Learning and growing in lean times
by November 6th, 2007 Patrick Greer
One of the biggest challenges of companies that create content, software or even engineering projects for clients is the long payment process. The bulk of the work our company does is producing web sites and print materials for clients and full payment is not due until we deliver the final product and insure the customer is happy. We are passionate about creating artistically pleasing and user friendly web design and it means just as much to us to not accept payment until the project has been satisfactory finished as it does to the customer. That being said, October has been a very challenging month for us (my wife and I) both personally and in regards to our business. Earlier in the month our dog of 10 years (we have been married 11 years) died of liver failure, we too have had our own health concern and because we have been working on several long term/large projects all at once but not yet completed or invoices have just recently been sent out we have been going through a lean and trying time.
Some of the things we have been learned this year are the need for more detailed contracts, the need to niche in our offering yet be diversified in that niche. Finally, while it is important to work on big paying projects their is also strength and security in offering smaller upfront payment services and projects.
What are we doing to address the above concerns? For one we have recognized one of the greatest things that put web design projects in a “holding pattern” is the content. If you ask any web design or web development specialist you will find this to be true. We making the creation or acquisition of compelling content our first priority in our projects. It hurts me nothing more to see customer sign off on a site an not take advantage of content management features we provide. My personal belief is if you don’t content ready for print or especially web then you are not ready to begin the process or developing those projects. Of course with a blog you will not have all your content ready since it’s an ongoing process but it’s important to have some beginning content ready. We have recently started offering a service of content creation that includes photography, copy-writing and other media creation that clients can pay for upfront so they not only have the content ready for the projects we create but for other projects that may get done by other vendors as well.
What does your company do to fill in the spaces in a quality way between the big projects?
