like – or need – you to do. This is very liberating and can propel your work in directions you never thought you could go.

3. They let you reexamine your design style

When you’re working on your own project, you’re not merely concerned about what you will get out of it but also about what goes into it.

Sometimes with client deadlines fast approaching, all you can think about is getting your work done and not disappointing your client. The choices you make rarely get a second glance. This is good for your client (because you didn’t miss the deadline) but bad for you as an artist.

It’s important to slow down and scrutinize your work. Are you improving? Are you getting lazier, opting for easier design methods? Is your work behind the times?

No matter what other things you have going on in your work life, self-initiated work helps you develop your inner artist.

4. They’re opportunities to explore new techniques

If you’re a working creative, it’s easy to get sucked into trends and creating stuff that sell. After all, we all have to eat. There’s nothing wrong with trends. However, doing work for yourself lets you step out of the industry’s influences, giving you a chance to explore new techniques and alternative options for your work.

You can collaborate with other artists. You can work with new tools. You can try other forms of media. In other words, you can take bigger risks without any real repercussions to the work that pays your bills.

The only real investment you make in your personal design project is the time it takes to complete it. Furthermore, at the end of your project, you’re more likely to come out of it with new lessons learned and new tools to put in your creative arsenal. Win-win. 

5. They let you diversify your portfolio

It’s important to put some personal design work in your portfolio. It shows employers that beyond what you’re able to do for your clients, you have your own style and your own thoughts on design.

When you work in a certain field for an extended period, your work will likely reflect the demands of your client. Pretty soon, all your work will start looking like everyone else’s work. One way to distinguish yourself is through your self-initiated work since it’s work you’ve created to consciously step out of the regular grind.

6. Personal design projects are fun!

Sometimes it’s easy to forget why you chose to be a creative: it’s fun, or at least, it’s supposed to be fun.

However, if you’re a working creative, more often than not, all you hear is "change this", "delete that" and "make this bigger" (that’s what she said – beat you to it, ha!).

The critics telling you that you need to do better can sometimes kill all the fun to be had in this type of profession. But that’s the nature of the beast. That’s why self-initiated work is important. If anything, personal design projects remind you that, amidst all the finicky clients and bastardization of your designs, you chose this profession because it gave you joy and fostered your passions.

What do you think about personal design projects?

What are other benefits for working on  personal project? Are personal design projects a waste of your time? Do you set aside some time to work on personal projects?

Link to your favorite personal design projects

In the comments section, link to, and talk about, your favorite personal projects.

Related Content

• How to Design for Your Worst Client: You.
• Feedback. The Creativity Killer.
• 7 Things Web Designers Hate Hearing from Clients
• Related categories: Project Management and Graphic Design

About the Author

Isaac Gube is a photographer, philosopher, illustrator, adventurer, designer, and whatever else he chooses to be on any given day. You can connect with him on Twitter @IAMTHEGUBE or visit his Flickr page to see some of his photos.

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New features in APE 1.0:

• New and improved communication protocol :
  • Entirely using JSON and fully extensible.
  • Several commands can be nested in one request.
• New transport methods :
  • XHRStreaming : A single connection is used to send and receive data. Better performance
    and reduced transfer delays.
  • JSONP : Allows to place «cross-domain» requests.
• Support for BSD & Mac OS X (running the APE server) implemented by using KQueue
• ServerSide JavaScript (SSJS) Implemented by using TraceMonkey (Mozilla SpiderMonkey)
• Mootools support on the server side.
• Complete Server-Side JavaScript API:
• • Handling of users, RAWs, Commands, Channels, Sockets
  • Use of non-blocking sockets (Client & Server)
  • MySQL connector module
  • API for doing external HTTP requests
  • WebHooks
• Log files for errors, access and general information

They’ve also created an online comic book to get you familiar with what APE is all about.

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The purpose of a logo is to represent the company that it stands for. In many respects, the logo becomes the ‘face’ of that company, and thus it must tell you all about that company, and give off the right impression, without actually explaining anything at all.

The best logos are simple, memorable, smart, and timeless. I especially like logos with hidden images or messages. They always add another element of interest once you have discovered them and provide a talking point among prospective customers.

Below are my 6 tips on how to create the perfect logo:

Step 1: Talk to the client

You need to find out about the company that you are designing for. Their motives, their aspirations, their operations, goals, competition, target audience, and overall, what type of image they would like to portray.

On top of this you need to know about their existing brand, their brand colours (if they have any), their strap-line and if they have any specific fonts that they use. Once you have collected all of this information you can start drawing!

Step 2: Sketching your ideas

The vast majority of the best logo designers out there start off with a trusty pencil and paper. In my opinion nothing can beat drawing out your ideas first. It’s much less restricting that beginning work on your computer and it’s much quicker too! It allows you to get all of your thoughts down, whether good or bad, and no matter where you are, if you suddenly get a flash of inspiration there’s no stopping you. Sometimes I’ll even draw a couple of scribbles while I’m with the client if ideas pop into my head!

Here are some of the sketches from one of the latest logos that I’ve worked on. It’s for a company called Muddy Faces and I’ll be using this as an example for the rest of this article so that you’ve got something to relate to…

Based on all of the information that I had gathered from the client, I managed to come up with several pages of very rough sketches in only an hour or two. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, or draw something that might not be very good – at least half of my sketches were terrible! You can’t fail at this, and if you really are that self conscious, just hide your sketchbook so no one will ever see!

Step 3: Digitise!

Now it’s time to get on your computer, boot up your scanner, and launch Illustrator. It’s really important that you create your logo in vector format, don’t use Photoshop (although I must admit sometimes I quickly mock up ideas in Photoshop, just because I can work faster – but then I quickly move on…) because once your logo is complete, it won’t be scalable. If your client turns around and says they want it printing on a billboard, you’re going to have an awful lot more work on your hands to blow it up to the right size.

So, scan your best images in, place them on your bottom Illustrator layer, lock it, and start using the pen tool to trace around the edges until you’ve got all of your outlines down. Once you’ve done this, you are free to start manipulating the strokes and fine-tuning your chosen designs.

Once you’ve got this sorted you can begin looking at fonts (providing your design needs them, of course). If you decide to create your own, then great! If the client has a specific font that they’ve asked you to use, then great! But otherwise, start searching…

Step 4: Grayscale

Something that can’t be ignored when creating a logo is the fact that it must be legible in grayscale (black and white). People still photocopy, and they still fax too, so you can’t avoid it.

The first thing I do when I’ve got my outlines and font sorted is create a monotone version of the logo. Once this is done I find that it’s a good opportunity to get some feedback off people, whether it’s peers, or the client themselves. It can give someone a good impression of the design before you’ve spent too much time on it. This way, if there are any major problems you can get them fixed before you start colouring it.

One thing to look out for at this point is the scalability of your logo. Shrink it down to various sizes and make sure that you can still make it out when it’s really small. Your choice of font is key here, because if you can’t read it, then you may need to have a re-think…

Step 5: Colour

Now, this is where some of you can stop. The client may have asked for a black and white logo, or the company may just suit a black and white logo. If this is the case then nice one! You’re done! If not, then once again, take into consideration all of the information that you gathered at the start and get creative!

Pick bold colours that represent the company, and that contrast well with the background. There’s nothing worse than a logo that gets lost in it’s surroundings…

Another little thing that I tend to do is come up with two slightly different colour schemes. One for when the design is being displayed on a light background, and one for when it is on a dark background. Some designs will work on both straight away, but I’d advise you to check because you never know where it might be displayed further down the line.

Step 6: Ask around

Now that your logo is finished, make sure you get some feedback. It doesn’t matter who, it could be friends, family, or work colleagues, anyone! When they’re looking at it ask them to tell you what it makes them think of, what emotions it portrays, and what they think that the company it represents does – Basically ask them things related to all the information that you gathered from the client at the start. You might get a couple of odd ones, but if it’s good feedback overall then your job is done. Send it to the client to get final approval, and send off that invoice.

…Here are a few logos that I think are brilliant. They’re bold, relevant, clever, simple, and memorable.

These are just some of a massive collection of inspirational designs that have bookmarked. I can always count on them to give me some ideas if I’m struggling.

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What’s behind the Google Chrome OS, technologically and from a business perspective? This week on the Roundtable, I discuss the pending operating system with CNET writers Stephen Shankland (Deep Tech) and Gordon Haff (Pervasive Data Center).

Listen now:

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Reporters’ Roundtable #13: Google Chrome OS

Show notes and talking points:

Android, Chrome OS, JooJoo…What is an operating system? Why do we need them?

If all an OS does is load a browser, is it an OS?

Are we ready yet for browser-centric OS?
—Consumers
—Business/Enterprise

What’s missing in Chrome OS? What are the limits of running everything out of the browser? Who’s it for or not for?

What’s special about Chrome OS?

Will chrome OS get apps?

Why does Google need its own OS

What’s behind Google’s OSes?
–motive: needle Microsoft? jump-start cloud computing? faster Web = more ads?
–What about Android? OS X as a mobile OS? WinMo, Symbian, etc?

Tactics of Chrome OS
–When it’ll arrive: open-source code available now, arriving as a product only preinstalled on Netbooks for holiday season 2010.

–Google will build in technology that make this more than just today’s browser–WebGL, Native Client, O3D, and various HTML5 elements. Mozilla and others are pushing this envelope.

–Google is scoping this narrowly as for Netbooks that are “companion PCs”–perhaps the primary machine but not the only machine. That makes it easier to declare victory, but also makes it a smaller victory. Smart overall.

–The programs run in the browser, not on the underlying Linux OS.

Gordon: What are enterprise users saying to you about this?

What about other lightweight operating systems

Outlook for Windows, OSX, Linux?

Next week, we’re on at noon Pacific time. Topic is biggest stories of the year, with CNET Editor in Chief Scott Ard and Buzz Out Loud daily host Tom Merritt.

Originally posted at Reporters’ Roundtable Podcast

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Originally posted at The Download Blog

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While there remain certain specific contexts where it is advisable to craft and present wireframe layouts for client evaluation and approval, this practice is often a really bad move and one made at the wrong moment in the design process, and for the wrong reasons. Wireframes can be useful, valuable artifacts for informing the designer’s process. But they often fail miserably as a first-step deliverable for clients.

The practice of compulsory client presentation of wireframes for all projects is not uncommon in the Web design profession. But rather than being based on sound, contextual reasoning, it is more often a thoughtless, vestigial process remnant or the result of careless misinterpretation of someone else’s contextually-specific best practice. Put another way, many designers generate and present wireframes to clients not because they know it’s a good idea in a specific case, but because they’ve seen or heard of others doing so and they therefore think they’re supposed to as well. As always these sorts of assumptions are problematic. An action or choice without context is a step toward failure.

In this article I’ll examine design and project management issues that surround wireframes, and how some specific contexts impact choices for producing and/or presenting wireframes to clients as project deliverables.

To wireframe or not to wireframe

Whether they’re hastily-scribbled pencil sketches on notebook paper, detailed ink drawings on graph paper, rudimentary gray box layouts made in a graphics tool, or highly detailed monochrome comps with real text content and accurately rendered interface and form elements, virtually every project involves wireframes of some sort. They provide guidance for the rest of the design process …for the designer. They can, however, be problematic or useless for the client and in some cases they’re simply a waste of time.

The value of this nice design (above) would not likely be well served by a wireframe presented to the client.

But not always. As mentioned before, there are certain contexts and cases where crafting wireframes for client evaluation and approval is a good idea or an advisable requirement. For instance:

• forms
• (some) Web app layouts
• news sites
• or in those lamentable situations where you’re asked to design without the client having provided you with the content (where wireframes are used to help them visualize how content volumes impact the layout. A poor process!)

