Last Thursday, I had an interesting encounter with one Mr. K - CEO of a new startup - who claimed to be a web designer (having started out with a large IT training company as an instructor, before going solo). I had visited his startup company office in one of my "guinea pig" experiments to check out the web developer training course he offered.

Why? Well, out here, many times I have found that most trainers offer rather watery training content to their students. So whenever the opportunity comes up, I try to "check" for myself to see if the advert matches the quality of learning on offer. Speaking with Mr. K over led me to conclude he was very comfortable with "money" side of the business. I however differed with him on his obvious preference for labourious focus on manual coding with PHP and other languages in web development.

It's not that I feel manual PHP or other coding is wrong or bad, but my experience out here convinces me MOST clients just WILL NOT pay enough to make it worth any good developer's time to do much of such manual work! That's why over the years, I have offered clients (and educated prospects about) the option of either adopting pre-built templates, or using Content Management Systems like Joomla, or at least Word Press. If you want to make enough PROFIT developing web solutions here in Nigeria, this is the way to go. One exception - if you have the "connections" to get outrageous contracts from big companies, then maybe what I say here may not matter.

Anyway, Mr. K at some point said he was too busy to build a website for his new venture - a special trip overseas for certification training. He had placed adverts in various media, and even via phone SMS. While I was with him, calls from potential students for his advertised services repeatedly came in. I watched him in amusement, as he fretted over the poor telephone conversation skills of his two young female staff, who often failed to get important details like names, phone numbers etc from callers!

When he took the calls himself, he did a better job, but on at least two occasions I had to motion for him to ASK the enquirer to SMS his email address (instead of waste time/money reading it out on phone!) so that the FULL details could be sent to him/her, later! I was shocked to learn from Mr. K that he had NOT prepared a website to SUPPORT his marketing and advertising campaign for a project of this nature.

Indeed, my concern was justified when one caller asked if Mr. K had a website he could check out before sending payment for the registration form. Rather than say NO (since there was none for THAT particular service), Mr. K gave him the website address for his other company focussed on sales and service of POS machines!! What kind of impression would that give the intending buyer??

Later on, Mr. K was able to free himself from routine, stress filled work to listen to me suggest the following:

1. Get a website up specifically for this project, with ALL details about the services you offer on it.

2. Add a Frequently Asked Questions page to the site, to address most of the common questions that people have been asking. That way, when they call you, they will be close to the point where they just want to pay.

3. Ensure you have a system setup on the website to get valuable contact details from those who visit the site - names, job title, location, email, phone numbers, comments etc. This will help you get a feel for the "profile" of people who are interested in your offering. It will also give you a mailing database of pre-qualified contacts you can follow up with.

To be honest, what I gathered from that day's conversation was that this gentleman was a much disorganised person, who lacked the ability to approach his tasks systematically. Or how do you explain a person who kept telling me he was a web designer, graphic designer, PHP programmer and business man, failing to prepare simple systems to REMOVE the headache of having to answer PRELIMINARY enquiries about a service advertised to NATIONAL audience??

Using a well developed website system, comprising response generating copy, automated request forms, with auto responders which allow visitors get most of the basic information they need to have to decide if they wish to discuss "buying" with the advertiser, would have saved him and his staff so much stress.

And that was what I offered to do for him - starting with getting his responses to my website content generating questionnaire that I have used since 2004. Would you believe that he was to tell me the next day that he began to doubt my ability to build a decent website BECAUSE I chose to "OVER-MARKET" him by asking him to fill a questionnaire, instead of CLOSING THE SALE, and getting on with the job?!

He went as far as saying that he suspected I could not use Macromedia Flash, and that he would pay me N50k if I was prepared to use Flash in his office to build the site. When I took him up on THAT offer, he said "Anyway, don't worry".

Mr. K claimed to be interested in my helping him QUICKLY setup the above on a website, ostensibly because he was "too busy". But he also said he had a limited budget of N15, 000 (Fifteen thousand Naira), and that this would be enough since he only want a basic site. I actually offered to use a prebuilt HTML template to setup a website for him - just to help.

He would however spend the whole of our meeting the next day trying to prove to me that the website I showed him I had done did not have (a) Flash Movies (b) what he called "Pizzaz" etc. In fact he got another person to sit in who proceeded to show me a 100% flash ICT website built - believe it or not - at a price of N10,000 (Ten Thousand Naira)!! My response was "then don't waste any more time with me - hire THAT guy who is THAT cheap, and THAT good!".

A question I asked him was: "Why not say what you want to see in your finished site, and let's look at it against your budget?"

Needless to say, I came away with the conclusion that Mr. K NEVER intended to hire me - all he wanted to do was "test" me. The reality however is that HE was the one who could not do what he claimed to specialise in.

My verdict: Mr. K could NOT do as much as he claimed he could. He had always been the "money man" in the past - hiring others to execute web design projects he won!

Why hire me - when he was able to do it? Okay, maybe he was busy. But why didn't he think to hire someone before I came around? How come he failed to THINK of building the site well BEFORE spending heavy advertising money promoting his new service to thousands of people? This happens a lot out here. People keep thinking they can "wing it". Rather than do proactive THINKING, they throw money at their ventures, and hope something clicks. Most times, even if they do not lose out, they fail to get as much as they could have, out of it.

To save yourself from making a similar mistake, don't just hire ANY web designer - hire one who knows how to develop a web marketing system that at least helps you SAVE money, time, effort and resources, in a manner that COMPLEMENTS the marketing and advertising you will do!

Read my article titled: How To Choose The Right Web Design Company

http://www.spontaneousdevelopment.com/articles/ebno1/choosewebcompany.htm

Final Words

Just for the records, I learnt Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash and Adobe Photoshop the old fashioned way, using professional web design magazine tutorials/videos written by gurus based in the US and UK - and I have successfully coached a paid student to do some of the stuff I can do.

What I learned from the gurus however taught me that you don't use technology for its sake: there MUST be PURPOSE. What purpose will your intended flash animation serve in achieving your website goal? Do you know how many of your target customers use browsers that are flash enabled? If few, that might be a good reason for you to export your flash movie in GIF format - which will show in any browser.

What about their internet connection bandwidth? These affect the visitor's ability to view your flash movies.

One more thing. Research indeed has shown that most visitors choose to SKIP a flash movie and move on the view the content they came looking for. So, why waste time developing flash components that do little to "sell" you to your visitors.

Use it where appropriate, and move on. We must use technology intelligently. This is not about showing off your skills!!!

I have tried to get so many Nigerians who call themselves web design professionals to go beyond that basic level of thinking, with very little success. They are always so competitive - trying to see where they are better than me. And wanting to out do me - and discredit me if possible. Working together or collaborating is a NO NO for them. It's either them alone or nobody.

Is there any chance that the above scenario will change in future. My opinion: very little. What a pity.

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Tayo K. Solagbade
Self-Development/Performance Enhancement Specialist