Internet Magic

I just got an email from someone for whom I’d given a bid. He chose another company who could do the same work for 50 percent of what I bid.

I’m sure if he did some more investigating he could have found someone who would have done it for 25 percent of my bid. Or he could have gone to Craig’s List and got one for $299. But will this site end up costing him more in lost opportunities than the $1750 he saved on the front end?

I can only assume the other company doesn’t have the skill or experience we have. And I’m pretty sure they won’t take the time to develop a whole plan of action, taking into consideration effective calls to actions and being search engine friendly.

This gentleman sells a product that ranges from $25,000-250,000. What if just one potential buyer chose not to even contact him because his site looked amateurish? It cost him the possibility of at least $25,000 in sales. And if you multiple that over several months or years, that’s a lot of money lost to save less than $2,000.

This past summer I had a choice between two driving schools for my daughter. One of them had a site with poor design and misspellings. The other one had a nice design and looked more reputable. I chose the second one even though it was a couple miles farther away and $100 more. I wanted my daughter to have a good learning experience and felt the second company projected a better image.

Buyers are getting more picky, whether they are consumers or businesses. We need to communicate through our web sites a level of professionalism. They have to function well and communicate well. If we don’t, then we will lose opportunities for making sales.

Do you have an experience where you chose a higher priced item because you felt like you were going to get a greater return on your investment than going with a lower cost item? I’d love to hear your story.

We’ve been doing things lately with our business that have actually turned away potential business. But these things have also brought better clients into the fold. I’m talking about creating Web Plan’s for clients before giving a hard price for a web site.

I get calls all the time where people ask how much a web site will be. This is a natural question that someone would have but when you compare it to other industries it doesn’t make much sense.

What if I called a mechanic and told him my brakes were squeaking and asked how much it would be to fix them? Or what if I called a contractor and asked him how much it would be to add an addition to my house? My neither of these people could give me a good price because they don’t have the information to make an intelligent guesstimate.

I have dabbled with the idea of having flat pricing on web sites but I find there are too many variables to give an accurate estimate. I have to look at the end product and work back from there, in regard to both pricing and timeline.

I could have two people give me the same description of the site they want and one project could be $500 and the other $5000. I just don’t know until I’ve gone through a series of questions to find out what kind of functionality they want on the site and how sophisticated of a design.

So, if you call and ask for a price on a site you won’t get it. But I can give you a range. If you fit in that range I am happy to meet you in person and go through a questionnaire in person. I can give you a narrower range, but still can’t give you a definitive price. If you pay for us to develop a Web Plan for you then I will be able to give you a hard price.

So, get in touch with us at 720-922-3124 to have initial talks. I’m certain we can develop a site that you will love the design and will have all the functions that you need to be effective in business.

If you’ve had a site developed in the past, why do you think other companies don’t do a Web Plan? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I watch a video the other day about online conversions. The speaker remarked that a company shouldn’t spend all their development money on the initial site. They should keep some of it back for testing and changes after the site is has been launched.

For example, if they only have $10K to put towards development, they should get a site that’s worth $7,500. And then use the remaining $2,500 in the following months to work out the kinks and add features they hadn’t thought of before.

This is what I’m suggesting for new clients who are having us design and program bigger sites. We try as hard as we can in the Discovery Phase of our development process to think through everything. Invariably they see a feature on another site that they like and want to add it, but don’t have the money to have it added.

With Conversion Testing you have to try out different headlines, graphics and such, to see what causes the most conversions or phone calls. Once you nail down a good conversion rate, then you can start adding your marketing dollars to get visitors to your site.

I gave friend of mine a quote on web design for his company. His boss was surprised that I had quoted them $5000 for a high quality marketing web site. This included the design and programming of the site, as well as $1500 for writing all the content on the site.

They had been quoted $1000 by the company who does their computer maintenance in their office. He originally contacted me because this same company had already taken a year trying to put together a site for them. If they presented a well-designed, highly functional site, my friend never would have contacted me in the first place. But they didn’t.

I could have gotten the site done in less than a month for them, and it would have started getting them business soon after that. I gave my friend an analogy about windows since they are in that industry in Orlando:

“Let’s say a hurricane comes in and blows out all my windows. Instead of paying the higher price for a triple pane with solar glazing, I go out to the junk yard and find single pane windows that kind of fit my windows. I might need to cut out frames or fill in gaps with Great Stuff, but they do the job of keeping out water and maybe heat. Officially, they are windows. But it’s not the same as having the good windows installed by a professional.

“The same can be said about web sites. In the long run (and even in the short run) it’s worth it to have a well designed web site that has been done by professional web designers.”

