« »

How To Be A Client

Filed under TechTalk, Work | 10 December 2009 | No comments yet

Just a few days ago, I found myself advising (yet another!) family friend on how to go about building a web presence for her business.  In doing so, I was again reminded of how we don’t even know, in such circumstances, how to select the right partner for the job.  And, the tragedy is that this problem is not confined to newbies alone.  Countless organizations and executives, in my experience, are as ill-informed about the right way to go about getting help.  So what can you do?  Is there a check list or a prescribed approach?

As luck would have it, just yesterday, I encountered an enlightening post by Seth Godin that listed most of the essentials.  Here is the stuff that made sense to me:

If you can’t write down clear ground rules about which rules are firm and which can be broken on the path to a creative solution, how can you expect the innovator to figure it out?

Simplify the problem relentlessly, and be prepared to accept an elegant solution that satisfies the simplest problem you can describe.

After you write down the ground rules, revise them to eliminate constraints that are only on the list because they’ve always been on the list.

Hire the right person. Don’t ask a mason to paint your house. Part of your job is to find someone who is already in the sweet spot you’re looking for, or someone who is eager and able to get there.

Demand thrashing early in the process. Force innovations and decisions to be made near the beginning of the project, not in a crazy charrette at the end.

Pay as much as you need to solve the problem, which might be more than you want to. If you pay less than that, you’ll end up wasting all your money. Why would a great innovator work cheap?

Cede all issues of irrelevant personal taste to the innovator. I don’t care if you hate the curves on the new logo. Just because you write the check doesn’t mean your personal aesthetic sense is relevant.

On my part, I’d also add the following…

• Do your homework on what the canvas is all about and what your specific need is, before you meet prospective vendors.  e.g. If you’re out to get a website for your business and know “nothing about website design”, spend some hours surfing the web and noting down the sites you like and the ones you don’t, including why.  That way, when you talk to prospective vendors, you can have a more informed discussion.
• Know the kind of customer you’re trying to attract, and how they are likely to behave.  There is just no substitute for that clarity, and it’s not an area that requires technical expertise from you.
• When you ask someone for a recommendation of a vendor, specify that you’re looking for someone you can trust not to cheat you, nothing more.  The evaluation of their competence in relation to your need, should be entirely up to you.
• There will always be a way to get all of it (or some of it) done at no cost or low cost, but there will also be tradeoffs.  Take that approach if you can live with the tradeoffs involved.

Print this list out and check against each item.  You’ll surely be better off, no matter what your endeavour.

no comments

RSS / trackback

respond