These are good contexts for client-presented wireframes. All but the last example are likely well-suited to client wireframe approval because of what generally allows these types of pages to be successfully designed: the lack of visual noise and obtrusive, non-content graphic elements. For those contexts, the plain, monochrome wireframe presents a fairly clear indication of an ultimate result. In these cases, most of what can be conveyed by a wireframe can remain unaffected by the full articulation of the design (though “Web app” is an admittedly generalized example here).

Even in these contexts, however, the design process can get derailed by the client’s feedback and requests when made without the context provided by an already understood and approved full design direction. Wireframes are a sometimes useful “guess” that can help get design underway. But if your client doesn’t share your appreciation for and understanding of the purpose of wireframes, things can go awry. Sometimes it is best that the fully realized design for one or more promotional/information pages be agreed upon before wireframes for some other specific layouts are generated so that the comparatively inarticulate wireframes can be viewed and evaluated in the right context.

Some problems with wireframes

Wireframes bring with them a host of potential communicative problems that must be understood by both the designer and the client where wireframes are used. Taking into account that part of your job as the designer is to win and maintain your clients’ trust, you don’t want to introduce artifacts or documents that might work to erode that trust. Design-communicative problems erode trust.

Wireframes as the design blueprint

Some may regard wireframes as entirely innocuous; as merely the blueprints for the page layouts. This analogy does not hold. The blueprints or the floor plan for a house are made in the context of the fully realized design and the client views these with the benefit of having seen detailed elevation drawings or paintings. When the project is fully realized as the house is built, the blueprints and floor plan encounter no modifying influence or pressure to change. They’re set, solid. Their plan will likely hold through the entire process.

The floor plan above has the context of a design result as rendered in the elevation painting. Thus the client can form opinions based on a full, clear picture.

Wireframes, however, cannot easily accommodate and convey vitally important components of the design. Gray boxes and non-contextual dummy content cannot describe:

• how contrast impacts content hierarchy
• the impact of brand-specific design features
• the impact of graphic and textural elements
• the eye/energy paths created or interrupted by color and contrast of graphic elements
• et cetera

As a result, what seems logical and sound in a wireframe may be trite and malformed when the actual design and content are applied. Gray boxes and generic filler copy may fit together very nicely for an initial plan, but relationships can often change as the graphic and textural layers and actual content are added. Revision becomes likely.

The impact of informational and promotional content

The further the page purpose moves away from sanitary news or purely functional requirements the less effective and articulate wirefames become. Counter to the previously cited example, there are common cases where what will be a compelling, effective design fully realized may seem dull and dubious as described by an inarticulate wireframe. As such, it may work to erode client confidence.

For example, this wireframe (above) is not very exciting and in no way conveys the impact and effectiveness of the fully-articulated design that will follow. A client presented with this wireframe as an example of the plan for the main page of their company’s website may question the abilities and creativity of their designer. It is likely that the client would be compelled to begin asking for additions to help this page “pop,” and the designer would find himself in the ridiculous situation of having the client demand to help design the wireframe. And everyone loses. However…

…the design as fully articulated (above) is a different matter entirely. Nice typography, crisp imagery, and consistent theme work to bring this layout together as a compelling design. Very little of what makes this design work could be communicated by a mere wireframe. And if the required detail was articulated by a wireframe, it means that effort was wasted and should have been directed toward crafting the full design for presentation to the client. Again, context matters.

As an anecdote from the above-referenced project, the original plan was to have the branding/nav and promotional areas as centered, distinct “boxes” on the page. In the fully articulated design it became clear that it was much better to have the upper area of the layout be a full-screen–width section rather than discrete, horizontally-limited boxes. This is just one example of how things change when the full design is applied to a wireframe plan.

Wireframes for informational and promotional pages quickly begin to lose their articulate nature, especially where brand-centric issues come into play—and especially when the actual content is not present. It’s highly probable that only the fully-realized design can convey the successful or unsuccessful quality of a page when there is an informational or promotional purpose to the content. This issue is sometimes mitigated when you’ve got the full and exact page content, but why would you then create a wireframe? Communicating promotional information in the context of a brand requires more than gray boxes.

Faulty reasoning and greed

An idea like, “Wireframes will present enough specificity to allow developers to start crafting the functionality, as well as enough context to let the creative team (designers) start to working on visuals,” ignores the fact that information hierarchy is design and is not merely a matter of top-to-bottom or left-to-right order, and that the addition of graphic, typographic, and textural elements can change content relationships, requiring layout changes. Furthermore, if the wireframes are crafted by an information architect (IA) rather than by the designer, design decisions will have been made that may prove faulty later in the design process due to a lack of the IA’s design insight (or foresight). If your client has already signed-off on the wireframes, you could find yourself in a pickle.

So getting a client’s approval of a specific layout and content relationship with the inarticulate boxes appropriate for a wireframe presupposes that the content and the graphic, contrast, and color textures as applied to the content won’t necessitate changing things in order to create a good page viewing/using experience. This is naive at best and irresponsible at worst.

Another instance where wireframes are often inappropriately included in deliverables is when agency bloat and greediness are brought to bear. The common logic is that where a bloated agency charges four times as much as smaller agencies, they’re compelled to offer many times the volume of deliverables in an attempt to represent value. The problem here is clear.

Disappointingly, this approach also typically involves the failed practice of including a scattershot approach to design, where many design options are offered as a matter of course. I’ve discussed that issue already on my blog, but the lesson here is that where you find the one bad behavior, you’re likely to find another other. And another.

Speaking here to companies looking to enlist a Web agency, if your prospective agency describes wireframes as a part of the project deliverables when they don’t yet have a full appreciation of your project, it means they’re working from a script rather than thinking about you. It means you’re talking to the wrong agency.

In conclusion

Before you create a detailed wireframe for any project, ask yourself: “How will this help my design process?” Evaluate your answer carefully before you decide whether or not to craft a wireframe. Actually, I think we’re all in the habit of doing this and most of us intuitively understand how some sort of wireframe will help our process.

Likewise, however, before you create a wireframe for client evaluation and approval, ask yourself: how will this help my client in the project process? Again, evaluate your answer carefully before you decide to craft a wireframe for your client’s evaluation…and before you commit to do so as a part of the project deliverables. Context matters.

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• Honda P-Nut
• Honda EV-N Concept
• Honda UX-3

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GIFs of spinning @s on the “Contact us” page. Common usabiltiy mistakes for the sake of visual appeal. Splash pages. Fancy search box. No whitespace. Music on page load. Home page banner of a jigsaw-puzzle globe with a piece missing. Sometimes you just know that what a client is requesting is wrong and that you have to find a way to tell them. But how?

Is The Client Wrong?

Before getting into how to explain to a client that they’re wrong, ask yourself, “Is the client wrong to begin with?” Just because you don’t approve of the direction they’re taking or of a request they’ve made doesn’t necessarily mean it is not a step in the right direction for the project. To be able to answer this question effectively, you need to train yourself to be completely objective and humble when dealing with client requests.

First of all, appreciate one critical thing: the client probably knows their target audience a lot better than you do. Just as Web professionals quickly learn personality types among their own clients, your client interacts with their target audience on a daily basis and knows what makes them tick… and that may be just what makes you cringe.

You can begin to establish if the client is wrong simply by exploring why the client is making such a request and what the business case for it is. It could well be a situation in which they spoke to many people in the target audience demographic, and they all said that they were more likely to click an animated Flash banner link than a static one, or that they felt more engaged by a website that had stock images of smiling people everywhere.

It could be that the picture of the jigsaw-puzzle globe with a piece missing actually sums up the client’s sales pitch quite well and that similar messaging has proven to win over potential customers in the past.

Of course, when faced with such a situation, a good Web professional would understand the business driver and suggest alternative solutions that convey the same message and achieve the same goal but that are unique, original and creative.

Whatever the case though, always keep an open mind. Don’t assume the client is wrong before seeing the evidence. One guarantee in this business is that the more you design and develop websites, the more often you’ll find yourself in situations where, six months after a project’s launch, you hear that the most positive feedback from users wasn’t the cool bit of JavaScript you implemented using groundbreaking technology, but rather something that you considered boring and unoriginal but that excited the client during development. We deliver websites for the client’s target audience, not our peers in the Web community: sometimes painful to swallow, but always true.

That scenario aside, let’s put our cool hats on again and assume that the request for the jigsaw-puzzle globe has come in, and that it clearly has nothing to do with the client’s business, and that it has made you curl up in a corner of the room, banging your head against the wall, muttering “Why? Why? Why?”

What approaches can you take to explain to the client that, in your professional opinion, they’re wrong?

Speak The Client’s Language

One of the most common problems, especially among freelancers, is an inability to speak the client’s language. Being able to speak in a way that relates to the client’s business sense is crucial at all stages of managing a Web project, but never more so than when challenging a client’s decision.

If you’re trying to explain to a client that a rotating banner (or any other feature) may not be the most effective use of their budget, rather than say something like, “I just don’t think it will work,” or “I’m not sure you have the budget,” ask instead how they think implementing it will benefit their business, generate more quality leads or increase conversions.

Always emphasize the main goals, or KPIs (key performance indicators), of the project. You’d be surprised by how often such a question will result in a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, as the client realizes that they want the feature because they think it looks cool, when in fact they can’t connect it to a KPI.

Building a website or Web application should be treated in the same way as growing a business:

1. Know what you want to achieve.
2. Define some measurable KPIs or goals.
3. Develop a plan.
4. Begin executing the plan.
5. Evaluate every decision along the way to make sure it supports a KPI, thus taking repeated steps towards achieving the project’s goals.

By maintaining this approach, you will also radically change the client’s opinion of you, from that of a creative hippie-type to a business-savvy Web designer or developer whom they should listen to if they want to stay focused on the purpose of the project.

Being able to speak the client’s language will undoubtedly help greatly when the time comes to tell the client that they’re wrong. Beyond using Buzzword Bingo words with confidence, you need to be able to back them up with valuable advice drawn from your area of specialization.

Establish Yourself As The Expert

One of the most important ways to make the ordeal of explaining to a client that they’re wrong as stress-free as possible for both parties is to establish yourself as the Web expert. If you do this, the client will completely trust you and your recommendations without a moment’s hesitation. Perfick!

But even if you are a Web expert, the position is not always easy to establish, because it usually only becomes apparent over time, after you’ve gotten a few successful decisions or projects under your belt with the client. It doesn’t help either that many clients still regard creative digital agencies and freelancers as either kids living in their parents’ basement or shady professionals out to take them for every last penny.

Though a challenge, you can establish your credibility quickly using a few methods, some of which are relatively simple to do.

Be Professional

Before they’re convinced that you’re a digital professional and that they should trust your recommendations, you must first demonstrate your professionalism by doing the basics well:

• Be punctual at meetings and teleconferences.
• Always speak in a professional manner.
• Deliver pre-sales paperwork on time.
• Present all documents and images on professionally branded templates.
• Use correct grammar and punctuation in emails.

You’d be surprised by how quickly clients pick upon deficiencies in these basic business skills. Their perception of you and your recommendations will be immediately affected. Unless you come across as the consummate professional early on, shaking off this reputation will be difficult.

Don’t Be Shy About Citing High-Profile Clients

You could well be a digital guru who has spent years working in the industry and earned the respect of the Web community, but most clients won’t understand what this means. They have never heard of websites such as Smashing Magazine or magazines such as .Net, and they probably won’t grasp the gravitas that comes with being a speaker at Web conferences such as SXSW.

