How To Succeed When Building A Website For A Customer Or Friend
Imagine meeting with a customer/friend to build a website for. He gives you the information that he has and you spend time with him looking things over.
You, knowing that he hasn’t given you everything you need to work with, agree to begin building his website.
Your customer/friend understands that he didn’t convey to you what he wanted the business or hobby website to look like because he couldn’t remember the original vision he had.
He understands that what he has provided you with isn’t all that he would have liked to have supplied or enough for you to know exactly how to finish the website.
However, he has confidence in your abilities and entrusts you with the task of building his website.
You begin the project and even though it seems challenging, without all of the materials, you work things out to look really good. But, there are still a few things that you need his input on.
You call him and speak to him directly. You explain that things are going better than you had originally thought and you are making great progress. In fact, you are really feeling good about what you have done so far.
But, you tell him that you need for him to tell you what he wants you to do with the arrangement of a few things. You get off the phone thinking he will get back with you.
In the meantime, you continue to work on what you can to make things look nice. A few days go by and he hasn’t contacted you.
So, you call him and leave another message and days go by again and he doesn’t return your call. Out of your commitment to complete the job, you continue to work on the things you can. You sharpen a few images over here and realign a few blocks of text over there.
Then, you call him a second time and leave another message and still there is no return call.
You are still committed the cause of completing the task and keep working on the minor details to make your work flawless and pleasant to look at.
The truth of the matter is that you are somewhat proud of your accomplishments and have really enjoyed working on creating something from the little he gave you to work with.
Finally, you arrange a meeting with your friend and show him how far you have come.
He takes time to look at things with you and then says: “that’s not what I originally envisioned. I know when we first met, I couldn’t explain to you what my original vision was or exactly how I wanted things to be. And to be honest with you, I still can’t see what it is supposed to look like in order to be able to tell you. I think we shouldn’t leave the website looking like this, it’s not what I wanted.”
You smile and say: “OK!”
How could this have been handled differently and what would you have said to this friend after you had invested a considerable amount of time into the website building project?
I can’t imagine that this could have been handled any other way really. I may know more later since I just started implementing my services to create blogs for first timers. Sure, I want them to give me their choice of free themes and it will just be the initial set up with a few additions to their sidebar but overall, they will be responsible for eventually purchasing a theme or having someone create one for them. I know there is a lot of work involved in this type of project, wanting to get it just right and doing the best for your customer. Especially if they are a friend.
But I think you did great for the information that you were given.
Adrienne
I had a very similar situation a few years back. The client asked me to revise his existing website. He was a sculptor and he had many pictures of his works. There were no descriptions on any of the pictures. Since he did not tell me what to write under the photos I just put in what I felt was appropriate. Then one day I get a call from him and he wants the website to go live for a show he was attending. There wasn’t much I could say, so I launched the website. He was not happy with some of the titles I gave to his sculptures. He complained but he still paid me. I could not get him to give me any follow up work on his website. Sometimes you have to go with your first inclination. I have learned that it is best to have pre set calls to the customer even if things are going well with your project.