In the “How To Sell Web Design” post below I mentioned asking a ton of questions to figure out what the client needs.
Only then can you offer him a solution to his problem – and sell something.
What to ask?
But what to ask? Well, here are some resources to help you figure out what to ask your web design client when he is sitting in front of you:
Buy The Web Design Business Kit – comes with a ton of forms and checklists. Contains a specific Needs Analysis Form
and/or
Check out Sheppard Web’s brilliant (and free) Website Planner.
Great resources to help you do a great job.
Cheers
Brendon
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Do you have anything for selling “Crushing and Screening Plants”?
Darn it, Brendon. You ARE awesome. Giving a link to your product AND a free one at the same time. Love your confidence and helpful nature. I think if I have about 10% of your marketing ability, I will probably be making a lot more money.
Keep them coming, B. Some terrific stuff in the last few days.
Good tip about the questionnaire, I think my project manager only asks 10% of those before signing a customer.
I think the stuff like “What is your target browser?” is to techinical for this kind of document – I would say that this is the web dev’s job to keep up with this and provide an ongoing service contract to comply with trends etc. This should be an implied minimum standard for all web designers/devs.
There’s probably a lot more questions to ask around their industry and their position in it (eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_5_forces_analysis). In addition, marketing (or online marketing) is rarely the only thing that can improve the individuals or small business’ competitive position – leadership, financial (even something as simple as accrual accounting vs cash accounting), hr (letting go / outsourcing of some tasks), operational aspects, repeat sales process etc.
The skill is knowing where to draw the line so you are not giving away the whole shop. Definitely need a good network of referral partners in place to avoid “selling” rather than “servicing” a customer.
In some cases I believe where clients choose not to buy they actually give you the information you need to set up a new business as a competitor to plug the gaps they don’t want to service (or at least you can start to build a profile of that industry for next time).
Thanks for the feedback.
Terry – I simply can’t figure out what you’re talking about??! How’s the hand?
The document, like any assessment document, should be customised for your own needs. Some stuff won’t make sense for you, other stuff will be perfect.
It’s definitely a very, very useful doc.
Cheers
Brendon