However, all clients tend to respond when you say you have worked on a high-profile brand website. When clients hear that you’ve been hired by a big name that they’ve heard of and whose products they perhaps use, they sit up like a meerkat and think they’ve hit the jackpot. Simples!

While some Web folk aren’t always comfortable selling themselves, and while big brand experience is not always proof of ability, it almost always resonates with clients and makes them see you as more credible. This reinforces your position as an expert whose advice should be heeded. After all, if big brand X thought you were good, you must be, right?

Sometimes, of course, no matter how much credibility you demonstrate, a client may choose not to listen to your recommendations. But perhaps they’ll listen to others…

Back Up Recommendations With Evidence

How often in life have you volunteered your point of view to someone for months, only to be beaten down each time; and yet when someone else comes into the picture and says the exact same thing, their advice is seized upon as revolutionary. This is human nature and happens just as much when explaining to clients that they’re wrong.

If a client is, for whatever reason, unpersuaded by your arguments, you might want to consider going all CSI on them and producing evidence that backs up your recommendations.

This evidence can come in many forms. For example:

• Blog posts from world-respected Web experts.
• Statistics from large usability studies.
• Well-known cases where the same thing was tried and had negative results.

This kind of evidence is obvious. But sometimes, the less obvious kind can be just as effective:

• Guerrilla usability testing, by asking the client to obtain feedback from employees within the company.
• Using free tools like Five Second Test (or dozens of other tools) to flash test designs.
• Submitting designs to communities dedicated to providing design feedback, for example Feedback Army.
• Feedback from customers with whom the client has a good relationship.
• Setting up a poll on the website that presents both ideas.
• Web analytics from the current website.

Common points of contention will be which browsers to support, which screen resolutions to optimize for and where to put the fold. But no matter the debate, backing up your point of view with trusted third parties can sometimes tip the balance in your favor and improve how the client perceives your dedication, enthusiasm and passion for getting it right.

Sometimes, Being Direct Works

When all else fails, you could always tell the client flat out that they’re wrong. This is always a risky move, because clients will react differently. Some will appreciate it, while others will find it disrespectful or personally insulting. But if you feel strongly about it and you’ve tried every other method, being direct might do the trick.

Personally, I’ve been in situations in which I’ve had no alternative but to tell a client that their request is “naff.” To my surprise, despite the ferocity with which the client initially defended their opinion, they backed down immediately and thanked me, saying that this is what they were paying me for: to be strong and stubborn and to tell them things like this. However, merely saying that something is naff and nothing more is not ideal; you have to offer an alternative solution.

Use this approach with caution. Take into account your rapport with the client, and be passive in your tone of voice. Also, choose your method of communication wisely; for example, being so direct by email is usually a big mistake because of the possibility of misinterpretation.

If possible, be direct with the client face to face or by telephone. This allows you to deliver the message directly and set the right tone. You will also be able to observe the client’s body language or hear their response instantly and then quickly adjust your approach if needed. Generally, if a client turns green with fury, their nostrils emit a trace of steam and their clothes rip at the seams, you may want to back down and move swiftly to the next item on the agenda… or call an ambulance because they may be ill.

Of course, sometimes no matter what you say or do, a client will overrule and insist that you follow their request. You know what? That’s okay. It happens. That’s life.

But that doesn’t necessarily have to be the end of the debate!

Know When And How To Admit Defeat

Occasionally you’ll try every known method of explaining to a client that they’re wrong, and nothing works. They’ll continue insisting that you design or develop whatever they want or else they’ll go to someone who will. And yet you feel with complete sincerity that they’re making a mistake that will have a negative impact on their business. This is never a good situation to be in.

There really are no hard and fast rules on what to do in such a situation. Each case should be treated on its own basis. But with experience comes the instinct of knowing when to admit defeat and do as you’re told.

This feeling is never nice, but sometimes that’s how it is. And if you have to sit in the corner and be quiet, do it professionally and politely. Under no circumstances should you throw your toys out of the pram and give the client attitude. Simply explain to them that you have put forward your recommendations and given your reasons. At the end of the day, it’s their business and their decision. It stings, but you’ve done all you can, and your dignity remains intact. But don’t give up yet!

Treat Defeat as an Opportunity

Saying that good entrepreneurs view every defeat as an opportunity is almost a cliché these days. But it’s true, and these situations are no different. There’s admitting defeat, and then there’s pretending to admit defeat! Once you’ve been beaten down by a client, accept it, get over it and think positively about how you can turn defeat into a win/win for everyone.

For example, suggest to the client that if they choose to press ahead against your recommendation, then your next recommendation will be to implement some custom Web analytics to monitor the outcome of the decision.

For example, if a client insists on giving the home page banner a small call to action that, in your opinion, is difficult to read or not prominent enough, persuade them to let you implement some A/B testing: one month with their banner and one month with your proposed solution, and let the statistics do the talking. No client on earth would continue to insist on their solution if yours delivered a better return on investment.

If you’re thinking, “What the heck is A/B testing?” even better! This is an ideal opportunity to learn a valuable skill while getting paid and giving your client excellent service!

Summary

Explaining to a client that they’re wrong is never easy. It could blow up in your face and damage what was a good relationship. But everyone is wrong sometimes, and clients are no different. Always start by asking yourself if the client is, in fact, wrong. Or are you trying to impose your opinion (based on a narrow Web-only view) on what is ultimately a business decision that affects the client’s entire strategy, both online and offline.

If you conclude that their direction is still misguided, open a dialogue with them in language they relate too: business language. Rather than say it won’t work, ask them what goals or return on investment they think the direction will help achieve. Establish yourself as the digital expert from the moment you make contact with the client by conducting all aspects of your work with professionalism. Do everything you can to position yourself as someone who has the experience to suggest alternative solutions. And where possible, back up your recommendations with third-party material and user feedback.

If all else fails, be direct with the client. But know which clients you can be direct with and when you will have to back down. Finally, don’t let being overruled be the end of the debate. Suggest testing periods, and let the Web analytics do the talking. All clients respond when they see important metrics go up rather than down!

What are your favorite ways of telling clients that they’re wrong?

Related Posts

• What to do When Your Client Is Wrong
  Ramona Iftode discusses how to communicate with a client that they may be making a wrong decision.
• 10+ Tips to Improve Interaction with Clients
  A collection of handy tips from admixWeb to help you deal with clients.
• Getting Design Sign-off
  Paul Boag presents a video describing techniques and processes you can use to get clients to buy into a vision that achieves their goals.
• Clients from Hell
  A collection of anonymously submitted client requests that are just wrong, and wrong in such creative ways! These situations probably could have been avoided with better client management, but they’re still a giggle to read.
• 13 Tips for Effective Communication with Clients
  Steven Snell gives some excellent tips that should help you when talking to clients and capturing requirements.
• Designers and Communication Skills: Why and How to Improve
  A post from Vandelay Design that explains why communication skills are so important and ways you can improve them.
• How To Communicate Design Decisions To Clients?
  Brian Armstrong gives some great advice on how to guide a client through your design decisions that should leave them feeling confident in your recommendations.

© Sam Barnes for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: clients, communication

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Kim Blanchette in his office.

“I learned from designers,” owner Kim Blanchette admits. “Creative minds taught me.” That’s how he describes how he learned how to print so well. Today, young designers learn from directly from the craftsman himself, who guides them with his innate sense of color and ink on every job they do on press.

Kim started in the business by selling color in the 1970s and became inspired by working with creative people. He began to see the possibilities while working with visionary artists, photographers and designers. Ever since then, the self-taught printer has been striving to look for client collaborators who challenge them to jump through hoops and achieve the unachievable.

Kim and Adam Blanchette check proofs on press.

Over four decades, Blanchette Press has evolved from a letterpress shop to an offset printing company that specializes in serving the design community. The company crafts their relationships with creative people just as carefully as they do with their work. Their collaboration list with industry greats reads more like a who’s who in graphic design legends, including Pentagram, Studio Hinrich, The Hill Group, Carbone Smolan, VSA Partners and more.

Blanchette Press believes that close human relationships create the best possible work. They approach every project from an artistic perspective rather than a technical process. That means the artist is key to the success of the work.

Client: The Hill Group / Design Firm: Terry Vine Photography

Client: AIGA / Design Firm: Weymouth Design

Client: Nichole Sloan Photography / Design Firm: Sasges Inc.

Client: Sandro Miller Photography / Design Firm: SamataMason

“That’s the intangible element that goes into a project,” remarks Nick Knowlden, Director of Sales. “To create a great project, it has to be well-designed, have great photography, have great typography and have great execution and production. We meet the execution part by working with people who value that part of the chain.”

The whole team works very closely with their clientele to help interpret what the designer is trying to achieve. Kim and his pressmen check the quality on every job before it ever leaves the plant.

Pentagram Typography Calendar / Design Firm: Pentagram San Francisco

Client: Rodney Smith / Design Firm: David Meredith Design

Client: American Express / Design Firm: VSA Partners New York

And the attention to detail pays off. Blanchette Press has been recognized around the world for the brilliance of their talent. Apart from the accolades they collect from the printing community, they’ve also garnered recognition from the design community with multiple Mead Annual Report Show and Graphis gold and platinum awards.

Kim’s family helps to continue the printing tradition. The small but dedicated staff of 35 tries to keep it simple and limit the company’s growth in order to keep the focus on quality. There’s no fancy client lounges or elaborate client amenities at Blanchette Press. The operation is humble because they put all their passion into the craft of printing. And with that core value in mind, the company continues to prove that anything is possible.

Photography by Victor John Penner.

The long shelf of Mead Annual Report Show awards.

Blanchette Press' beautiful location in Richmond, British Columbia.

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Crafting a Generation: Kim Blanchette

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Within this article we’ll take the time to break down a few points that will help you effectively communicate with clients. Please note that there is not one set of rules for communication that can be used for all clients. Every single client is different in their own way, and each should be treated in that manner. These tips will serve as a guideline. You can apply them, and modify them as you please.

Listen and Learn

Save the sales pitch for a different niche like automobile sales. Your clients will more than likely help you equip yourself with the right tools to “sell” them, if you listen. A client’s project has everything to do with what they need, what they represent, what type of customers their trying to reach, and less about you. For this reason, it is very important that you listen carefully to the details they provide. This will help you do your best, not your average on the job. While you’re listening or reading what your client’s saying, make sure you have something in hand that will allow you to take notes. That way you can regurgitate your clients needs in your own words for better understanding.

Ultimately, the less you blab on about your business and yourself, the more your client becomes interested. Give your clients enough room to talk and express themselves, don’t jump on every word they say. That can cause some discomfort. Sometimes it pays to just listen and be attentive. Learn when the right moment for you to give suggestions arrises, and take advantage of it, but don’t be too forward. Remember you need to give them some space when they speak, but not enough space that’ll disinterest them. You have to find a balance.

Working with a System

If you’re working with various clients at a time, then you know how difficult it can be to keep mental records of every word, document, and suggestions sent by a client. This is why it is important to fuel effective communication by having some sort of system in place. Developing your own system for keeping track of communication isn’t the most difficult of tasks. It can be as easy as having a separate folder on your desktop for every client containing all of their emails, notes, and suggestions.

If that might seem like too much of a hassle, then you can resolve to an application similar to Basecamp. Basecamp makes sure that everyone is on the same page, allowing you to keep a record of every message relayed, set tasks, and track time. However, it doesn’t matter if it’s your own method or using applications such as basecamp, it’s important to setup some sort of system to help you remain organized. Being organized gives way to a more effective level of communication as you’re not always scrambling trying to remember what client said what and who needs what. If you don’t keep a good record, then chances are there will be times when you need to ask a client to elaborate on what they’ve previously said. This can easily give a client the impression that you don’t listen, pay attention, and are unorganized.

