Link Web Solutions to the Client’s ROI
Return on Investment (ROI) is a fundamental business principle in any industry… yet the web industries appear to treat ROI flippantly. How many times have you seen websites created just to piss on the Internet post in a very ordinary way?
Return on Investment is Fundamental to Business
ROI is one of the fundamental aspects of being in business… your wheels turn to the lubrication of rolling dollars and cash flow. The same applies to your client’s business. So everything you do in collaboration with your client should be focused at achieving some form of ROI.
This does not have to be cash – ROI might be more eyeballs, a specific threshold of conversions, a level of campaign awareness. And ROI should tie straight back into the SMART organisational goals and objectives that the client’s business is out to achieve. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
In my mind that ROI factor is the fundamental reason you should be employed to design and build websites. If they don’t know why they want or need a website… I don’t have a lot of respect if you go ahead and waste their time and money. Ethically I’d consider it theft.
I have even less respect if you tune out because ROI is a boring business term and you want to live in the business world of the web design fairies.
The Problem is Education & Awareness of Web Design ROI
This is the problem. We have an industry where clients undervalue what we can offer them. We have an industry where businesses say they can’t afford this or that or the other based on this notion that we just build a website for them. We have an industry befuddled with the idea that it’s about a technical crutch they need to have just to exist in the post-millenium landscape.
Hear this. If there is a link between that website they’re considering and SMART goals and objectives then they don’t undervalue you. If they know they’re going to pay a certain figure to attempt to achieve the measurable ROI then it’s a simple business decision. They invest X thousands of dollars hoping to improve business in a certain way.
Even simpler, they are more willing to pay $5,000 or $50,000 to achieve a return higher than their investment. That’s basic business 101. They are less likely to invest that money just to have a website.
Kill & Eat Your Web Design Fairies
If the numbers don’t add up then they walk away… and they should walk away.
So the problem is that we’re constantly imploring clients to pay for something that they see no real value in possessing beyond it being an Internet doorstop. Of course they undervalue your worth and skillset. Of course they go for the cheapest stupidest idea in the ballpark. Of course they employ some fucktard in high school… or even worse… they employ an educated person who still doesn’t get this idea that we’re in the business of business.
I want you to kill a web design fairy every time you’re tempted to build a website that has no measurable ROI. Kill it slowly. Eat it’s stupid head.
October 22nd, 2010 at 1:07 pm
I should add that this should be one of the defining differences between a web professional and somebody who just hacks together some code.
Web professionals should be in the business of being in business. That’s first base.
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:04 am
So you’re saying if my prospective client is convinced that people will buy product X via the website I build for them, but I personally don’t believe it’s a very sound business plan, I should turn down a $9,000 job?
October 23rd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I’m saying if you accept $9K on the basis that you’re just building a website that you as a professional know is going to fail… then yes you’re kissing the devil on that job and I think you know so. It’s in your comment… of course, in your current perspective of doing business, you’re taking the $9K job. But that economic need you have for money isn’t going to over-ride the fact you then revert to building a website for the sake of making an Internet beach towel. Knowingly doing a disservice to serve a client’s ignorance about their market or the underlying potential.
It’s their call what the ROI factor is… and it may not be cash. It could just be they want awareness in a “specified segment”. But that needs to be quantified… what segment, who, why… and then measured for success or failure.
Translate that philosophy of just taking the money and running and can you see where the industry is probably straying a bit?
The question then becomes about how you define your job… are you someone who makes websites (take the cash) or someone who develops web solutions for business problems (yes send them on and let that message get out).
By accepting you’re also stating that your market is “anyone who wants a website”. Pretty much. Which is fair enough, but that’s a statement in itself – gimme the cash & I’ll send you HTML.
However, mind this caveat. Just because you don’t agree with their business plan you’ve got to be open enough to accept they understand (hopefully) their customers. This is where the crucial question to them comes in… why? Where is the evidence?
Oh I’d so not accept that $9K if they don’t want to discuss the questions. That’s just not the market I’d be interested in pursuing. Are you saying then that you should accept every job that comes to your door regardless of parameters & ROI?
October 23rd, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Well look at it this way… you can sell into that market of “making websites for anybody” that “don’t need ROI” but then you’re in constant direct competition with non-professionals because that’s the only market they are likely to be chasing.
You only become competitors when you pursue the same customers with the same service and product.
On the other side of that coin, when you knock that $9K job back you’re strategically choosing to be something else to a particular market segment. You then find who your market really is and pursue just them, also it’s cheaper and more effective than chasing everybody or waiting for the phone to ring.
October 23rd, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Come back to this… measurability. If you have a client looking to give you $9K without knowing what they’re meant to be achieving and no way to measure success at 3 months or 12 months from failure… I think your job as an educator has fallen far short of potential.
When the client suggest X strategy and offers that money try to say “OK and how do we measure if that strategy was a success or failure?”.
Because ROI isn’t a guaranteed payday at the end of the road. ROI in this context is the “expected measurable outcome”. The yardstick that determines that success from that failure. The PURPOSE of the web site.
October 24th, 2010 at 8:33 am
Worth listening to the recent Sitepoint podcast – Rethink your job with Adam Broadway.
None of this is about new ideas.