Dan Griffiths

Helping clients write their brief

Often when we get enquiries we are not given much information in the way of a brief. Clients don’t really know how to put a brief together and why should they? The first thing I try to do is to see if we have common ground with regards to the budget they have to spend. By asking for a ballpark figure I find that I waste a lot less time with enquiries that are not in the right price bracket.

Depending on what I am given I try to put a story together that would describe exactly what the site will do. This can be very basic but serves better than a simple list of features as it helps the client understand exactly how it will work. Consider this snippet of a verbose list:

“Scheduled RSS feed syncing.
Automatic deletion of events from calendar after due date.”

Some tech savvy clients might get that straight away but this is a better way in my opinion:

“Every hour the news section of the site will have stories from other sites added automatically. Building on this when an event has finished it will be removed from the site automatically.”

Friendlier and more relevant don’t you think?

I always think of briefs in the same way as business plans – let’s make a shorter living document that we actually refer back to rather than a 90 page monster that impresses the investors but no-one else.

Less copy…more impact

Most people read differently when online, whereas reading a newspaper may be more of a cover to cover experience the web needs to have concise content that allows skim reading. I think there are a few ways you can do this:

Reduce the word count – do you really need all the words?
Stick to simple one idea paragraphs – it seems to be the best way of focusing a reader.
Put emphasis on the important content – by your tone of writing and using formatting.
Keep it friendly – try to make it approachable for anyone even if they are not familiar with the content.

I appreciate that it is hard to get the message across sometimes with a limited amount of text but it is a good thing to review your copy. I found with the Buffalo site that we kept reducing the copy until there was just the outline information about us and our work. Just keep thinking “will the user read this or even be interested?” and you will likely end up with better content.

Basecamp, To-dos and the version control conundrum

An article that Jasper and I wrote on how we use Basecamp and version control at Buffalo was featured on the 37signals product blog.

Have a gander – hopefully someone finds it useful!

Fighting for the right design

I am sure you have experienced the feeling of despair when the design you have lovingly created gets reworked by the client. They only change a few things but these things happen to be what made the design work!

When faced with this it is tricky one as you want the client to be happy but in actual fact they may not be qualified to make design decisions. People hire a designer because they don’t have those skills themselves.

When Buffalo was started we would do the odd piece of print design for people but only when we were asked. The reason? Because we are much better at web design than print design and by sticking to this approach we remain niche.

Now obviously there are different types of client but it boils down to three main types:
Those that have complete trust and give you freedom
Those that want some input in the process
Those that believe they could do the design themselves

Now obviously we want to avoid the latter type of client completely – it will be much better for you to say no to this project from the outset. However I appreciate that you can’t always do this or the problem may only appear after the contract has been signed and the project is underway.

There are a few things that I stick to when in this situation. Firstly explain exactly why I think their ideas and concerns might not be correct. I am polite but firm – whilst it is ultimately their decision it doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. I try not to settle for something that I don’t believe in until there is no other option.

The best example of this a while ago was a client logo that they had created by a design agency. It really was a bad design and the branding change made our designs look very different to our original intentions. I continued to express how awful I thought the design was and after a good amount of time they started to see that my concerns were only in their best interests and reverted. It also ties into being super honest with clients as it begins to build trust very well.

So now I:
Stick to my guns
Communicate firmly but politely
Ultimately remember who has final say!

E-commerce basics

At Buffalo we often get asked about starting an e-commerce business – it can be confusing so hopefully this will help to make things a little clearer around the technical bits. Quick note – if you are familiar with e-commerce then this probably isn’t the article for you.
Firstly you need to choose a payment provider – you really have three options:

1. PayPal. Useful for small businesses or to test an idea out as it is straight forward to set up – however it isn’t particularly flexible and can be seen as amateurish. The great thing is that anyone can apply for a PayPal account so very new businesses that wouldn’t otherwise pass credit checks for a merchant account can still trade online.

