At the beginning of the year, I made a goal to improve customer service at my business. In 2012, I had a very successful year, but there were several bumps along the road. I’ve targeted a few specific things to improve, one of those improvements needed to be how I went about gathering information at the beginning of the project. Typically, what I have done is meet with a client for 30-60 minutes and talked about their company, their idea of what they want their website to be, etc. I had an outline of things to discuss, but I was always putting the client on the spot and not allowing them to think through these questions before I met with them.

There are several consequences to this workflow, two of the most important is charging the client $100 per hour and not get very far in the process and making unwise decisions because of time restraints. In the end, I get a client who is unhappy because they’ve spent a lot of money without any sort of product and because we might not have answered the right questions.

While this issue is complex and one thing won’t solve it, I have started the long process of improving it.

The form is broken up into five sections

• The Basics
• About Your Company or Project
• About Your Design
• About Your Content
• Almost Finished…

The Basics

This form is huge and can take a lot of time to complete. One of the wonderful byproducts of a long, intense form is that the client gets to think about the important questions first before meeting with me. Another wonderful features of having a daunting form is that potential clients who aren’t very motivated won’t fill it out — my first step of weeding out bad clients. However, I wanted to make sure that I gave users a way out. If the user is unsure and wants to talk to a real person before committing a lot of time to a battery of questions, all the need to fill out are five questions in “The Basics” category. Customers are told not to be overwhelmed and are instructed at this wonderful loophole! These five questions are validated as well and a submitter will be kicked back to the form and notified that they didn’t complete all the required fields.

About Your Company or Project

To work for someone, you need to know a lot about them. I use this section as their introduction to me. They get to tell me about their company’s objectives, who they think their audience is, and what they think the goal of their website should be. They also get to be a bit introspective during this process and explain to me the difference between them and their competitors, basic to any fundamental business plan.

About Your Design

This is the section many skip to right away. They ignore their goals, they ignore their audience, and they just want a design that looks cool. I try to get their feel of what they think would be a good website by asking for 3 examples of websites they like and what they like about it. Then, I ask them to check words and phrases that they think would describe their business and future site well. I don’t want to get into specifics during the brief, I just want to be prepared for our first meeting.

About Your Content

Content is king. Haven’t you heard? Well, it’s true, even if that phrase is beat to death. I want clients who are motivated and have an idea of what their copy is. I ask them about what copy they have prepared and give them pointers about writing for the web in this section.

Almost Finished…

This is the final section, I encourage them to review their submission and tell me anything that wasn’t already covered that they might want me to know before the first meeting.

Wrapping Up

Throughout the process, I made small markers in blue that indicate that they’re moving along in the overall “steps” of the brief. This is simply a visual cue to assure them that they are moving forward. Once they’ve submitted the form, I’ll receive an e-mail and they’re carbon copied. It details everything that they’ve just answered and now I can start a client meeting off with more knowledge.

The client has thought about their solution a bit and I’m armed with more knowledge about the client. It’s a win-win. Do you see any holes in my initial process? Things that I can improve? Above is a slideshow of the images from my Web Design Project Brief, feel free to navigate through them.

All aspects of a website are important to deliver a successful user experience, even the small parts – like buttons! The interface the designer creates to deliver a portion of this experience is influenced by various constraints — from web standards to the company’s brand.

Consistently using a certain style helps you to create a node of activation. Using these nodes in congruence will lead you to develop an increased brand image with familiar customers. Larger sites have been doing this for awhile now. These elements wax and wane with the popular design styles of that year, but are consistently anchored by a company’s branding guidelines.

Test your knowledge of some popular websites and see how familiar you are with their brand image by simply taking a glance at the style of their buttons.

My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus; I saw Him watching all the scene. My peace came back to me like a wave from God. I realized that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done. The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leave the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth. He rules all Nature, animate and inanimate, and restrains even the Savage of the South Seas. – John G. Paton

I heard about the great man from John Piper’s 2000 Conference for Pastors. I regularly download podcasts from Desiring God and heard the biography of John G. Paton nearly two years ago. The assurance in God that this man possessed is inspiring. He was not shielded from hardship, yet he persevered to serve his life in love to those who had never heard of Christ. I encourage you to take the time and listen to the biography. I plan on reading Paton’s autobiography soon.

