Hi again, I thought I would let you know who I went to see today on appointments about website design.

Ok it may not be that interesting unless you are in a similar business to the people I met today but hey, see what you think.

I will try to pin down what I suggested to my prospective client.

First one; A client in the combustion engineering field; not that I know much about that but it just reminded me of why I love my calling. I meet so many interesting people, really I do. These guys had a website some months ago but it was “crap” their words, not mine.

After a buyout they have realised that they are losing business and certainly credibility by not having a website up and running and moreover a professional looking website that will help them win new business. We discussed what their particular client type is and what their (their clients) buying process is. So we discussed how they should look. I reminded them that should consider building the website for their user, not for them or for me. This is pretty obvious really but if you look around the web you will see that many websites have definitely been designed to please the company themselves. This unfortunately often results in a real mess. So we agreed that a pro design was needed, a content management system to help them make alterations when needed. Free training to learn to update the website and good quality stats to help them understand what’s happening on the website.

Appointment number 2

These guys manufacture, by hand, timber framed buildings that would grace any property. They start from around 20k and go up and up (in price). Anyway they have a website already and the same old story came through yet again. Lack of communication from their existing supplier, no help to understand what is going on with their website and listening behind the words I gathered that they had lost faith in their current providers’ abilities to take them where they need to be.

We discussed their target market, the main reasons why they have a website and what I thought their marker place would want to see. So we agreed that it was all about high quality photos portraying the buildings in their very beast light. Also the site design needed to be of the highest quality to attract the discerning client. They also wanted to use the website as a referral tools so that prospects could see what they do – in detail. So we talked about multimedia, flash animation and I showed them some examples. They really liked some of our gallery work, with the ability for them to change the images of course.

I have confirmed all my conversations today back them by email and expect to be talking to both of them again soon. I never “hard sell” as that has already given a bad name to many website design companies. We have been going far too long to start bending people arms to use us. Just look at our work and talk to our clients and you will see what I mean. We don’t need to force people to use – fortunately!

Hope you enjoyed the excerpt from my day. If you want to be automatically updated then subscribe to the feed.

Shaun