Getting the Client Involved

A large majority of clients you’ll come across have very little knowledge of the various elements it takes to design a website. Most of them know what they want, they just don’t know how to turn it into a successful website or illustration. Apart from the chatty clients, there will be times that you’ll find yourself working with one that doesn’t have much to say or suggest. This is where you get them involved. Try to give them a summarized idea of what you need from them in order to produce the best possible work. You can devise a quick list of what’s expected of them and send it over. That way they can feed you the correct information all at once, rather then you having to call them a hundred times to figure out what they want. This is where collaboration meets communication.

Reasoning with Your Advice

If you decide to go ahead and give your input, make sure you can explain why you’re giving that advice. Many times a client will want you to add or make changes to things that you don’t think will be effective for the scope of the project at hand. This is where it’s important to demonstrate to them why it is they should take into consideration your advice. Always remember to cover your bases. This is far more effective then designing your own concept only to find out it has been rejected.

Using Examples

Using good examples compliments effective communication. Sometimes explaining a concept or suggestion just doesn’t cut it through email or on the phone. When this happens clients will appreciate you much more if you can provide real examples. Consequently, you’ll end up clearing up a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. For example, if you wish to nest specific elements in various locations throughout the layout, it would be an ideal choice for you to send them a wireframe of how you plan on structuring the site.

About the Author

Joel Reyes is a web designer and web developer with years of experience in the industry. He runs a development studio called Looney Designer. Connect with him via Twitter, and through his Blog.

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For as long as we can remember Twitter has left application development to enterprising third-party developers. In recent months, however, the company has pushed out a number of additions to the platform, and today they’re unveiling a preview of the spiffy new mobile site that rivals Twitter.com in design and function.

You can try out the new mobile version of Twitter, which works best on Webkit browsers, by visiting http://mobile.twitter.com/ on your mobile device. Since it’s a preview, the new mobile client will not replace the m.twitter.com experience for the time being, but you can look for that switch to happen in the coming months.

If you’re wondering why Twitter was compelled to redo their mobile site after years of silence, look no further their blog post on the subject. Leland Rechis of the User Experience team writes:

What may be a less known fact is: Lots of people access Twitter on their phones via our good ol’ mobile website, and trusty ‘m’ has been delivering tweets faithfully. However, ‘m’ doesn’t fully feel like Twitter, and could probably do a bit more things for you.

‘M’ should also be fantastically innovative — naturally the best way to do that is use our own APIs. So, the mobile team here built a brand new mobile web client from scratch, using only Twitter APIs, and we’d like to share the results with you.

Take a look at the new mobile version of Twitter below.

Tags: Mobile 2.0, twitter

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Betwn.us is the only client that allows you to post on Facebook and Twitter through your email.

You send an email to a specific email address at betwn.us. Betwn.us posts that message to your Facebook Wall or Twitter Stream.

http://betwn.us/

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Tweetie 2.1, the latest version of the popular iPhone Twitter client, went live in the app store today.

As we mentioned in our preview earlier this week, new features include support for Twitter Lists, the new Twitter retweets feature and geolocation. The new version is free to existing Tweetie 2 users.

As we wrote in our complete review:

Lists support is a big deal and thus far, it looks like Tweetie 2 for the iPhone handles the process in a very robust and intuitive way. When you click on the “More” tab in Tweetie 2, you are now presented with a listing of every list you subscribe to (whether you created it or just subscribe to it), making it easy to view the contents of that list with one click…

Twitter’s native retweeting feature was implemented in many of the beta versions of Tweetie 2, but was disabled in the first shipping version because the feature hadn’t been rolled out extensively. Now that the new Retweet system is in full effect, it’s back in Tweetie 2. When you view your profile, you now have an option to view your retweets, retweets by others, and even your tweets, retweeted.

You can download Tweetie 2.1 here [iTunes link]

What do you think of the new Tweetie? What’s your iPhone Twitter client of choice? Let us know in the comments.

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Seeing as we are all human (well, presumably whoever is reading this post anyway), we should recognize that mistakes happen. They even have that saying, “To err is human…,” which goes to show that it is not only commonplace for us to err once or twice: it is expected. But a method is behind this madness, because making mistakes is one of the major ways we learn. This is no different for freelancers.

Finding our way over these bumps in the road often gives us valuable insight to take away. It helps us develop techniques and methods that we can incorporate into our creative process. As freelancers, we have the benefit of access to an entire online community that is willing to share its experiences so that we can learn without having to make the same mistakes.

So in this post, we look at 10 critical mistakes freelancers make. Hopefully, if you haven’t already made one of these mistakes yourself, you can learn the lesson behind it.

Also consider our previous articles:

• Getting Clients: Approaching The Company
• Invoice Like A Pro: Examples And Best Practices
• How To Identify And Deal With Different Types Of Clients
• Freelance Contracts: Do’s And Don’ts
• Marketing Rules And Principles For Freelancers

They Don’t Use A Contract

One of the first things freelancers learn when contracting out their services to others is… to use a contract! Unfortunately, we often learn this lesson the hard way. For whatever reason, we think that a particular client of ours is someone we can work for without the aid and protection of a contract. This tends to end in one way: by biting us in the back end.

Without this safeguard in place, you open yourself up to so many potential problems, and you may inadvertently end up committing to more than you had intended or even imagined. Freelancers only make this mistake once, if at all. This lesson is not a secret in the freelance community. The advice comes up often: always use a contract. And many heed the warning once they hear it.

They Misuse Social Media (Or Don’t Use It At All)

Another common, but critical, pitfall that freelancers tumble into is misusing social media, if they even use it at all. Social media is a major tool that offers all freelancers an invaluable resource at their fingertips. An entire community of professionals connected via modems, ready and willing to offer each other whatever assistance they can. Neglecting this stream of industry insight, or not using it properly, can hinder the growth of your business.

Social media is about interacting with people and fostering relationships, which, if done with consideration and attention, can create opportunities you would have otherwise missed out on (not to mention friendships that can outlast jobs). Especially at the beginning of your freelancing career, if you make the mistake of misusing the media, you could be seen as an anti-social pariah in your corner of the Web.

They Put Quantity Over Quality In Their Portfolio

When putting their portfolio together, some freelancers mistakenly believe that the more they add to their portfolio, the better. Then it becomes about quantity and not quality of work. They forget the value of the portfolio in opening doors and creating opportunities.

The phrase “Put your best foot forward” applies in this situation. Your portfolio speaks volumes about your skills, freeing you from having to say too much and risk coming off as more arrogant than confident. Let your portfolio do the talking, and don’t make the mistake of prioritizing quantity and sending the wrong message. Quality makes the best first impression, so make the most of it.

They Stop Learning

This one has to be said. It can do so much harm to freelancers, no matter what their field: that is, they stop learning. But especially for freelancers who work in a field as dynamic and ever-expanding as design and development, staying ahead of the curve is absolutely crucial to meeting your clients’ needs.

This field is continually evolving with new techniques and applications. Throwing in the towel on education is virtual suicide. You, your work and your career would stagnate. Thankfully, with this online culture we have today, cultivating an environment in which we can sustain our education is easy. Not taking advantage of these learning opportunities is a mistake that could potentially cost you your business.

They Don’t Know How To Deal With Clients

Another common mistake is that freelancers forget their people skills when dealing with clients. For whatever reason, we let slip in our minds that clients hire us because they don’t know how to do the work themselves. They are in unknown territory, and as freelancers we should always be sensitive to that and bridge as many gaps in knowledge as we can. This will only improve your future dealings with the client and earn you more respect and trust in the business.

Obviously, without clients, you are a freelancer in title alone, so make sure you know not only how to engage clients but how to entice them back. Being able to assess needs that they aren’t even able to articulate and then communicating it all back to them is an invaluable skill. Neglecting it can be costly.

They Fail To Prepare For Dry Spells

This mistake is definitely better learned second-hand, and that is not preparing for occasions when no work is coming in. Droughts hit even the best of them, especially in these tough economic times. Freelancers often forget to account for that in their pricing structure and to save up in good times for when things go south.

There is a logic behind the rates we charge, and part of it is to sustain us after we have completed work for one client and eagerly await the next. Of course, we can always find work to do, but paying work is what sustains us as freelancers. Calling this mistake costly is too close to punning for comfort, but its impact is definitely felt and could force you to suspend freelancing and seek out supplemental employment, thus making it even harder for you to create your own opportunities.

They Overload Their Plate

This next mistake sometimes results from a fear of the aforementioned dry spell. Of course, greed might also play a role. Whatever the reason, some freelancers don’t know when enough is enough, and they continue to take on new projects as their plate overloads. Overextending yourself and your business like this can destabilize your workflow.

Freelancers need a certain degree of self-awareness to know when they have reached their limit. Reputation—that is, a good one—is important to your business’ development. Spreading yourself too thin is never good, and the distraction could hamper your creativity. This is another of those mistakes that are difficult to recover from.

They Miss A Deadline (And Think It’s No Big Deal)

This, too, is often a consequence of the previous mistake in our list. Falling behind when you are overloaded is all too easy, but missing a deadline can have a debilitating effect on your business. And if you think missing a deadline is no big deal, your career may be over before it begins. Deadlines keep you on track and help you multitask, as well as keep your client on track with the development of their project.

Once again, reputation is critical to building your brand and making your mark in the freelancing market. And a great way to ruin that reputation is by proving yourself unreliable. Stay productive and ahead of your tasks to avoid disrupting your client’s timetable. If you end up making this mistake, own up to it. Don’t offer excuses, simply propose a new timetable and continue working hard to meet it. But clearly acknowledge the problem you have created for your client. If you make this mistake once, you may not have an opportunity to make it again.

They Lack Confidence

Lacking confidence in themselves or in their work is another mistake that can plague freelancers, even beyond their business. Being your own worst critic and holding your work to a higher standard than that of others is natural (right?). But at a certain point, you are no longer critiquing so much as tearing down your work. Dismissing the talent and abilities that have carried you this far is misguided and will do nothing for your productivity.

Without confidence, making it as a freelancer will be extremely difficult. You’ll start taking useful and well-intended criticism bitterly, missing the person’s point and spiraling further into a pool of doubt and self-pity. Lack of confidence hinders your skills and the growth of your business. Clients will pick up on it quickly, because the freelancer is supposed to have a commanding role. Our responsibility is to guide the client to make effective decisions and win them over to our point of view; without confidence, this becomes unlikely. You’ll undervalue both yourself and your work. So have faith in your abilities, and know that your unique voice is needed in the ranks of the freelancing arena.

They Go To Work For Someone Else

Another blunder freelancers make is to work tirelessly to build their business, only to accept the first offer for a cushy job that comes along. No longer being your own boss would seem easy to adjust to, but it can be like moving back under your parents’ roof after you’ve tasted the freedom of living on your own. It simply doesn’t fit as comfortably as it once did. Simply readjusting is not so easy because freelancing is more than a job: it is a way of life.

Some people tell themselves that freelancing was all along a stopgap to some greater dream, but true freelancers find that pill hard to swallow. For some, that might be true, but then those people were not freelancers so much as temporary independent contractors. Freelancers crave the freedom that comes with the ’lancing. Still others believe they can work for someone else and maintain their freelancing on the side. In theory, this might appear viable. The reality is harsher: freelancing is full-time. It is a way of life, and turning it into a part-time job spells trouble.