2. Merchant account and processor. The most popular option, firstly you get a merchant account with your bank to allow credit/debit card payments. Then you are able to apply to a payment provider, there are plenty to choose from but we suggest Sage Pay. Once these two things are set up you can integrate with an e-commerce system.

3. Full integration – this is for businesses who require more in-depth billing, accounting or integration with other systems. With a bespoke integration you can control more of less any aspect that is required at the cost of a longer development time.

Once you have the payment mechanism and the site ready it is good to know the kind of process an order goes through. When someone makes an order on your site an email gets sent to the user and yourself to confirm it has been placed. It is also available in the admin area of your site with PDF delivery note and payment details. At this point the payment has already been authorised and the money is then held in either the PayPal account or is sent to your bank account via your provider.

A few quick pointers from dealing with clients and especially startups….

Obviously a great idea and site goes a long way towards a profitable e-commerce business but it isn’t any easy path for a startup and requires a lot of dedication. Once you get started keep an eye on what products sell well and focus on them. This will also help you plan your buying for the next season or period. Oh and don’t under estimate spending for marketing your site too – if no-one knows about the site they can’t buy from it!

Honesty…

One of the ways that projects go well in my experience is by both client and agency being honest with each other. This starts from the first contact and all the way until a project ends. This kind of honesty is welcomed and we have been awarded projects because we questioned the clients ideas or were honest about their current site.

So many agencies are afraid to ask questions and are happy to just tell the client what they want to hear. This doesn’t work for us as we need to have full commitment to a project to do a good job.

If the client doesn’t respond well to constructive criticism from a professional then it may not be worth taking the project on. Whilst obviously in the early stages of business you might need to take on projects that are less than ideal I would definitely trust your gut feeling.

However it does only truly work when the client can be equally honest!

Selling with some soul

People don’t seem to like sales people, being forced into buying something is a horrible feeling. The guy selling mobile phones or the IT recruitment tele-seller that calls puts me into a bad mood pretty quickly. Hard selling is pretty grubby and although I have seen people manage it with a web project it usually ends in terrible results. I would argue that the personal touch really helps tease out what is needed – even on larger projects.

It seems to me that people don’t talk about this in the industry – maybe to avoid giving some magic tips away?! Whilst I am no master (or magician) I wanted to share some of the things that I do.

Be nice – people buy people so if you are friendly, stay yourself and have a good company then it should be easy. Try to offer as much help as possible and make it clear that even if they don’t choose you they should be able to use the information anyway.

Be quick to get back to people – even if it is only to say you received the email and will get back to them next week – this lets them know you are interested.

Be available – often people working on startups have a regular job that means meetings or calls can be tricky in the day. We currently have two clients who are very busy and so I just speak to them either in the evenings or at the weekend. Of course this is important as the project begins.

Be generous with time – having an hour or two to spend on the phone with a potential client means they can go through as many questions as they want to without feeling that you are rushing them. I appreciate that a small business might not be able to afford the luxury but it definitely pays off.

Be super honest – do this with everything and you will do better. I would gladly tell a client I don’t think they need something done rather than just do it. I want the businesses I work with to succeed in the long term and honesty helps this.

Be firm – don’t be afraid to say no, this is a tricky one but very important. If a brief sent to you says the client has a £50,000 budget but you really think that you will need £70,000 then tell them don’t try to cram things in or be desperate. Sometimes clients are aware that their budget is tight and are happy to talk it through. If you can provide ideas and justification for the increase in cost then often it can be increased.

Be direct – get an idea of budget up front, clients usually don’t like to do this but you can ask. Make them aware that it isn’t so you can quote just below their budget it is to get a quick idea if you can work together and saves time on both sides. I used to put proposals together for every potential project but found a lot were not in the same area with regards to the budget. So work out a ballpark figure and if that works for them then you can do a full proposal.

Only do a more detailed quote when you have some kind of brief that explains how the site should work.

Hope that is useful to some, comment away with any tips you may want to share.