Inner Circle Media

Recently I spent an hour in a room with representatives from five other Ann Arbor web design/development companies. We’re all bidding on a job with the university, and we attended an informational session where we asked questions and the prospective client provided answers. These types of meetings are fun for two reasons – you get to actually talk to the prospect AND you get to size up your competitors.

A little background on the project – the proposed site is modest in size. The most functionally complex site elements are a calendar and a keyword search. The client asked for wireframes, designs, and coded templates. They will develop a site diagram; they will build out and maintain the site.

It’s also important to note that the person answering our questions was a graphic designer by training. She is not a webbie. She doesn’t know much about information architecture, coding, user testing, or search engine marketing; she knows nothing about programming, frameworks, servers, etc. She just wants someone to design and code templates for her new site. That’s it. Fortunately, this thoughtful woman wanted to gather all of the bidders together to help us think about her project and decide if we want to bid. She kindly tried to answer our questions and was as open as she could be about the project.

After the meeting, I assessed the situation and here’s what I learned about my competitors: They really want to show what they know. More specifically, they wanted to tell the prospective client (and everyone else present) that they are web development experts. They did this by grilling the prospect about details of the project. They asked things like –

• “Would you like us to assure compliance to usability heuristics?”
• “Do you plan to do the requirements engineering?”
• “Don’t you think we should also develop landing pages for your online marketing campaigns?”
• “Will you add user behavior notes to your home and subpage wireframes?”

Now I’m not saying these are necessarily bad questions, but they probably aren’t appropriate questions for a not-so-web-savvy graphic designer. After many of these questions, the poor woman answered by saying, “Honestly, I have no idea what you just asked me.” I often found myself trying to translate the question into common language, so she could at least attempt an answer.

When I had the chance, I asked some questions that probably seemed rather simple to everyone in the room. I asked – Why do you want to build a new website? How will the new site help your organization? What role will you play with the new site? Will you be leading the project on your side? What matters most to you about this project?

No, these questions do not demonstrate my web expertise, nor do they highlight the capabilities of my company. But hopefully they do show that I want to understand the reasons for the new site AND I care about the prospect’s personal thoughts and concerns. Because we were in a room full of people, I doubt that the prospect felt any special connection with me, but I can tell you this – she didn’t have trouble deciphering or answering my questions. And at the end of the meeting, she called me by name.