Tales of a Designer

The Challenge of Quoting Projects

As I was going through reading some of my old blogs posts from this site, I came across 5 Things I Learned Starting a Business. As I was reading those, I felt that I’ve only gotten better at those 5 things, but also tried thinking of things that still need to be improved on, and the first thing that came to mind was quoting projects.

We have tried different approaches and we have far from mastered being consistently right on our quotes. At first we tried doing the hourly thing. This proved the be the worst solution for us because it was very challenging tracking hours to the minute. At one point or another, I always went over the hours specified for the project, which ends up in us losing money and having issues staying within the project budget.

Our next approach was, which we’re still using is just giving the project a total price, loosely based on an hourly rate. This has worked for two reasons. The first is because we’re in a different mind state in not having to stress over every hour spent. This allows us to be as creative as we need to in our research/design/development and not short ourselves because of the limitation on hours.

The second reason this has worked, is because when we meet and go over a quote before sending to a client, we all make sure we’re in agreement on the price tag. When we get to a point that we feel that we can crank out a project for a certain amount, then we are comfortable on whatever time we spend on the project. Again, this isn’t the best solution, but it’s worked for us lately, and we’re still working on refining this as well.

It’s not easy quoting projects, however, I imagine that the more we get used to working with each other, the better we will be at estimating the costs of certain tasks of a project. But it seems like only time will get us better at quoting.

How do you normally quote projects? Has your method been effective for you?

Identifying Problems

In a recent blog post by Blue Flavor on Problems, Not Features, Tom Watson talks, in depth, about making sure you (as a designer/developer) don’t get caught up in identifying “cool” features on a project before identifying problems with a clients’ business. I’m sure that at some point we’ve all been guilty of this.

The web community loves new features and new technology. New is exciting. New is fun. New is challenging. And when clients come to you wanting something new, their enthusiasm can be really contagious. via

I have definitely been guilty of this before. A client will contact us looking for a redesign of their site, and upon the first glance of their site I start thinking of ways I would redesign it before identifying what their business problems are. We design to solve problems, and sometimes it’s hard for a client to identify what their business problems are, so they think adding “this feature or that feature” would help them grow their business.

In client discovery meetings, how you’re going to design the site should not be the topic of conversation. That stuff doesn’t matter at that time. What does matter is getting information on their business and see what is working and not working, the problems they are having, who their audience is, etc. In other words, just listen and stay focused. From that information, you should then have your work cut out in knowing what needs to be done (features) to tackle problems.

Getting Your Pitch Down

Knowing how to describe what you do can be fairly simple, even to people who don’t really understand the internet. I’ve gotten pretty good at doing that and almost have a little routine down for when the question arises again. But then there is the other side of the fence where having to explain your worth to a person who does understand the internet. In other words, there is a question that I have stumbled across once or twice that I’m trying to get better at nailing…

Why should we choose you to design/develop a website for us?

At first I really hated this hearing this question. I’m sure, in my rookie days, I lost a few [potential] clients because I stuttered way more than normal in a business situation. That doesn’t show confidence at all.

I can’t say that I still hate hearing that question, but it’s something that I’m still working on getting better at. Whenever you listen to successful business people, they have no problem telling you why you should choose them over a competitor. Freelance designers/developers should be the same way because every one of us, at some point, will be asked that question. And in the DIY Era, your pitch means even more now.

Having a solid pitch for your services not only helps prove that you know what you’re talking about, but it also shows confidences in your own self and/or your business. And confidence speaks volumes for yourself and skills, and helps build trust with the person that is seeking your services. Imagine walking into a car dealership inquiring about a certain car, and your salesperson can barely tell you about the specs on a car, or why you should buy it. How comfortable would you feel about buying that car?

I would image that by the time a [potential] client asks the question on why they should choose you, they are already very interested, it’s just up to you not to screw it up.