IMSC Services – Consulting
Services
Topic -
Does every organization need a website
and the importance of using sound judgment with clients.
Our Website design service
differs from most. I will explain this in a minute. The advantage to having a website is offset if your
organization doesn’t use and promote the site to their best advantage. To put it a bit more
bluntly, a site is only as good as the organization running it. To better
explain this, let me dispel one of the most abused myths about the Internet. Let
us look at the myth that every business has to have a website. While this sounds
good on paper, most businesses do not use employ a great deal of common sense to
running a website.
Being a consultant that
has worked for over 10 years helping organization utilize their web presence
more effectively, I have seen many business are far more interested in getting
the best deal they can and look on the whole situation as a necessary expense
rather than a tool that can create business opportunities for the organization.
A trained consultant can
usually tell within about 10 minutes of meeting a client whether or not they
actually see the value in a website, or whether they are just interested because
they feel they have to have one. Very often this conversation centers a lot of
how much is this going to cost as opposed to what are the advantages, what
opportunities can we exploit, and what value added benefits can we provide to
clients and prospects in order to help us improve our business. A Website serves
many purposes, one of which is to provide information that allows a prospect to
make a decision without sales pressure. Websites can provide value added services giving your
clients and prospects access to forms, applications and processes that would
either have to call or visit in person to do. Some sites are commerce based and
offer products that can be purchased conveniently. Whatever you wish to do with
your website it is important to note that before it can work for your
organization, you must follow 4 very simple rules.
- It must be user
friendly
- It must have relevant
content that is up to date
- It must have what
your customers and prospects expect to find when browsing your site
- It must be integrated
into your business processes like marketing and advertising
Bottom line, when
potential clients focus on the cost as opposed to the benefits, they lose sight
of what a website is there for. This is where you can help the client by being
focused on the varied ways that a site can help an organization grow and develop
client loyalty. As a consultant you need to use your knowledge to help clients see that a website can be more much more than an
expense by being a valuable tool that helps their organization grow.
You should also know when it is not worth your while to pursue. I ran
into a situation recently that I want to talk about. I ran into a friend
that referred me to an individual that was running a business and wanted
a website. So I met with this individual and we talked briefly about
what type of business he was running, then without prompting he
immediately ask me how much was this going to cost. Well the cost of
customized work is relative to the work done, the materials used and any
programming that needs to be done outside any that normally done.
The point is that without further discussion so that I can get inside
his expectations and architect a solution that address these
expectations and that of course of his customer base, I cannot just
arbitrarily say it will cost "dollar amount here". So I began to
try and educate the customer on how traffic is generated on the
internet, I talked about incorporating the website into the overall
business strategy and focused on the value aspect of what could
transpire should be proceed. Ten minutes into the conversation, I knew
that this prospect was a dud and not worth pursuing. This was the type
of customer that just wanted a deal, he was not concerned about
developing a strategy, nor was interested in working with us to set
goals for his site. In fact he took no interest other than to say that
he had a budget and that he did not want to exceed this budget. When I
asked about long term business plans and any marketing plans, he had
some concrete plans into place, but was reluctant to visit the idea that
a website was a tool just like any other that should be integrated into
the overall plan. Ultimately, I left shortly afterwards knowing full
well I had no interest in working for a flat rate when his overall
budget fell way below what you should realistically expect to spend when
you getting custom work.
I
could have taken this job, he would have changed the scope a 100 times
and expected to pay the same and in the end I would have ended up
spending a lot more time on this project than I should have and got paid
far less than I should have. The lesson here is some customer are not
worth your time and you should use your common sense when accepting
projects of a fix cost nature, you might just find yourself doing more
work and getting paid much less.
I
hope that this was helpful to you, good luck with all your do it yourself projects.
Contact
a sales specialist for more information on any of our
services. You can call us during our normal business
hours of 8:30 am - 3:30 pm, Monday through Friday at
416-550-2487. Alternatively use our online services to
request a quote or to send enquiries, by
clicking here.