Further Resources

Have a look at these related articles and resources:

• Three Big Mistakes That Can Make or Break Your Design Career
  A discussion on Fuel Your Interface of three major mistakes that could potentially end a designer’s career.
• Marketing Rules and Principles for Freelancers
  Freelance Folder offers some fantastic marketing insight that can help guide you in your freelance career.
• To Err Is Human: How to Handle Freelance Mistakes
  Freelance Sprout looks at how to handle mistakes as a freelancer.
• Top Ten Mistakes That Aspiring Professional Freelance Photographers Make
  Paul Burwell offers some helpful advice for photographers who long to branch into the freelancing market.
• Freelancing FUBARs: 8 Common Mistakes
  Freelance Adviser looks at common mistakes made by freelancers when they are just starting out.

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© Robert Bowen for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: freelancing

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Apollo is a free image annotating tool designed for graphic designers and architects. There are no complexities, as it is designed to be as easy as possible for the client to use it to collaborate with the designer, or for teams to easily work together on an image.

You simple create an account, upload a proof and invite a client. You can then place notes on the image freely, and invite an unlimited amount of people.

http://www.useapollo.com

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By Cameron Chapman

Discovering what your clients really want is one of the most fundamental steps in creating a good working relationship. If you can figure out exactly what your clients want for their website up front, it will save both of you time and frustration later.

Creating a client questionnaire isn’t complicated, though it can be a bit time-consuming if you don’t know where to start. You have to think about who your clients are and what information you need from them, and then go from there. Below is a complete guide to creating a custom questionnaire for your design business. And be sure to check out 45 Incredibly Useful Web Design Checklists and Questionnaires for some examples.

Why You Need A Questionnaire

A client questionnaire serves two purposes. The first is to figure out what the new website should achieve. The second is to figure out what the client wants the website to look like.

Both of these things are very important to find out up front. By figuring out what your client wants and needs, you can avoid delivering something to them that doesn’t fit the direction in which they want to take their website.

Without a good client questionnaire, you could end up having to repeatedly go back to your client throughout the project to get more information or clarification on what they really want. You could also waste a lot time designing and coding things that aren’t quite what the client is looking for. A good questionnaire removes a lot of the guesswork in designing and makes it a better experience for both parties.

Formulating Your Questions

Your questions should get to the root of your client’s needs. They should also help you assess your client’s likes and dislikes.

Take the time to customize your questionnaire with the information that you most often need from clients. The types of websites you usually design, the industries you work with most and the level of technical knowledge your clients tend to have can all determine the kinds of questions you will include and how they are phrased.

See the “Further Resources” at the end of this post for lists of sample questions that you could use to create your own questionnaire.

Background and General Questions

Before you dive into the questions that will suss out how your client wants their website to look and what they want it to do, you need to get an idea of what the client is all about and why they’re looking for a new website. This section of your questionnaire can be very revealing, especially if they’re unhappy with their current website.

You’ll also want to get some general information in this section. Ask about the budget for the project, who you’ll be working with directly, who the decision-makers are and what staff are going to be involved in the design process and what their roles will be. Find out who their target visitor is, who their customers are, how they’re currently interacting with those customers online and how they’d like to improve that interaction. And make sure to find out whether they already have a domain name and hosting package that they’re happy with.

Here are some sample questions to gather background and general information:

Why are you looking for a new website design or redesign?
What do you like most about your current website?
What do you dislike most about your current website?
Do you already have a domain name and hosting plan?

Function-Focused Questions

Figuring out what exactly your client wants their website to do is key to making sure you give them what they want. You need to ask them questions that strike to the heart of exactly what they want from their website. Sounds easy enough, right? Except in many cases, clients don’t really know what they want their website to do. Your questionnaire can actually help them clarify their needs and wants.

Some example questions for figuring out how the website should function:

Do you want to sell products on your website?
Do you want a contact form or any other forms on your website?
Do you need an image gallery, video or other multimedia content?
Do you want a blog or other regularly updated content?

Design-Focused Questions

Finally, you’ll want some information about the aesthetics of your client. Now, in an ideal world, your client will have perused your portfolio and seen the kinds of websites you design and will have decided to work with you because they like your aesthetic. But that’s not always the case. Figuring out their design preferences up front helps you avoid designing something they will hate later on.

You have a few different ways to learn their tastes. Ask your client what colors they’d like to use. They may have a set color scheme or have colors associated with their brand. Or they may be open to your input. The same could be done for qualities that they want their website to be associated with (e.g. “bold,” “soft,” “professional,” “informal,” etc.).

One of the best ways to get a sense of your client’s design preferences is to ask them to provide you with examples of a few websites that have designs they like and a few websites whose designs they don’t like. Also ask them what they like or dislike about each of these designs, because this sheds light on their overall tastes.

Another, sometimes more telling, method of doing this is to show them five to ten websites and ask them what they like and dislike about each. This is often more effective, because you can choose websites that have a wide range of styles and get a fuller picture of what they like and don’t like.

Here are some sample questions to figure out the client’s design tastes:

Do you have a color scheme you’d like to use?
What words would you like people to associate with your website?
Do you have a specific style of design in mind?

What Not to Ask

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen questionnaires ask things that are either completely irrelevant or too technical for the average client to understand. Remember that your clients likely don’t know much about the technical aspects of design. They probably know they want something like an image gallery or a map, but they won’t know whether the things they want will require a custom database or JavaScript. In many cases, they might not even know basics, like whether their website should have an RSS feed or Flash.

Here are some examples of unhelpful questions to ask:

Will you need a custom database?
Will you need JavaScript (jQuery, MooTools, etc.)?
Will you need an e-commerce solution?
Will you need to handle uploading and downloading?
Will you need a searchable database?

While getting an idea of what the technical specifications of the website might be is important, structure your questions around the features and benefits of the website, not the specifications. So instead of the questions above, ask things like:

Would you like a search engine on your website?
Should visitors be able to download files from your website or post their own files?
Would you like visitors to be able to sign up for accounts, or would you like a secure area just for visitors who have signed up for accounts?
Would you like to sell products on your website?

Planning for the Future

Make sure to ask clients about their future needs, too. If you know they might want an e-commerce solution six months down the road, make provisions for that in the initial website design. The goal is to build a long-term relationship with the client, so the more involved you are in their goals and plans, the easier your job will be now and in the future.

You’ll also want to ask clients about regular updates and maintenance for the website. And you’ll want an idea of how much updating and maintaining they will want to handle in-house and how much they might want you to do. Some sample questions:

How often do you want or will you need to make updates to your website?
Do you have someone in your company who will be responsible for ongoing website updates? Does that person have any experience with website maintenance?
What features do you anticipate adding to your website in the future?

Tips To Refine Your Questionnaire

Once you have a basic questionnaire mapped out, it’s time to make some refinements so that you get the best results from it. The goal of the questionnaire is to improve your workflow and communication, so you want the process to be as efficient and effective as possible.

First of all, keep the questionnaire short. You want as much information from your clients as possible, but if your questionnaire is too long, your clients will get bored and may not give it the attention it deserves.

There are two ways to keep the questionnaire short: limit the number of questions and/or limit the length of questions. Refine your questions until they are as short as possible (five to ten words is plenty).

Don’t be afraid to be creative with some questions to get your clients thinking outside the box. Ask a few unorthodox questions. Ask them to compare their website to something unrelated (such as a building or a food). You could provide sample answers to guide your clients to giving you the information you’re looking for.

Continue to refine your questionnaire over time and as you get client feedback. Consider adapting the questionnaire to individual clients to get information that is more relevant to particular projects. It’s your questionnaire: use it the way that works best for you and your clients.

Further Resources

How to Extract the Facts with a Web Design Client Questionnaire
An excellent annotated client questionnaire from Freelance Switch.

How to Create an Effective Web Design Questionnaire
A fantastic post from Six Revisions to help you design your own questionnaire.

Increase Productivity: Create a Client Questionnaire
A very basic questionnaire guide.

101 Invaluable Questions to Build Your Web Design Questionnaire
A great resource for finding questions to include in your own questionnaire.

46 Questions for a Web Design Project
An excellent list of potential questions to ask your clients.

Simple & Effective Web Design Client Questionnaire
A sample questionnaire, with resources for creating your own.

(al)

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• Mtv Identity Reboot
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• Real Time Wall

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What are the two most important characteristics of an effective client attraction device? It must provide the solution to at least one of the problems of your target market and utilize the keywords that your target market might use when seeking this type of solution. Secondly, your offering must have a high enough perceived value that your visitors would be willing to pay for it.

I routinely opt into many lists just to get the client attraction device. More times than not, the giveaway is simply a long reiteration of a problem, with the solution being available for purchase on the web site. This is the WRONG way to introduce yourself to prospects. Don’t be afraid to share some solutions with your prospects — it’s part of developing the Like, Know and Trust factor with them. If you are truly an expert in your field, the info you share for free is only the tip of the iceberg of the variety of solutions you can provide to your prospects.

What is the easiest way to create your own client attraction device? Here are 10 ideas that you can use to package your information into a valuable ethical bribe for your web site:

1. Audio of a presentation. Hold a teleclass on a particular topic and record it, or simply record a presentation with audio recording software on your computer. An audience isn’t necessary for a good recording — it is quality content that is the key.
2. Interview of an expert. Request to interview a noted expert in your target market. Ask the expert questions, or pull questions from a pre-assigned list you’ve been given. Record the interview and have it transcribed to create a two-part giveaway.
3. Special report or ebook. A special report is simply a short PDF report that runs between 2-5 pages. You can create this pretty easily by writing an article that’s 1500-2000 words. Typically an ebook is longer than a special report, combining several articles, or topics, to make a more complete overview of a topic. Format it to be easily read and add a bio page and and upsell page and your report is complete.
4. Checklist. A checklist is a 1-2 page PDF file that walks someone through a to-do checklist to complete a task. To create a checklist, simple outline the steps required to complete a particular task and insert a checkmark box in front of each so that the user can print out the list and mark off the steps as they are completed.
5. Video. Using video to promote your business is one of the hottest Internet marketing strategies today. You can create an info video that is a training or tutorial video made by using video screen capture software, or record yourself answering questions or presenting a topic with an inexpensive video camera. Upload it to your site or to one of the video hosting sites, and you’ve got a new client attraction device to give away.
6. Software. For as little as $50, you can hire a programmer to create a simple piece of software to help your prospects automate a task or solve a problem. Another option is to buy a license for some inexpensive software that you can then distribute as you wish.
7. Rolodex (Resources) list. Once you have developed a relationship with your prospects, invariably you will get asked to make recommendations for vendors to perform certain tasks. Because this list is valuable in that you have already gone through a number of services to find just the right provider and are thus saving your prospects hundreds of dollars and hours of time, create a list of these providers in a PDF document.
8. Templates. Templates are another time-saving device that prevents your prospects from having to reinvent the wheel. Package together templates you regular use, like templates for telephone followup calls, emails, email newsletters, to-do list, budgets, etc. Anything that will let your prospect use as a model for developing her own version will be greatly appreciated.
9. Worksheet/workbook. Sometimes information is better delivered in a format where the prospect can jot down ideas, answer questions, or brainstorm. A PDF worksheet or workbook is the ideal format for that to happen. Create a document with a series of questions and space to answer the questions, along with a bit of introductory text to set up the question, and you’ve created a useful workbook.
10. Ecourse. An ecourse is a series of emails that deliver information over a specific course of time via email. Your ecourse can last as short as 3 days or as long as 52 weeks. Once you pick a topic, simply determine the number of points that you want to make as you discuss the topic, and then create an email that thoroughly explains each point. Put the emails together in a sequence in your email marketing program and you have an ecourse.

