Nick Pullaro: Day 1

October 08, 2003 | View Comments (7) | Category: Design Journal

Summary: My first talk with Nick about his site.

I have known Nick since I was a teenager (not that long ago) so when I was approached to design a site for him I was kind of surprised because I didn't know anyone outside my close friends who knew I did this sort of stuff. I have heard many people say that they do not like to do work for friends and family and I can understand why. There can be a little more added pressure, but I guess it depends on how you look at it. With Nick, he is not the computer savvy type and neither are too many of his clients. This made me wonder why he would want a site and even more why would a CPA who is going to retire in 3 years want a site?

Nick's business has developed like a family. All of his clients are well known on a personal basis. Nick does not see them as a means to an end, but as actual people that he would like to develop a relationship with. He figured that a website could better help serve his existing clients by providing them with a central place to get important information that could pertain to their businesses. This was another interesting thing about the upcoming site. It is not going to be used to develop new business. Its main purpose is for the existing clients. I have never in my life done anything like this before.

Many people in any computer field I am sure would love to go out on business for themselves and be successful. This is especially true for designers because having your business can mean more money and greater freedom. However, the hard part can be getting clients to actually generate the money. I was fortunate to have Nick come across at this time right when I was getting ready to start 9rules. Some quick advice for everyone is that you never know who will need your services in the future, so be kind to most people and screw the rest who you just can not deal with. But I digress...

My initial conversation involved me explaining exactly what I do and how I am different than the kid down the street who can make sites for $500. You have to remember that Nick is an Accoutant so he is very careful with his money. Even knowing this I was not going to lower my costs for development, I just simply had to explain better why my services are worth the costs. This is another important thing that I believe many freelance people miss. You are going into this business because you believe you are offering a service that people will pay for. You can not survive creating websites for $300. At that rate I would have to do about 1-2 websites a week and that is not going to happen. On the flipside you also have to be honest with yourself and see if your services are up to the rate you are willing to charge. That is tougher than you may think because in a sense we all have our egos that many times need to be put to the side.

Anyways, I finished the conversation asking general questions about what he is looking for in a site and other such things. With this information I am able to write a proposal that I am presenting to him on Friday and things will move on from there. These are the main points I gathered from the conversation:

I asked him if he knew of any competitor's sites that I could look at because that is a great way to gather ideas. This also helps to see what kind of tastes your client might have if they like the sites. The sites he showed me did not impress me at all. In fact, it kind of seemed like all the Accountants were a little frugal with their money when it came to web development. That does not mean though that I can produce something that is a little better than the competition. It really is impossible for me to walk away from something that I am not proud of and even more so now because someone is paying me to do it and they are putting there trust in me. If you do not love what you do and don't believe that you should walk away from every project proud of what you did, then maybe you are in the wrong field. It is time to put the Frontpage kiddies to bed and improve the web with our design. It is time for clean sites that everyone can enjoy. If we are to be considered professionals then we must start doing professional work. At least that is the way I see it.

To say the least, my first experience with a client was pretty easy. It definitely helped that I knew the person because the conversation was able to flow more smoothly. I can only hope that all future client interactions work like this. For those people wondering why I would even post something like this on the web my answer is that I always wanted to read something like this and I am sure others would to. Not everyone has a friend who is successful in the business that they can talk to so getting a real life story about how certain scenarios might play out can only help people. I also realize that by the end of this project many might look at the design and wonder why anyone would pay for something like that when they could do it better. Well that is fine. I use this site for my own learning and part of that involves listening to criticism. With these thoughts I can only get better. I am done.

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Comments

#1

"You can not survive creating websites for $300. At that rate I would have to do about 1-2 websites a week and that is not going to happen."

More like 3-4... 1 only grosses 15K a year, and 30K doesn't buy you a new G5 or any other great toys.... *grin*

Looking forward to more posts on this. Hmm, I'm getting ready to do a redesign of a client's site whose business has expanded and merged with another consultancy. Maybe I'll try writing it out, too. But I'm much lazier than you are. I just leave long comments. :-)

By the way, if you've not read here, there's some good stuff on how to price yourself and how to present those prices:
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/indexBusiness.html

JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)

#2

You think I don't know about AlistApart JC?!? Come on now man. Thanks for the link :) You lazy though? Could have surprised me with the comments you leave.

Writing something like this is definitely not easy, but that is what I specialize in...making my life difficult.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#3

You gotta have pride in what you do, no doubt, but successful freelance work depends very little on your own personal reflections. Your skill itself is not even the main factor in success. Understanding the client is the key. Listen to them, analyze them, and communicate with them on their terms. This may mean getting technical, but more often I've found the client cares nothing of the details. Often times they have backwards priorities (or some hidden insight, who knows?), but there is no reason to disagree with the client until you have a clear, understandable reason why an alternative approach is better. You give them what they want non-critical issuesl to build up enough political capital to tackle the major issues head on. In the end, not every project will necessary meet up to your idealistic standards, but you will be building the important skills of success. Oh well, we always have our personal sites to play on.

Gabe (http://www.websaviour.com/)

#4

I find determining what to charge people is most difficult. It's the main reason I've avoided doing much freelance work. I usually find that there's very little correlation between what I feel my time is worth and what my client is willing to pay.

kyle (http://www.allergic2love.com)

#5

It can be difficult coming up with a price because you don't want to underbid yourself wehre you are not making enough to survive and you do not want to overcharge to the point where the guys goes somewhere else. The only suggestion I have gotten from people is to be honest with yourself. There are some good articles on Sitepoint showing how you can calculate the bid amount.

Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)

#6

There's also a good estimator on bjork.net. The programmer, not the band. It requires you to know the scope of the project though. You tell it the skill level of the coders, the complexity of the project, and the number of either pages or for better accuracy, functions, and it creates an estimate in terms of time and dollar amount based on what you say you charge per hour.

It seems to be a bit high, though.

JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)

#7

And I knew you'd been to alistapart, but wasn't sure if you'd read the business sections or just the design sections, since you were coding for a company instead of your own business.

JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)

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