Potential Customer Issue

I have an issue with a potential customer I would like to hear from
some of you about.

The customer represents a pretty good contract for a website (the
money pays pretty well).

The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
the website art before they will sign the contract.

So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
their business.

This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
are obvious.

Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
regret it?

Thanks,

-Mike



----------------------------------------------

Comic Books, Gundam Models, Trading Cards, Toys, Puzzles, and more!

http://www.fschobbies.com

> The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
> customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
> and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
> the website art before they will sign the contract.
>
> So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
> work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
> visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
> about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
> their business.
>
> This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
> are obvious.
>
> Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
> regret it?

I always do this when it is clear that (a) I understand the client's
needs well, and (b) the customer is comfortable with the rough estimate
I make once I understand the client's needs reasonably well.

On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 1303 -0500, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\"@-@-@XXXupsdell.com"> wrote:

>> The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
>> customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
>> and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
>> the website art before they will sign the contract.
>>
>> So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
>> work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
>> visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
>> about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
>> their business.
>>
>> This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
>> are obvious.
>>
>> Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
>> regret it?
>
>I always do this when it is clear that (a) I understand the client's
>needs well, and (b) the customer is comfortable with the rough estimate
>I make once I understand the client's needs reasonably well.

So you will do this without a contract guaranteeing the work will be
paid for?

I've done about 15 sites to date - not one with this issue or without
a contract signed before work has begun. :\

-Mike



----------------------------------------------

Comic Books, Gundam Models, Trading Cards, Toys, Puzzles, and more!

http://www.fschobbies.com

MW wrote:
> On Tue, 01 Feb 2005 1303 -0500, C A Upsdell
> <""cupsdellXXX\"@-@-@XXXupsdell.com"> wrote:
>
>
>>>The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
>>>customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
>>>and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
>>>the website art before they will sign the contract.
>>>
>>>So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
>>>work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
>>>visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
>>>about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
>>>their business.
>>>
>>>This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
>>>are obvious.
>>>
>>>Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
>>>regret it?
>>
>>I always do this when it is clear that (a) I understand the client's
>>needs well, and (b) the customer is comfortable with the rough estimate
>>I make once I understand the client's needs reasonably well.
>
>
> So you will do this without a contract guaranteeing the work will be
> paid for?

Yes. The template I make is for one page, typically the home page. I
takes little time, and gives the client confidence in the design: keep
in mind that most people need to see something concrete to understand
what is being proposed.

> I've done about 15 sites to date - not one with this issue or without
> a contract signed before work has begun. :\

Each client is unique.

"MW" <mrwhat@tesseract.info> wrote in message
news:g6gvv0da1inucvnl1860i67vi75fv1sma1@4ax.com...
>
> I have an issue with a potential customer I would like to hear from
> some of you about.
>
> The customer represents a pretty good contract for a website (the
> money pays pretty well).
>
> The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
> customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
> and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
> the website art before they will sign the contract.
>
> So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
> work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
> visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
> about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
> their business.
>
> This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
> are obvious.
>
> Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
> regret it?

Well the three big problems you can encounter here (which I am sure a few
people here have experienced) is that they could:
a) Like your design, but not your prices... and then take your
design/template to another designer to turn into a site.
b) There is no commitment on their part at this point. So you could spend a
few hours on this and then in the end not get anything out of it.
c) If you are doing this work and not being paid for it, they could keep
asking you for more and more detail and a polished product so that when its
all said and done you have the finalized "look" of the site and when it
comes time to billing they don't want to pay up that part because it was
"the pre-design phase"

I don't know if anybody can really say they had "good results" from this...
because you go into this with the expectation that you are getting the job
and this is just something you have to do to placate the customer and get
going. So if you do this and get the job then you have the same result you
expected, which isn't anything new and therefore not really "good". So
really you will either "not get the job", which is a bad result... or "get
the job" which is what you are expecting to happen anyhow.


As far as your comment "they could care less about the functionality of the
site, which is much more critical to their business", to that a couple of
questions come up:
a) Do you not think its possible to have a nice looking site, one that might
even garner terms like "slick" or "hot", and yet still be functional?
b) Do you honestly have enough experience and knowledge of their business to
know what is critical to their business?


Something to consider is: You are not the customer, and these guys are not
web developers (atleast I presume they aren't since they are hiring somebody
to do their website).

