This week I had my most retweeted tweet and shared item on LinkedIn:
In case you missed it, here's a great exchange I had re pricing yesterday…. pic.twitter.com/X86fac9vy7
— Joel Hughes (@Joel_Hughes) November 25, 2015
Now I was hesitant at sharing this Twitter DM exchange at first as, really, I’m not trying to embarrass anybody (hence no name), or mock them. No, that would be horrible.
But this does show you a problem faced by web designers and digital agencies.
Education
I’m very aware that not every person out there is clued up with stuff like websites; heck, my mum can hardly turn the TV on – that’s fine, we’re all different. In fact, that’s a good thing as, otherwise, us web designers/agency owners would be out of a job.
Which is why a core tenet of my business is all about education. We’re here to help people; many clients are stumbling our there in a digital wilderness; and they need a guide.
How much is it?
It’s completely valid to ask how much something is; price always comes into it (although, it’s not always the deciding factor we think). And it’s not their fault if they’re asking the wrong questions. This is our job to guide them. To help them. To Advise. And this is why I pointed the person to a page on my old site which talked about how much I chard (now decommissioned as thew new GM site is live).
I like to get this information out there quickly as it helps filter out (with all the good will in the world) the tyre kickers & time wasters. To move along the people who have unrealistic expectations about how much quality work costs – let someone else deal with them. Indeed, I’m of a mindset that you need to filter out the tyre kickers as quickly as possible; before they suck up too much value time; time that could be spent servicing quality clients.
How much is it?!
So when the chap came back to me again with a repeated “I need a price“, I pushed back as I needed a better angle on what he wanted. To be fair, at this stage, my warning lights were flashing; my company has been running since 2001 so you get a sixth sense with these things. I could smell ‘tyre kicker’ and I was looking for the emergency exit. Jog on.
The Conclusion
I’m not here to mock; I’m here to help. But at the same time, I’m here to help myself. I can honestly say that the clients I work with are superb people; enthusiastic listeners and does who are fired up about their businesses. So I’m naturally wary about who I let into my world.
Joel
P.s. thanks to @ProjectWIP for pointing me to this relevant Dilbert cartoon ;)