Never Say WordPress When Selling a Web Design Project

http://speckyboy.com/2013/04/18/never-say-wordpress-when-selling-a-web-design-project/

by speckyboy • 13 years ago

535 103 13 years ago

> "...See how long you can go without mentioning WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Shopify, or whatever your technology poison is."

Disclaimer after reading this article: It's more about not mentioning your technology and listening to the customer, rather than WordPress specifically.

At first I thought this article was going to discuss more about the issue of everyday people knowing WordPress themes are extremely cheap (and sometimes free), so it kills the value of your web services (even though you may be building a custom theme). I know in my experience, as WordPress has became more popular, the average WordPress project has drastically gotten cheaper because clients aren't willing to pay more than X because they know they can find someone in high school or college to just build out a purchasable theme or something to that degree.

I have now found that it's much more valuable, like the article talks about, to offer more than just a simple "hey, we can skin your website and install cool plugins to accomplish all of your needs". To go on and discuss further about the client needs/wants, and provide value/knowledge, rather than just a theme.

reefab• 13 years ago

Related to this, selling services around well known Open Source Software is hard sometimes:

"Why are you are charging us so much for Wordpress/Magento/Etc ? I thought it was free?"

The fact that the initial barrier of entry of skills required to install and run a basic Wordpress install is so low make people think that all the other work required to get a website running, which has pretty much nothing to do with Wordpress or any particular technology as the article imply, is just as simple.

johnchristopher• 13 years ago

Good article. It should be obvious to any freelancer or web agency that really want to get things done and cater to customer's needs though.

It's good and proven business advice.

mootothemax• 13 years ago

So I started to give myself challenges. I would see how long I could go with a client without ever mentioning the technology we planned to build on.

I love it! Thinking back, purely by accident, the longest-lasting and most successful business relationships I've gained have been the ones where the client and I discussed their business first (and upcoming business needs!) more than the ins-and-outs of the technology itself.

I think this helps when developing as well; after starting to understand someone else's business, the more excited and interested one can become, which makes doing the work itself even more enjoyable.

Fantastic blog post, thanks for getting me thinking!

viame• 13 years ago

I feel the same way. When I chat with clients about a project, I focus on their business and clients. I get involved a little bit, see what they are all about (and after that they want to hire me as their employee, but that's another story, I should start blogging about it, hah!) I will definitely try to take the "Do not mention technology" approach to see how this may change things.

saraid216• 13 years ago

> Thinking back, purely by accident, the longest-lasting and most successful business relationships I've gained have been the ones where the client and I discussed their business first (and upcoming business needs!) more than the ins-and-outs of the technology itself.

Yup.

If you bring up the technology, the conversation becomes a matter of the client figuring out whether or not you're good enough at the technology to do the job.

That's the wrong conversation. The right one is about what value you can provide to the client, and you simply exude the competence necessary to make your own technology choice.

It's a little different if you are a representative for that technology, because you're selling the tech rather than yourself.

mccolin• 13 years ago

This is always great advice and lets you (and the client) focus on the business needs, while keeping them from having to be interested/concerned with the technology powering the solution.

raulonkar• 13 years ago

absolutely true!!!!

camus• 13 years ago

Some clients explicitly ask for wordpress/drupal ,so it is not really an issue. further more , it should be always stated in the agreement what tech you'll be using , what part you did modifiy , etc ... you dont have to say "i'm gona" use wordpress at the first meeting but , it's important the client knows what you did , and what you did not. I list every framework/plugin/library/stack/whatever i use in a contract.

larrys• 13 years ago

"Some clients explicitly ask for wordpress/drupal"

Important though to find out why they are asking for something in particular as the first step. Could be because a) someone else is bidding using that (giving you an opportunity to suggest something else) or b) they read about it somewhere and think "that's the right thing to do" or any number of other reasons like c) a trusted person advised them to use that for some reason.

By asking "why" you will be able to use the reasons in your pitch to them for what you can do or even suggest another technology (which of course depends on the reason they give you obviously if they trust their "brother in law" you don't want to go against his advice etc.)

dagw• 13 years ago

Most common reason for insisting on technology X in my experience is because they have someone in house who knows X and they don't want to be stuck pay $$$/hour every time they need to make a minor tweak or update.

dasil0032• 13 years ago

I hate to be a grammar nazi, and no offense, but it's very hard to take professional advice from a comment using completely random spacing and capitalization.

kolektiv2• 13 years ago

I used to work for a guy who often used to say to me (as the head of tech-y stuff) "customers don't care what it's running on if it works - it can run on wet string and sellotape as long as the customers are happy it's doing what it's supposed to".

