Posts Tagged ‘clients’

Back a couple of years ago, we had a number of references we used to give out upon request to potential clients. These references were clients of ours who had a particularly good experience working with our web design company. They were nice enough to take the time to talk to our potential clients about their experience with Noam Design, explain why they recommend us, and answer questions.

One day, a potential client asked us for some references, so I gave him a couple of contacts. The client called them up and spent quite a bit of time with them on the phone, asking detailed questions about us, our process, etc… The following day, the client calls me and ask me if I have some more references to give him – he said the praises he heard from both contacts were “too good” and he just wanted to double check and needed more reassurance. That was it for me – I told the client that he didn’t seem to be a good fit for us and I wished him the best of luck. Despite his best efforts, I refused to take on his project.

Since then, when asked for references, I invite people to contact any of our past clients via the contact info they display on their websites, but I don’t actually spend time making sure with these clients that it’s ok, and I don’t give out contact info. Over the years, this decision saved me a lot of time that would otherwise have been wasted in unnecessary phone calls, emails, and back-and-forths. I think this business decision actually improved our sales – clients who requested references got the idea that we are not trying hard to convince them to work with us, and at the same time we were confident that any of our clients can serve as a good reference.

Recently, one of our clients asked me how is it possible for us to make major business/vendor decisions without submitting a web design proposal, document or contract stating the scope and assumptions of the project? Here are some extracts from my reply: (more…)

Here is our new post in the web design company resources series where I’m giving out material that we use on a daily basis here to run our state-of-the-art web design company from our New York location! This time, I am attaching a great web design proposal template in a MS Word format!

To tell the truth, we don’t really submit proposals anymore as we try to minimize paperwork, specifications documents, scope documents, and other things that just make everyone waste time, talk in the air about things that can’t really be planned in a creative process such as features, goals, milestones etc.

Rather, we work with an iteration process which is much more efficient, powerful, real, and in general produces results rather than bullshit documents. So instead of spending a week discussing a specs document back and forth and finalizing a proposal for a website project, we spend 1 day drafting a few design concept for the landing page and take it from there. In a week of work, we’ll already have the main design approved for the beta launch, and most of the design concepts for the entire project. (more…)

A couple of weeks ago, I passed on a project with a potential client who wanted to work with us on the development of his web start-up business. Technologically the project was quite interesting as it involved a few challenging aspects as well as a relatively wide array of professional skills. Overall, the project was a perfect match for our web development company and it would be basically impossible for this client to find another web development firm with the necessary set of skills to complete the project in a professional manner. (more…)