If you simply request visitors to opt into your ezine list or your blog list, you’re not maximizing the work that your web site can do for you. Add a client attraction device to your opt-n box and watch your list grow!

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com

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Ethical Bribes: 10 Most Effective Client Attraction Device Giveaways

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These agents would then hold a formal “competition” in which various designers will be invited to participate through the lodging of independent design submissions, based on the stipulated guidelines mentioned in the client’s original proposal. The client will then have the liberty to choose, from the pool of submissions the design he/she feels is most appropriate to the project requirements. The leading crowd-sourcing players in the market today are, crowdSpring and 99Designs.

Akin to a medieval “town hall” congregation, selected groups of amateur web and design enthusiasts have collectively hailed crowd-sourcing as a democratizing agent in the design industry, an offshoot of the infectious “Web 2.0” phenomenon that allows designers from various backgrounds and affinities to independently showcase their talents and be monetarily rewarded for their efforts on a purely meritocratic basis.

So if you happen to be a self-employed 80-year old grandfather living in a sparsely populated village in rural Finland outside the corporate humdrum of established commercial design firms, you stand an equal chance of successfully clinching a freelance deal regardless of your profile, professional credentials, age or location. From a purely superficial perspective at least, Crowd-sourcing, seems to be the epitome of endless possibilities for designer, client and third-party intermediaries (the agents).

At the other end of the spectrum however, several sections of the design community have hurled metaphorical brickbats at the philosophical spirit underpinning crowd-sourcing, by labeling its motives as a blatant degradation of the design profession. NO!SPEC, a community-driven organization targeted against Crowd-sourcing, has characterized this growing fad as a calamitous development in the design industry, capable of stifling creativity and devaluing the immense specificity devoted to customized design work and aesthetics. Their central premise is simple. Higher quantity does not equate to better quality.

As an occasional freelance designer and web developer, my sentiments seem to be more inclined with the latter view; crowd-sourcing, despite its self-proclaimed virtuosity, espouses certain fundamental conceptual flaws.

Design (web or print) is about intrinsic character, and cannot be thought of as a generically conceived ‘commodity’, a view that crowd-sourcing agents seem to unproblematic (and rather conveniently) neglect. The key to successful design identity lies in injecting ‘character’ and imbuing it with a personality that is timeless and engaging.

How many of us have ever got tired of Google’s myriad of event-specific logos. Not many I suspect. In similar vein, a good design which meets client-specific demands has to be tailored from bottom up; client and designer have to sustain a close working relationship that extends over and above the duration of the project in concern.

Evident dangers of crowd-sourcing clearly exist for the average designer. There are bound to be submissions which remain unselected (and hence leading to efforts that are completely unacknowledged) in a competition, and these ‘participants’ go home with empty pockets despite the time and resources devoted to a particular project. The risk element involved in crowd-sourcing will definitely be too drastic for the more reputable and professionally qualified web practitioners amongst us, who value time as an invaluable asset.

There is no denying that that crowd-sourcing is particularly appealing to the market segment of non web-savvy consumers (people who care less about refined aesthetic appeal and the mechanics behind effective visual design), who want a cost-efficient design to meet a modest set of needs.

Despite the evident shortcomings associated with crowd-sourcing, small-time businesses will profit from the flexibility involved in choosing from a variety of designs, with the freedom to sustain a commitment to only one. The issue at stake here however has much more serious ramifications – ‘what damage will crowd-sourcing inflict on the quality and standards of the design industry in the near future?’ a question which will only answer itself in time.

About the Author
Josh is an academic researcher, specializing in online media and visual design culture. He is currently doing a PhD on youth engagement with new media. In addition to his academic pursuits, he runs Tripping Words an award-winning design blog housing an array of opinions on web design philosophy.

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Originally posted at The Social

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This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I never really understood.

I remember one such meeting, I was trying to explain to my client the wisdom of first creating trust and credibility before trying to get a sale. And my client was blocking me at every turn with reasons why relationship development would not work for their business.

It was maddening.

Finally, I cried with exasperation, “Well, why the heck do you want to keep working with me since my approach doesn’t work for you?”

“Because you’re sincere,” the client replied.

“Who cares” I thought to myself since it didn’t seem to be to helping my client grow their business.

Since that time I’ve changed my mind about the quality of sincerity. I think it’s impossible to have sustainably effective marketing without sincerity.

The Importance of Being Sincere

The word, “sincere” is derived from the Latin word, “sincerus,” meaning whole, pure, genuine.

When you think about today’s business climate, sincerity isn’t a quality that comes to mind. But it’s a quality human beings need to perceive to be willing and able to buy.

The Place of Sincerity in Your Marketing

First, it’s important to remember the real role of marketing in your business.

Marketing is NOT about making a sale. Marketing is about creating a relationship based in trust and safety so that a sale can occur.

Regardless of public sentiment towards business, people and companies still have problems that need to be solved and stuff that has to get done. Your prospective customers still need to buy stuff.

They want to be able to trust you because they need to buy what you sell.

The marketing you do is all about establishing visibility and credibility so that there’s enough trust for the purchase to happen.

For example, if you regularly keep in touch with prospects via an ezine, you’re not doing it to “bug” your customers. You’re sending out that ezine because:

• You can remind them that “Hey, I help people just like you solve these kinds of problems.”
• You can offer examples and helpful information about the kind of problems you solve (”Here’s an example of how I helped a customer”)
• Or you provide helpful information for your prospects to better understand what they need to do to improve their situation.

Once prospective customers feel accepted for where they’re at and trust you can actually help, they can then take the next step.

It’s About Sustainable, Effective Marketing

Now there are also some relatively good-hearted entrepreneurs out there who use hard-sell tactics in their marketing. You subscribe to their ezine and get barraged with multiple emails every day telling you about some amazing program you “just gotta check out.”

Here’s what’s important: there is no rest with this kind of marketing. You must work very, very hard to generate this level of noise.

And if you’re spending so much time and energy with your own marketing, it’s tough to put much time or effort into where–in my opinion–we should be making the difference: helping clients and customers get results.

That, to me, is why hype-centered marketing with or without a good heart fails. If you want to market your business in a way that brings in a steady stream of ideal customers without burning yourself into a crispy critter, sincere, heart-centered marketing is the way to go.

Keys to Developing Sincere, Effective, Sustainable Marketing

#1. Ask yourself, “what’s my highest intention for my business?”

What’s the best possible outcome for you, for your business, and for your customer?

Example: the highest intention for Highly Contagious Marketing is when we help clients create marketing that grows their client base and their bottom line.

When that happens, satisfied clients send us referrals which helps Highly Contagious Marketing succeed financially and there are more successful businesses in the world making a positive difference.

#2. Look at how your intention is reflected in your marketing?

Thinking of the many different ways you market your business, how is your intention showing up?

Example: In all the activities to promote Highly Contagious Marketing, I want to:

• Provide information, a how-to, or a resource that gives the person who gets the marketing a little added value
• Provide an offer and a clear call to action for anyone wanting to take the next step and get more help from us.

#3. Ask what one change can you make to your marketing to express your sincere desire to serve customers and make a difference?

Some specific actions you can take to show more sincerity in your marketing include:

• Make your marketing message truly focused on your customer and their current problem. The first half of your message should be about your customer and their situation. If you’re talking about yourself–your solutions and qualifications, your marketing is not focused on the customer.
• Look for ways to leave anyone who encounters your marketing a little better off than they were before the encounter. Marketing that informs, coaches, inspires, even entertains all leave recipients a little better off.
• Make sure your marketing reflects your values and if not, make changes. If you loathe hype in other marketing but use hype because “that’s what everyone says I have to do,” stop using hype. Create marketing that gets results without making you feel like you sold your soul.

Bottom Line

Remember, marketing is all about cultivating trust-based relationships so prospects can buy. And sincerity is a critical factor which enables trust to grow.

Can you market your products and services without sincerity? Sure. But you will have to work a lot harder to sustain sales because you won’t be creating the quality relationships that give your marketing real momentum.

To create marketing in which sincerity shines through, take some time to remember what your business is in service for and take action so that your marketing better reflects what matters to you.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The ‘Secret Sauce’ for Effective Marketing

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Transparency is a Utopian Concept

Not too long ago, Michael Fortin wrote an article titled “Don’t Be Transparent, Be Authentic Instead”. That article is an important read for any social media wrangling business blogger and you can search for it online.

That article is the tip of the iceberg in the concept of ‘transparency’ being too Utopian to work within the jaded confines of our society. Of course, true transparency is ideal. Many things about a perfect world are. Unfortunately, as a group, most of the world isn’t ready or willing to accept true transparency without penalty.

When Transparency Fails

Let me give you a couple of examples of transparency failure we’ve seen.

Failure 1: We had a copywriter who was posting on Twitter about the work he was doing. He made several posts within a few hours which were ugly complaints about a client and how ’stupid’ he felt that client was. We obviously considered this unacceptable and immediately removed him from our list of subcontractors, but think about this: If he was hoping to use Twitter to get more client work – how many potential clients just read that and thought… “I’m not going to risk being badmouthed on here, I’ll find someone else.” Everyone gets frustrated, but what if the client he was working on read that? Put it this way, if you wouldn’t say it to your client directly – don’t post it either.

Failure 2: We had a designer who was a day late returning her design phase work. When we contacted her, she said she had a family emergency the night before and was unable to send in her work because she wasn’t home. A quick check on Facebook showed that she was actually out at a party that night and posted multiple times while drunk talking about how much she was drinking and even hinting at wanting to bring a man she met there home with her. Obviously, we relieved her of the design work, handed it to another designer who caught up on the time schedule, and never again worked with her. In this case, people are allowed to have a life, we understand that. But if you cannot get your work done and have to lie about why – it’s a problem. If you do not have enough class to not post details about your ‘wild nights’ to everyone on your social networks — that’s also a problem.

How We Monitor Social Media Conversations

My business has been around for over a decade and is very focused on client satisfaction and excellent treatment of our web design clients. We have a network of hundreds of copywriters, designers, and coders who work with us on projects. However, even with screening of those experts when they come on board with us – you don’t always know someone until you have observed them over a long period of time.

That’s why we monitor what they say online.

How do we do that? Well first we get as many of their social profiles as we can. Usually, we ask for a list of them. We’ve also found that most people won’t provide them all. We then Google search the usernames of the ones they have given us because most people use the same usernames over and over. We also monitor blogs, and check for listings of social networks on those.

We have a system set up to consolidate all their social media comments into one master feed. That master feed can then be browsed directly to see what they’re up to, but that’s a lot of things to read each day. What we do is take the master feed, run it through a filter that creates two sub-feeds based on certain things we think are important to monitor. The first sub-feed is created by running the master list through a keyword & synonym filter that pulls out words related to business – for instance, “client” “business” “work” etc… The second sub-feed has a filter that runs their posts through a check for foul language and words like “sex” “drugs” “drunk” etc… There are hundreds of words in each filter.

Seem a bit ‘big brother’? It probably is – but reputation and client treatment is very important to us.

Here’s the thing: If we can read it and you can lose work with us over it… how many POTENTIAL clients did you lose also?

7 Ways to Edit Yourself

We’re not suggesting you stop having a life and stop making mistakes. You can post about those things and it simply makes you a more interesting person to read about. Just use common sense:

1. If you wouldn’t say it to a client or boss – don’t say it where they can read it either.
2. If you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother – don’t say it on your public posts.
3. If you wouldn’t say it to a police officer – don’t post it on your social networks. For that matter, don’t do it either.
4. If you plan to lie to your boss – don’t put the truth where they can see it.
5. If you plan to go out and get drunk and know you have a tendency to post while drunk – give your phone to a friend to keep for you.
6. Learn how to use privacy settings and understand how visible your posts are on different social networks.
7. If you want a place to vent – create a completely different identity for yourself to do that. Name no names in your posts, and make no connection to your other profiles or email addresses.