I used to laugh, but we both agreed that he was right. If you're selling anything, remember it's what the customer cares about that matters, not what you care about.

valgaze• 13 years ago

Old saying: "if I ask you what time it is, I don't need to know how a watch works"

jiggy20114• 13 years ago

That's true to a point but in my experience clients can be fairly insistent about using a particular technology, even if it's a bad fit for the problem.

I guess it's probably because they know that once the project is done they can hire one of the thousands of $8/hour teenage "Wordpress/Joomla experts" for maintenance.

kolektiv2• 13 years ago

Well, yes, I guess there'll always be clients like that. I've generally been quite fortunate that I've been able to be fairly selective in life about who I work with/for, and I've rejected as many clients (more in fact) than have rejected me.

Saying that though, in those kinds of situations I do usually try and have a conversation with them about why they want to make those calls - they're paying me (or wishing to) for my professional expertise, and part of that is about educating people around surface choices which seem like a bargain but come with potential hidden costs and disasters. Some can't be helped of course :)

yogo• 13 years ago

Those are clients you probably don't want to work with anyway. The best clients are usually the ones that have a problem and need you to solve it for them, it's then up to you to use your expertise to deliver that solution. You are the professional and similar to lawyer or doctor it behooves you to do what's in the best interest of client when it comes to your technology choices. Plus if they know the technology they want to use (and often how much it should cost) there's an entire race to the bottom market that addresses this--freelance/gig boards.

spinlock• 13 years ago

Then the problem is that they want a solution that's easy to maintain. It's still not about the technology.

byamit• 13 years ago

Welcome to the wonderful world of "solution selling"!

macspoofing• 13 years ago

If you can, you should refrain from mentioning the underlying technology unless it is somehow relevant. Frequently, end-users and customers may have uninformed or misinformed opinions about a specific tech or framework, whereas the reality may be more nuanced. Customer should only really worry about the final experience and cost, and not whether Drupal or Wordpress is powering their service.

moron4hire• 13 years ago

Yeah, but what do you do when the client starts talking tech themselves? Like, saying they want it done in Ruby because "it just seems to make more beautiful websites." (true story)

driverdan2• 13 years ago

You counter with something like "Great sites can be built using any technology. What's important is to determine your needs and make something great that fulfills them." Then steer them away from the technology and back to their needs.

eykanal• 13 years ago

This is one of the few areas where us entrepreneurs can learn from enterprise. You never see large software companies talking about their technology; they sell "solutions". They've learned over the years that the customers don't give a rat's left buttock how it gets done, so long as it gets done well. The good ones know that they're not selling technology, they're selling a solution to a problem you have.

Angostura2• 13 years ago

For a certain class of customer you are absolutely right. There is another class of customer who get enraged when you bang on about bloody solutions. They know what they want - a hammer, and having a salesman blather on about the company's wide range of percussive nail-driving implements for your particular vertical' will irritate them.

tnorthcutt• 13 years ago

Keep in mind that hammers are a commodity, though.

pbiggar• 13 years ago

Well yes: know your audience. Only bad salesmen blather on about the wrong thing to the wrong person, whether it's low level technology to the enterprise CIO, or "solutions" to the startup founder.

Swannie• 13 years ago

You're still talking about hammers.

Yes, there are a class of customer that will get annoyed because you identified they have a lot of nails to hammer, they don't like cheap hammers, they don't like to replace them every year, and they don't like how some hammers leave a nasty mark (cheap paint, etc.). So the sales person tries to sell 5 nail guns, with 3 year 24hr replacement warranty, and foreseeing your objections, offers a "train the safety officer" course.

"Dude, we just need some high quality hammers that will last 5 years".

mturmon• 13 years ago

You have a point. I do technology research, and the analogy there to "solution" is "capability" -- what "capability" does your tech offer? Are there other ways to achieve this or not? Is this a required or just a desired capability for the mission/device?

Like "solution", "capability" keeps the focus off "how does it work" and on "what problem are you solving".

