How We Operate - The Potential Client

This is the first post in a series titled “How We Operate” — practical applications we use to run our web studio, Bold. Our hopes are that these applications are both practical and useful for anyone trying to build a studio, go freelance or somewhere in between.

The Potential Client

Clients. Our lifeline (this is after all a client services industry). At Bold, our clients find us a variety of ways. Sometimes it’s referral, sometimes it’s repeat business, other times it’s an organic search that landed them on our website. The first point of contact is usually an email via our Contact form. This is a simple communication without too much project detail, but enough to let us know that they’re interested in hearing from us. 

Nine times out of ten, we respond and ask the potential client to fill out our more complete Project Inquiry form. That one time out of ten it’s clear that it’s a project we should say no to, and we do, but most of the time we kindly request that the client take a few minutes to fill out our Project Inquiry form (a simple Wufoo form). It’s a simple questionnaire consisting of 5 targeted questions that help us evaluate and gauge the project. I can’t emphasize enough how important this step is for us in determining whether or not this project is a good fit.

Some of the questions are standard, what is your timeline, your budget, what are the final deliverables. But some of our other questions are more targeted towards seeing if the client can articulate their project goals. Questions like “What tasks do you want visitors to achieve when they visit the site”, and “How will you measure the success of the site” let on to how well the client knows what their goals are, and let us know exactly what we would be working to achieve. If all of those answers line up, we follow up with the potential client and request a phone call. 

A phone call with the potential client can be a time consuming process (one that you can’t charge for) so it’s important that you’ve vetted the client as best you can up to this point. When we initiate a phone call, it’s almost like a first date. We get a chance to talk about what we do, our methodologies, philosophies and practices and the client gets a chance to talk more about their project and where they see Bold fitting in it. We always have blank TextEdit open during the call and write down as much as we can. Client services is as much about the client as it is about the work. We take notes about everything from personal quips about life to subtle suggestions about technologies. You would be surprised at how much you can learn about a client just by listening. This file gets saved as a notes.rtf and placed into a folder on our Dropbox called Projects - Quoted. 

In my next How We Operate post I’ll talk about our process for quoting a potential client, how we estimate our time and structure our quotes.

gaker asks:

I have a dog. Her name is Izzy. Like Izzy Stradlin when he manned the rhythmic duties of G’n’R, but if he was a she. I’m not that wild about her, but I think that goes back to the time when a dog killed my mom. Stuff like that will really jack you up.

I hate cats. Hate them. With the hate of a thousand suns. They also make me sneeze, so there’s that too.

To answer your question, Greg, I like dogs. I was just kidding about my mom. 

Friday Futon - Karate-Kick-Hi-Yah

Do you ever wonder what those musicians are thinking when they jump off their drummers kick drum and do that karate-kick-hi-yah thing? I never really get to do that when I play at my church, not because we don’t bring the rock (rock the flock) but because I don’t think God is that into karate. Actually maybe He is into karate but maybe the little old lady in the front who is already upset that the Goldtop is melting her face would be afraid that the karate-kick-hi-yah’er would fly straight off the stage at her because she just finished watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon the night before and now she’s afraid of flying karate people and Asians in general.

All that to say, I don’t personally know what the karate-kick-hi-yah’er is thinking, but I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with how people get peanut allergies. I mean, is that hereditary, or is it just some misfortunate random selection. Either way, it’s got to be a bummer all around, right? Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are like the best thing ever to come wrapped in shiny orange plastic and none of those people can eat them. And then that whole epi-pen thing with the needle and well, the needle. These are serious things and I think it would be foolish to not question them every now and again. Of course, I bet that little old lady just thinks that God gives those people peanut allergies because they were listening to that “devil music” and smoking those “marijuana cigarettes”.

Welcome Bold's newest hire, Charlie Pratt

ignorantinternets asks:

I don’t think I’d go so far as to saying my Twitter avatar has no hair. I mean, no hair is like Telly Savalas. Does this look like Telly Savalas?

Look at Telly. Look at me. Look at me looking at Telly. I’m thinking, I own him, but I’m not feeling one way or the other about it. Now back at Telly. I’ll admit, that’s a nice chrome dome, but alas, we don’t share the same no-hair look that drives the ladies wild. I just wanted to clear that up, Twitter avatar != no hair.

Back to your question, ignorantinternets. Yes, tis true that my Twitter avatar is not quite as reflective of my current state of follicle growth as it could be, but if I were to photograph myself everyday to document such things, I would be the famous Noah.

I don’t happen to have a ruler handy but I would say that my hair is currently 6-7 inches longer than it was when that photo was taken. I took this photo the other day, after buying a Vitamin Water.

Do you ever find yourself buying a Vitamin Water thinking, Yay Vitamins! But then realize that it’s nearly as sugary as a soda, but it doesn’t have that Yay Caffine! thing going for it? Happens to me all the time.

Anyways, there are a few reasons I haven’t updated my Twitter avatar but the main one is simply brand recognition (for lack of a better term). People are familiar with that avatar, I use it in several places. I mean, look at that photo of me now, I’m a long haired hippy drinking Vitamin Water; no one would even believe that I have a job.

Build Conf 2012

danielmcormond asks:

Daniel and I met back at Brooklyn Beta (the best conference you could ever attend) and we struck up a conversation about motorcycles. Daniel spends his free time rebuilding old motorcycles. I love the idea of working with your hands on something tangible. Look at this beautiful Yamaha SR-500 that’s been rebuilt and tell me that you don’t want one.

So to answer Daniel’s question as to why I haven’t started on this myself I’m afraid my excuse is kind of weak: I’m too busy at work. Bold has been growing (we just hired a new designer, more on that soon) and our client list continues to expand. I never imagined how much time would be spent on business development and management as opposed to actual designery and codery, but the sad truth is that it is a lot of hard work running a studio. That said, one day Daniel, I hope to tear into a project like this. Something I can build with my own hands, incorporating my love for design and my engineering background into a beautiful piece of machinery that I can enjoy on rides through the East Bay hills.