I thought this was a good analogy but they still didn’t bite. And they still don’t have a web site up a couple months later.

They could have saved $1500 by doing the writing themselves, so the difference in prices would have only been $2500. It would have taken less than one new project to pay for the site and after the design has been paid for you will have a great looking, highly functional web site.

I was asked by a college student to answer some questions about life in the design world. You might be interested to hear some of my responses.

Designer Interview Questions:

1. Have you specialized in any particular area of Graphic Design?
I specialize in web site design. We do some logo design, business cards and stationery but mostly do web sites and web graphics.

2. If so, did you choose this area or did it sort of develop over time?
I started out doing print design. I took classes in Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as DreamWeaver (for web site design). It wasn’t until about nine years ago that I started doing web sites. I’ve been trying to keep myself narrow in focusing just on web design but I find that logo design can be a good door opener for doing web sites, too.

3. What advice do you have for a graduating Graphic Designer?
I would tell a graduating graphic designer to do as many real life projects as possible, even if they are low paying or non-paying. This will start building your portfolio and give you experience. As someone who hires designers, I don’t really look at someone seriously if they don’t have a serious body of work for me to see their style and abilities. I think it’s also important to have a web site to put the portfolio onto. This can be a simple thing but it should show your abilities. You can have a friend develop it for you if you don’t have the ability right now.

I would also tell a designer to get varied experience, both in print and web sites. The more well rounded you are, the higher the likelihood of getting hired. As you gain experience and opportunities, you can start concentrating on the areas that you like the most and are better at.

4. What do you think is the most important asset of a fantastic designer?
I think the ability to look at multiply ideas and keep an open mind is one of the best features of fantastic designer. I’ve taken some training in improv and one of the things we learned was to say “Yes, and…” rather than “No, it’s really…” You take what someone has to say and then go with it. There comes a time later in the process when you evaluate ideas but the exploration stage is not when you do it. You should read the book “A Whack on the Side of the Head” for ideas on brainstorming. Or “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants” has information on the four stages of the creative process. They are both written by Roger von Oech.

I have a web site called www.ezcreativity.com that has some good information brainstorming and the creative process.

5. Some people say, “You don’t really start learning until after you graduate”. How do you feel about this?
I think this is semi-true. If a person can mix real world experience with their training, then they are way ahead of their classmates, such as getting internships and side jobs during college that incorporate design work, even if it’s just in a sign shop.

6. How much value do you place on Mentor-ship? Are you a good mentor?
I’ve never had a formal mentor in my days. I’ve had bosses who were good friends and taught me some things. But often they were more administrators than creative people. The one creative person I had was too involved in his own projects to be a good mentor. I kind of mentor the contractors I have working for me. I think I’m patient and instructive but there is nothing formal there.

7. Do you think Graphic Design and Visual Communication can be a lifelong and profitable career from a Virtual Office atmosphere?
I know people who do have a profitable career in a virtual office atmosphere. I think it takes several years of working with a team before you get to this point because you’d be too narrow in your abilities otherwise. When you have a good reputation as a great designer, easy to work with and a quick producer, than you’d have a lot of opportunities to work in a virtual workplace. I have a guy who just flew to Thailand yesterday and will be there training in martial arts. He will continue to do work for me because he’s good at what he does and is easy to work with.

8. Which do you think has served you best your formal education or your experience?
My formal education served me better because it allowed me to work on projects I wouldn’t have otherwise. I would have been reduced to just supervising designers rather than doing it myself. Now that I’m doing more supervision of design that actual design, I can understand things better and give good suggestions.

9. Do you think it a necessity to return periodically, for formal training throughout your career?
I think it’s really important to keep learning software especially. This helps you do things faster and better than struggling along with software you don’t understand well. I think having continuing training is also important with such things as drawing and photography.

10. If you could change the past, what’s the main thing you would change about the path you walked in becoming a designer?
I would have taken more design classes when I was younger and learned more about perspective. I did some of that self taught. I would have also learned more about color theory and learned how to draw better.

11. Are there additional comments you would like to add to this interview?
I have work with many designers over the years. The ones I’ve enjoyed the most are the ones who are easy to get along with and are flexible. There is something to be said about being talented but there is also something to be said about being easy to work with. I had a woman who I supervised who was a talented designer but you never knew when she was going to bit your head off or freak out. There was another woman in the group who was less talented but was so much more approachable.

Also, the great designers I’ve worked with had a good understanding of color theory and fonts. They didn’t fall in love with a certain color scheme or a certain font type.