Consider it all part of Internet Etiquette. Social networks are great to hear more personal things about someone and we encourage people to share a bit of themselves online (using normal cautions etc..). In the long run, full transparency is too Utopian for our modern world to handle well. We’re still at a point in our societal growth that when someone seriously calls a client an idiot – they tend to get a bit upset about it.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How You Use Social Media Can Kill Your Business

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Two days ago Google announced its Go programming language project, and we should perhaps be unsurprised to find that one of the first user programs to emerge from the new language is… a Twitter client.

Bear in mind it’s a very simple and utilitarian client that runs from the command line — not a nice and flashy graphical user interface version like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop. Still, it speaks to both the apparent ease of use of both Go and to the elegant simplicity of Twitter that a new language could be learned and a client whipped up in all of two days.

You can download the source code for Mac OS X and Linux from the project’s website and check it out or modify it. If there are programmers in the house, please feel free to drop a comment and compare how this version stacks up to other implementations of command line Twittering.

We’re looking forward to seeing what else people cook up with Go. What’s your take on the new programming language? Would you find a command line Twitter client useful in your own line of duty?

Tags: command line, Google, google go, gotweet, programming, twitter

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A defining factor in any freelancer or agency’s success in gaining new business is their ability to market their skills effectively. In this three-part series, we will explore ways in which designers can strategically promote themselves to get new clients. Securing new business by approaching companies can be a very challenging process, full of pitfalls. Here, we will look at 10 steps to impressing potential clients and avoiding the most common mistakes.

Step One: Be Focused

A focused approach to work is paramount for success. Freelancers often take on every job opportunity that presents itself. Although this would rapidly expand your showcase of work, more often that not it leaves you over-stretched, with a portfolio of odds and ends instead of specialized results. Focus instead on who you would like to work with. This could be based on a several factors, such as:

• Industry
  By specializing in a particular industry, such as health care or retail, you build a portfolio of relevant experience. Although this could limit your workload initially, you will be actively working towards identifying yourself as someone with expertise in your chosen field.
• Media
  Deciding which media and platforms to specialize in is important for any firm or individual. For many, the choice is between specializing in print and digital communication. This distinction will, again, allow you to focus and build relevant knowledge that you can then to offer your clients.
• Geographical location
  You may also wish to focus your efforts on a particular geographical location. This could be a neighborhood, city or region. By doing so, your advertising in local media can be more personal and targeted, and you ensure easy traveling between you and clients.

Step Two: Be Insightful

Once you have established the kind of organizations you would like to work with, learn how their businesses work. Visit a range of websites in the field and ask yourself some key questions, such as:

• Who do they work with?
  Knowing who your clients work with will give you an indication of how you can be of service to them. For example, an insurance firm looking to target university students might need to refresh its flyer and leaflet campaign in time for the beginning of term.
• What are the company’s ethics?
  Most established organizations put a vision statement on their website. This will give you key insight into a company’s values, history, growth and future direction. This information is invaluable because it will help you better understand how the business operates and, thus, how you can tailor your approach to it. For example, if the company has a progressive stance on sustainability and the environment, you could approach them with ideas for paperless advertising and communication.
• Does it have an advertising budget?
  Although this will not be explicitly stated, by reviewing a business’ prior advertising, you will be able to estimate how much capital it typically invests in design per annum. Again, this allows you to tailor your marketing proposal to its budget.

These kinds of questions will give you important insight into the services that an organization requires and, therefore, what services you can offer.

Step Three: Be Personal

The power of face-to-face contact should not be underestimated. A common temptation for graphic designers is to manage their small empire from behind a desk over the Internet. Although work can be found online, the relationship between client and designer is often fleeting. Build strong links with your clients, which will increase the likelihood of repeat business.

One of the most important skills to learn, then, is face-to-face meetings. Meeting a client face to face forces them to give you their undivided attention. You will be able to convey your passion much more effectively and personally.

Actively seek out opportunities to meet potential clients face to face. Cold-calling or emailing can be a tiring and disheartening experience and may give you limited results. Instead, when approaching a business for the first time, find out the name and contact details of the marketing director, which you can often find on the company’s website. If it’s not there, make a quick phone call to to ask for it.

Before making your first contact with a client, do your research. Familiarize yourself with their business and understand of what they do. When you’re ready to make contact, have a few short sentences prepared that summarize the specific information you wish to communicate. This should include your:

• Introduction
  Explain who you are and why you are calling. Although this may seem obvious, establishing these facts is crucial to presenting yourself clearly and memorably. This could be as simple as: “Good afternoon. My name is Peter Smart, and I am calling on behalf of Roam Design…”
• Hook or pitch
  Once you have established who you are, engage your potential client. Mentioning that you specialize in their particular industry and that you offer a range of tailored services is an attractive proposition and good way to begin. Alternatively, you could begin with a hook. A hook is a one-off special offer that makes your services more attractive. This could be offering 50% off the cost of design work in November or a free hour of consultation.
• Call to action
  Establish the next step your client should take. Offer to meet them and consult in person, at a time and location suitable to them.

Step Four: Be Prepared

Once you have arranged your meeting, research the company more extensively. Make notes on key areas of interest to develop later. For example, you could look at the company’s:

• Advertising
  The company’s media presence is a good indication of its capacities in communication. Look at where it advertises, how it does it and where it doesn’t advertise. If it does not advertise online, you could present this as a possibility.
• Branding
  If possible, source a variety of the company’s marketing material. Examine it and note anything you would do differently.
• Website
  Does the company have a website? If not, this could be a great opportunity to expand its online presence. If it does, look at the structure, content and presentation. Note areas for improvement and, more importantly, why they could be improved.

Having an informed opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s current marketing and perceived identity allow you to guide it to services that would benefit it. You may also find it helpful to compare its advertising to that of its competitors.

Also, prepare your “elevator pitch,” which is a brief summary of your business, its aims and how it helps clients. Being able to explain what you do concisely demonstrates that your business goals are clear and your approach targeted.

Step Five: Be Unique

Standing out from the crowd is difficult, especially if you are an emerging talent. To stand out, come up with original ideas on how the company can market itself. Suggest options it may not have yet considered, such as viral marketing, Web-based promotion or targeted leafleting, and demonstrate how they would improve business.

Impress the client and exceed its expectations. If you are going to propose a website redesign, take time before your meeting to produce a few drafts of what it could look like. You could present alongside a concise wireframe showing how the information could be better presented. Alternatively, if you will be proposing to refresh the company’s branding and identity, bring some visual stimuli to support your argument. Don’t present a whole new identity, but rather suggest colors, layouts, typefaces and advertising formats that could guide the conversation.

The client will want evidence of your skill to deliver on your ideas, so bring your portfolio along to impress them, along with references and endorsements from previous clients.

Step Six: Be Professional

Your first meeting with the potential client is of paramount importance because it will determine whether you gain their business. To make a good impression, be meticulous in your preparation. Research and plan you presentation well so that you are confident in your delivery and can support your proposals with facts. This means you should have a firm grasp of the figures and costs associated with your proposal.

For example, if you will be proposing an inner-city billboard and bus-stop marketing campaign, know the costs involved in producing large-format printing and renting advertising space. Find out the number of people who will see the advertisements daily. This will give the client a balanced appreciation of both the outlay and the benefits of your proposal.

Equally important is your appearance. Invest in a suit or smart business-wear. This will impress upon them that you are serious about what you do, which will make them take you seriously, too.

Step Seven: Be Attentive

Listen to the client. This step is often missed by designers who are overly keen to explain their innovative ideas.

Listening is a powerful tool. It shows you truly care about what the client has to say. Take notes on any information they offer about the company, its plans and immediate requirements.

Step Eight: Be Resourceful

Every meeting with a client is an opportunity and should not be taken lightly. Approach meetings resourcefully and demonstrate your professionalism. You could even prepare a package of materials to leave with them, including:

• Business card
  Always have a business card on hand. It should have your name, contact details and, ideally, a website where they can see samples of your work.
• Samples of work
  You might also want to leave a mini-printed portfolio of some of your best and most relevant work. Even if you don’t win that particular project, your details and experience will be in their file for future reference.
• Curriculum Vitae
  A CV is a useful record of relevant work experience and is a good place to list your previous clients and technical competencies.

Remember, the decision about which freelancer to hire may not rest with one person in the organization. By adhering to this simple step, you allow others who are involved in the process to see your work at their convenience, making your application even stronger.

Step Nine: Be Committed

If you do not hear from the client immediately, don’t panic or give up hope. Wait a few days, and then send a polite email, thanking them for their time. In the email, reiterate in brief your proposal and mention how you would love to work with them. Then wait. If you receive no response within three weeks of your meeting, you may wan to re-inquire by telephone. Chances are, they have not forgotten about you; moreover, your call will demonstrate your enthusiasm and commitment.

Step Ten: Evaluate

Whether or not your meeting was successful, you can learn something from it. Evaluate your performance, what you did well and, importantly, what you could improve. Learn from your mistakes, and rectify them for your next venture. Your ability to do this plays a vital role in your future success.

Conclusion

These are just ten of the key steps to consider when approaching a company. Remember: be bold, be proactive and don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Every person has their own methods of finding work, but learning these steps could be the difference between realizing a dream and settling for second best.

Related Posts

The following articles may be of interest:

• How To Find Time For… Everything!
  A useful article on time management and structure.
• Creating a Successful Online Portfolio
  Advice on how to create an impressive Web presence.
• 20 Time-Saving Tips to Improve Designer’s Workflow
  Some tips on how to increase productivity and speed up common design tasks.

(al)

© Peter Smart for Smashing Magazine, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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Seesmic Desktop has the distinction of being the first third-party Twitter client to support the new Lists feature, and now web-based social reader Brizzly claims the second slot.

Currently in closed beta, Brizzly is a Twitter and Facebook client built by many of the same folks who built Google Reader. Its maker, Thing Labs, is headed up by Jason Shellen — a former veteran of Blogger, the startup Twitter’s Evan Williams sold to Google in 2003.

One of the cool features of Brizzly since it went into private beta this summer was Groups, which worked essentially like a precursor to Twitter’s own Lists. You could sort followers into groups in much the same way, and the way Brizzly chose to handle the transition from Groups to Lists is spot on.

Brizzly will display the lists you’ve already created on Twitter and give you all the tools you need to create, display, sync and navigate them. The Groups you’ve already created in Brizzly will be migrated back in the other direction to Twitter as well — but as private lists by default, in case you’ve made Groups you might not want to share publicly (you can of course change the setting to public if you wish).

The Lists support should be rolled out to all users by sometime Friday night. Have you used Brizzly yet? If so, what’s your take on the client, and on its new Lists support? If you haven’t used Brizzly yet and are looking for an invite, try asking a friend who’s in the beta as they might have a stack in stock.

Tags: brizzly, twitter, twitter clients, Twitter Lists

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We all know that our computers will crash someday, and we all know that we need to make backups of our files to keep our work safe.

The hassle is that a lot of backup methods are tedious and time wasting to keep going. We want to have a backup system that we can set up, and then forget about it.

We’ve already shown you how to keep a WordPress database safe, but in this post we are going to look at the rest of your blog and theme files, as well as client files or any other important documents you keep.