• Listen or download Piper’s biography message, You Will Be Eaten by Cannibals!
• Paton’s autobiography, Banner of Truth Trust

I’ve been perusing the Internet looking for interesting articles to both write about and apply to my small business. Recently, I re-discovered an article that discussed the common pricing mistakes made by freelancers, which piqued my attention. Hey, I’m a freelancer and I price things!

Lots of entrepreneurs struggle with pricing. How much to charge? It’s clear that the right price can make all the difference – too low and you miss out on profit; too high and you miss out on sales.

Two of the five points the article made hit home and made a lot of sense to me. The foundation of anchoring prices and adding price points come from Game Theory and the original study was developed by a guy named Richard Thaler. His experiment involved beer and pointed towards a great truth for me and my business.

The experiment comprised of three tests.

1. Two beers, one was a bargain beer priced at $1.80 and the other was their regular beer priced at $2.50. Consumers purchased the regular beer 4:1.
2. Next, they introduced a “super bargain” beer at a $1.60 price point, which drastically shifted sales. Zero consumers purchased the bargain beer; instead, consumers shifted towards the $1.80 beer instead of the $2.50 beer. Not good for business.
3. Finally, they got rid of the super cheap beer and instead introduced a “superior” beer at a $3.40 price point. Sales shifted dramatically back towards the $2.50 point where 85% of consumers purchased it. In addition to the shift towards the averagely priced beer an additional 10% decided to treat themselves to the superior beer, increasing total profits.

You may have heard the quote that the best way to sell a $2000 watch is next to a $12000 watch, and it seems to hint at an overall truth. I took this into consideration and applied it to my new hosting packages.

Before

Checking my hosting clients I noticed that the majority of those who purchased my service without any consultation purchased the bronze. For the majority of my hosting clients, this is a perfectly acceptable decision; however, some of them have had to upgrade because they were not aware of the size that their finished site would be with all of the additional media on the web these days.

With consideration of the game theory and price point articles that I had read, I decided to move the plans around a bit. I slightly increased the price of the bronze package and removed a bit of the web space that was offered with the package, making it the “cheap beer.” I kept my preferable plan (the Gold Plan) with the same price and same features. I then dramatically increased the price of the Platinum Plan while also increasing the space it provided, making it the extravagant deal for those select customers who need the space. In addition to the articles, several of my clients on my Platinum plan have been tippytoeing the max space, which is another reason for the price change.

After

My plan for my hosting isn’t to gouge my customers nor is it to make a quick buck; however, I feel like my plans are now better situated to push customers towards the average plan rather than settling for the small one with little growth potential. I plan to monitor the purchases for the next several months to see if it was successful.

It’s the beginning of the year and everyone talks about New Year’s Resolutions. While I’ve never really participated in the time-honored tradition, my friend Chris Cookley just updated his website to include a list of his resolutions. After reading them, I felt like it was a good idea to use this site as a sounding board for my own personal goals in addition to the site’s goals.

Through my years in organization leadership, I’ve learned that it is important to set very specific, realistic goals. You can sound all dreamy and next-generational when you’re coming up with your mission statement, but when you start breaking down your organization, having clearly defined goals is essential for success. So, with that being said, here are my specific goals for this year, 2013.

1. Read at least 3 books regarding UX and marketing this year.
2. Create an application for Windows 8 that could be accepted into the marketplace.
3. Cycle at least 1,000 miles this year
4. Dedicate this year to a child in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program
5. Make decisive changes to my business that increases customer satisfaction throughout the project

If you’re expecting a post from me welcoming you to my new site, or professing my hope that I will keep this site up to date, you won’t find it here. Instead, let me tell you something more important.

I own quite a few websites. Definitely more than most people, but certainly less than others. They all have a unique and dedicated purpose; MeetKenny.com is no different. So allow me to explain what this site is with a set of goals. I hope to look back on these goals from time to time to make sure that I’m not straying off my intended course.
Goals for MeetKenny.com

1. A place for me to express my opinions regarding everything web-related.
2. A sturdy and interactive platform for me to share my work.
3. A sounding board which will allow me to get a little introspective and think critically about all things UX and marketing.