Its like around here... if you hang around here long enough you (or
alt.html) will get to see quite a wide variety of websites and designs
people have done/are doing. Some websites will garner praise from the
regulars because they conform to W3C standards and the designer put in 100+
hours working on a great CSS layout... meanwhile you'll get others who will
look at the site that everybody is "oohing" and "aaahing" over and
truthfully say "I could have done that same thing with tables in about a
tenth of the time back in 1995 when I was 11 years old"

Your customers are more going to be like the 2nd guy: When they see the
site all they look at is whats up there on the surface. They aren't going
to go in there and nitpick over your code... they aren't going to ask you
why you used a certain doctype over another... they aren't going to applaud
you on your use of CSS for layout over tables. They will look and see the
end result and thats all they are really going to be concerned with.

>
> http://www.fschobbies.com
>

You had this site in your signature... I'm not sure if its just an ad put
there by something or if its something you designed. I'm sitting here
thinking if there is a nicer/easier way to put it without risking offending
you, but there isn't so I will just out and say it: If this is an example
of your work then I would say these guys are well within their rights to ask
you for an example upfront of what you can do for them before they commit to
the job.

Maybe that site is functional and serves its purpose, but it is not
appealing to the eye and there are a few problems with it (like a visited
link goes dark red on a dark blue background making it very hard to see on
my laptop) and quite frankly it does look like an amature job.

If that is the scope of your design abilities then maybe you should look
into contracting out the site's graphic design/layout to somebody more
experienced and talented in that field.

And thats not necessarily a bad thing... its rare to see the total package
(somebody who is a great designer and programmer) and like in my case I can
say that I excel at programming, site concept/functionality, and business
sense... but when it comes to graphic design I have trouble just drawing a
stick man in photoshop, let alone designing a hot looking site with a top
notch navigation system. And to that end I contract out all the graphic
work... paying somebody $250-500 to design the site that I then cut it up in
photoshop or similar and insert my code around the graphics.


Going back to your problem here: The big thing I think is to put in as much
work in this template/initial look as you think is likely you have/will get
the contract. If its pretty much "in the bag" and up around the 95-100%
range then you might want to go full bore on the thing and put in a few days
into this template. If its down around 10-20% likely you'll get the job,
then you might just want to sketch out something rough on paper or quickly
on the computer and then when you sit down with them explain what it'll look
like when its a finished product and that this is just the "initial look" so
they can have an idea of whats to come.

Clint

In article <g6gvv0da1inucvnl1860i67vi75fv1sma1@4ax.com>,
mrwhat@tesseract.info says...
>
> I have an issue with a potential customer I would like to hear from
> some of you about.
>
> The customer represents a pretty good contract for a website (the
> money pays pretty well).
>
> The problem is, depsite having references and a line of very happy
> customers (some of whom I have had paid more than this potential one -
> and are much more distinguished), they want to see me do a template of
> the website art before they will sign the contract.
>
> So, in other words, they want me to put forth a good many hours of
> work to 'make sure' that I can do what they are asking (creating a
> visually exciting website for them). Apparently, they could care less
> about the functionality of the site, which is much more critical to
> their business.
>
> This doesn't make any sense to me for a few reasons - most of which
> are obvious.
>
> Has anyone done such a thing and had good results....or lived to
> regret it?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Mike

If you give them too much info, they don't need you anymore.

I've created over 70 sites in the past 4 years, and I've never presented
a template to a potential customer. I use my website portfolio page as
an example of what I can do for them. At the initial meeting (or phone
call) I will give them my ideas and thoughts as to how the site should
look, sometimes sketch it out for them, but I never give specifics until
I have a signed contract and deposit.

The first rule of sales - sell yourself!

As someone who buys web design services on a regular basis, I can say
that it helps a great deal to understand what a designer is envisioning
before hiring them. Sure, we can't require that a preliminary comp be
produced, but I can tell you that we are much more likely to go with
someone who takes the trouble to share what they're thinking over
someone else who can't or won't. We don't require it in every case, but
when the project is important enough and/orexpensive enough it is
important.

It is understandably frustrating to have to work before being hired but
you might want to consider it a cost of getting the business and ask
yourself whether the long term potential value of this client
(considering future maintenance contracts, updates, major revision,
references, etc) are worth your upfront costs. If you don't have a lot
of time and if you think it's going to be a small, low dollar one-time
project with few future opportunities, you may wish to refuse.

Mark