Here’s what we’ll be talking about:

• What is Dropbox?
• Securing your blog folder.
• Why use Dropbox for backing up client files.
• Creating symlinks to preserve your current folder structures.
• Collaborating with others on blog posts, design files etc.

What is Dropbox?

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of it already, but anyway, Dropbox is a free service which offers you 2GB of storage space online.

You install the program on your computer, and it creates a “Dropbox” folder in your Documents folder. From then on, anything that goes in the folder gets copied up to Dropbox as well, instantly.

The nice part is that you can install Dropbox on as many computers as you want, so your files are accessible from anywhere (Including a regular web interface).

So, let’s start by signing up. If you use this link, you will get the free 2GB + 250MB of extra space. That’s because of Dropbox’s “Invite a Friend” program, which you may as well take advantage of!

Alternatively, here’s the regular homepage link. Just download and install the program, and you can sign up as part of the installation.

Securing Your Blog Folder and Client Files

When you installed the program, you specified a location for your Dropbox folder (Most likely; My Documents > My Dropbox, if you’re a Windows user). We’re going to copy our blog files into this folder.

With WordPress, upgrades now take place on the server, so the likelihood is, the core WordPress files on the server will always be different to the ones on your computer (Unless you’re very meticulous about keeping the two in sync).

Fortunately, those files aren’t important. You can always re-download them from WordPress.org if the worst happens. For that reason, we’ll stick to just 3 folders.

Load up your FTP client, and download a copy of the following:

• wp-content/themes/
• wp-content/plugins/
• wp-content/uploads/
• Optional: You may want to download your .htaccess file if you have edited it, and your wp-config.php file for your database options.

These 3 folders combined with your database backup, mean that you’ll always be able to recreate your site exactly as it was.

Now simply copy all of the files into the Dropbox folder on your computer and Dropbox will take care of the rest.

Why Use Dropbox for Client Files

There are some great ways to backup all of the files on your computer, but the problem is that they have to be scheduled, e.g. to happen once a day.

So if your computer dies, you’ve lost at least 1 day’s work.

That can be a costly mistake, but one that Dropbox would avoid. While working on files saved in your Dropbox folder, every time you click save, the saved file is copied up to the server.

Dropbox as a Version Control System

Dropbox also keeps a record of previous versions of the file, so it works as its very own personal version control system.

Check out this screenshot; it’s of the web interface for a WordPress style.css file I’ve been working on. I can roll it back to any previous version I like if anything goes wrong in the current one (Like accidentally overwriting the whole file with a different one…).

Click to see in full size:

Setting Up Dropbox For Client Files

The best way to work with client files within Dropbox is to set up 2 folders for your client files:

• Current Clients
• Past Clients

Current Clients is where you put all of the files you are currently working on. This is the folder that you should put in your Dropbox.

Past Clients can then be backed up to an external disk, or any other normal backup method.

You are unlikely to go over the 2GB freebie limit this way, and Past Clients files won’t change often so a daily backup will cover them 99% of the time.

Creating Symlinks to Preserve Your Folder Structure

A symlink (symbolic link) is like a folder pointer. Let’s say your original folder is here:

My Documents/Work/2009/ABC

But you’d like to be able to access that folder just by going to:

My Documents/ABC

Then you could create a symlinks for My Documents/ABC that would take you to the real folder any time you clicked it (or any time a program accessed it).

Dropbox and Symlinks

If you have a nicely organized folder on your computer for all of your client files, or your blog files, then you may not like the idea of moving the most important folder from each to a separate location.

With symlinks, we can avoid that:

• Cut and paste the folder (e.g. “Current Clients”) from the original location, into your Dropbox folder.

  (Important: the original must be put into Dropbox. If you do this the other way around, files will only be backed up each time Dropbox loads)

If you are a Windows user, continue reading here for how to set up the symlink. For Mac and Linux users, Dropbox themselves have a good guide on setting these up.

• In Windows, go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt.

• Windows Vista and Windows 7 users can then type, for example: (all on one line)

  mklink /D "C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\Web\Clients\Current Clients" "C:\Users\YOURNAME\Documents\My Dropbox\Current Clients"

  The first path in quotes is where you would like the symlink to be placed. The second is for the folder in Dropbox that you would like it to point to. And don’t forget to replace YOURNAME with your name on the computer.

• Windows XP users will need to download Junction, and then type a similar command: (All on one line again)

  junction "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\Web\Clients\Current Clients" "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\My Dropbox\Current Clients"

Now you can browse and find your clients folder in the same place it always has been, but you’ll actually be working on files in your safe and secure Dropbox folder!

Collaborating With Others

Folders can be shared with anyone else with a Dropbox account. Every person can edit and add to the files in the folder, and Dropbox will keep a copy of the revisions.

Just right click the folder, and select “Share This Folder” from the Dropbox menu.

You’ll be taken to a screen where you enter the email addresses of the people to share with, and it’s a simple as that.

There are a lot of options for collaborating online (e.g. Google Docs), but here are a few examples of where this could come in useful:

• Working with authors on your blog who prefer to type their posts up in Word first.
• Collaborating with another designer on a PSD for a client.
• Working with another coder on a WordPress theme, so you both always have the most up-to-date versions of every file.

Conclusion

I love Dropbox. I use it primarily for backing up my client files and the occasional reversion to an older version of a file, but I also use it a lot for sharing files with people instantly (both for code files that other people are working on with me, and for sending over small files like images without resorting to emails or IMs).

What do you think of Dropbox? What uses have you put it to, or do you have a different tool we should look at?

Stop and Take a Breath

Our brains and emotions are very powerful. If you think a project is starting to fail, take a breather and get your thoughts in order. You want to think logically and sometimes that’s hard to do when you are pouring your creative juices into a project.

Revisit the Contract

Inspect your own work – are you doing what you agreed to do when you agreed to do it? Is the client? I’ve been involved in projects where my client and I both forgot to go back to the contract and determine what we agreed to do during the project. Once you get started on a project this is easy to do. Review your contracts weekly to make sure everyone is holding up his/her end of the deal.

Review Your Discussion and Meeting Notes

After reviewing the contract, take a look at your notes to figure out if you or your client agreed to any changes or are waiting on any new information. If you agreed to do something extra or make changes and did not issue a Change Order, then it’s on you to follow through with your commitment.

Keep Your Notes in Electronic Format

It is much easier to search your notes when they are in electronic format. Also, reviewing your notes regularly allows you to come up with a Change Order or second project after the first one is complete. It’s almost impossible to have a project go from start to finish without some form of “It would be great if you could…”

Set-up a Face to Face Meeting with Your Client

Face to face is the best since you can read body language. If this isn’t possible, a phone call (with web cam) is a must. Don’t e-mail about anything like this. It’s too sensitive.

When you are with your client, let him/her know how you feel about the project. At this point, it’s best to avoid statements such as “I’ve done everything agreed to” and “…according to the contract…” Pretend you are a child and explain it in very simple terms. Something like, “John (client), this project got off to a great start. I’m getting the sense that everything may not be OK. Do you have the same sense?”  Then pause for an answer. “What can we do to make sure this deal remains a good deal for both of us?”

Hopefully, the meeting goes well and you are able to correct the direction of the project. If the client does not see things the way you do, you have a few options. You can say, “Let’s review the project notes and our agreement (much better than “the contract”) together.”  This meeting follows the same format as the first one, but now you are working with the agreement in front of you. You or your client may realize there is something wrong and can work together to correct it.

Withdrawal from the Project

You could also withdraw from the project. If you and the client cannot come to an agreement about the project and the risk is too high to continue, then you should withdraw. This is a very tough call to make. I’ve only done it twice and it’s not fun because it’ll throw your client’s schedule off and potentially have consequences for you.

Before withdrawing, revisit your contract and make sure you are delivering according to schedule, you know you’ve delivered any deliverable items and can prove it, and there’s no way of moving forward.

Then, get ready for a conversation that could be emotional for both parties. Keep focused on what you need while maintaining an open mind. You may find out that the client agrees with you or needs something different and didn’t know how to ask. You could even save the project at this meeting.

If it does end, write a handwritten Thank You card and mail it in the next day or so. It’ll make a difference.

In Conclusion

As much as I’d like to say, “It’s just business”, we all know it’s never just business. All clients have personal and professional risk when working with you. Always be open and honest about what you need and want and give your clients time to express their needs and wants, too.

The world we work in may seem large and daunting at times, but you know how small it can be. People will talk about how good/bad their experience with you was. A few negative projects or references are enough to end a company.

Go to Source

Dear Webmaster,

It’s been over a year since I last wrote. Business is booming for me which reminded me to get in touch with you again. I’m shocked at the advancements you’ve made!

Wow — you’ve gotten acquainted with javascript frameworks! In fact, it appears you’ve gotten so good with the popular javascript frameworks that you’re using multiple in each of your client websites. I see jQuery, MooTools, and Dojo in the same page! Good idea — the more frameworks you add to the page, the more plugins you can add without needing to code any javascript yourself. Well thought-out. I also see that you’re adding javascript frameworks for simple getElementById() selection — why not? I’m sure you’ll use more advanced javascript on your client’s website at some point, so best to include the libraries now.

I also noticed that you’ve completely dropped support of Internet Explorer 6. My favorite touch is the “upgrade your browser” message you’ve added to your client websites, no doubt without their permission. I admire your resolve — why should you go through the hassle of spending an extra hour to make your site work in IE6? Let the visitor suffer and the client lose business — you don’t need the headache of dealing with IE6. Another intelligent philosophy.

You’ve obviously taken a search engine optimization class because I can see loads of keywords in every sentence within the content area. Writing content for the user is overrated — writing content for Google? Brilliant! Who cares if the sentences are so bloated the visitor can’t read them; they wouldn’t have gotten to the client’s website without Google! And I see that despite no search engines still supporting meta keywords, you’re still selling them. The client doesn’t know any better so we’ll keep that between you and I. I also see that your page file names are stuff with 5-10 keywords…genius! Those will most definitely rank highly!

I see you’ve chosen to keep your CSS verbose. Shorthand CSS is clearly a fad that you aren’t going to get tricked into — clever thinking! Of course shorthand CSS is less code but hell, there’s a lot to remember when you use shorthand CSS! And using text-transform to capitalize letters? Please! Why use CSS when you can simply capitalize verbiage with PHP’s or easier yet, type in the text with caps-lock cemented down?

You’ve added your personal Twitter feed to your own website — great! Sure you often cuss in your tweets and post links to inappropriate media but you SOMETIMES post web-relevant tweets which will help you gain clients. What’s also impressive is that you’ve implemented Google Adsense on your website — extra income FTW! Who cares if ads for other web design agencies are shown? They already on your website so they’ve found their desired vendor — you!

Your website also states that you offer no phone support, only email support within limited hours per day. Now that’s an idea based on convenience…not for the customer, but for you. An overwhelming theme with your services. And I understand completely — you have a busy life! It’s not fair that a client call and interrupt anything you’re doing.

As always Webmaster, I appreciate what you do. A respected Senior Web Developer like myself cannot put food on the table without help from people like you. You’re a dying breed, Webmaster. Stay strong my friend — serious Web Developers like me need you out there.

Sincerely,

David Walsh
Senior Web Developer

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and be sure to visit Script & Style for the best Javascript and CSS articles around!

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An Open Letter to You, Webmaster II

Related posts:

1. An Open Letter to You, Webmaster
2. My Website Tools
3. Does Open Source Mean You Can’t Bitch?
4. Allow Google Into Password Protected Areas
5. Google Reader, Why Hath Thou Forsaken Me?

Go to Source