Vocabulary and habits of thought that remind us of the big picture can be helpful.

Angostura2• 13 years ago

As someone who has commissioned Web sites from agencies and usually sits on the client side, I'm going to make a few counterpoints:

> The worst part about it was that most of this software we were debating was free and open. There was no cost associated with the platform.

That last sentence. Arrgh. There may be no upfront cost, but there is certainly a cost involved in on-going maintenance, security, expandability and flexibility.

A lot of companies I've worked with on Web projects have come from proprietary or closed source CMSs and have suffered trauma when the only person who knows how it works disapears or the company that provides it has upped the license fees.

So they move to open source. Even so, the following question applies: "If this guy disappears, how maintainable will it be, what's the size of the community? how stable is it? how extensible? If is a complex nightmare of spaghetti for in-house staff to manage. How will I integrate it into existing systems

So yes. I love to hear your excellent plans for the business and your thoughts on how to improve customer engagement etc, but I also want to know that you are a technically competent firm which can articulate the reasons behind your choice of technology in terms better than "Oh, we know Drupal/Wordpress/Joomla and therefore that's what we use for everything.

dasil0032• 13 years ago

Absolutely true. However, I have a hard time disagreeing with the OA's general thesis. Maintainability is not something that fits in a client pitch unless the client already is aware of it as an issue. Especially getting into the nitty gritty of technology choice is a rabbit hole that is not going to help you win a project, because 99% of the time the client doesn't have the expertise to evaluate whatever claims you make about the relative maintainability of different solutions.

When it comes to winning bids, you need to speak the client's language and address the concerns they have. That's not to say you don't have an ethical obligation to consider long-term maintenance and other issues that are off the client's radar, but if you talk about it too much with a prospective client who isn't aware of it you will appear to be out of touch and not understanding their real needs.

calinet6• 13 years ago

Yeah yeah, we all know there's cost associated with running a site, open-source or not.

The good part (although not very relevant in the grand scheme of things) is that there's no licensing fees. Either way, you'll be depending on someone—in house, consultant, or automated something or other—to manage the system for you. You said it yourself—the "only guy who knows how it works" can disappear whether the project is proprietary/purchased or open-source. Personally, I think open-source apps with a large community have much less chance of disappearing overnight, and the ecosystem of available consultants is much larger.

Plus, sure, added benefit: no up-front license fees. Maintenance is likely to be similar to proprietary solutions, and everyone knows that already. No one is saying "open-source software is freeeeee" anymore, that common misconception was pretty much put to rest around 2001.

Plus, even discussing the cost of the solution up front reinforces the points the author was trying to make: that discussing the technology, its up-front cost, its maintenance cost, whether it's closed- or open-source—none of that matters. What matters is the solution. And one would hope that you'd use the right technology for the right solution, taking cost and technology into account.

The idea that you don't talk about trivial technology details until you've gathered all the requirements and found the true need is still extremely valid, and the fact that he was discussing trivial costs so soon—whether or not they were misconceptions—was a sign that he was doing it wrong.

vickytnz• 13 years ago

Yes, my former work were very clear with our clients about this (usually Drupal as this was a couple of years ago): "we use open source because it means that if you decide you don't want to work with us any more, you're not locked in and can do whatever you want. It's also common enough that you can get your own in-house developer if you really want to add functionality to it."

Our strategy was that by informing the client, they a) knew we weren't backing them into a corner and b) were informed enough to have options in the future. (Most stayed with us anyway, but it was nice to say that they had a choice)

pekk• 13 years ago

> there is certainly a cost involved in on-going maintenance, security, expandability and flexibility.

As there would be on a commercial platform (plus some extra), so what's your point?

geon2• 13 years ago

I think that was the point.

Ecio78• 13 years ago

The point is that cost of maintenance/etc.. could be different between different solutions: let's say the customer is a Microsoft shop, with some internal .Net/SQL Server skills (or just licenses or external maintenance contract): choosing i.e. DotNetNuke could be more cost-effective than opting for a Wordpress/Drupal/other LAMP solution. The same is true comparing OSS solutions too: say you have to compare two proposed OSS web solutions, one is running on the typical LAMP, the other one is FreeBSD/Erlang/PostgreSQL. They're both free and open, right? But if the customer has already some linux and/or mysql and/or php skill inside, the choice could be driven (also) by technical aspects.

ajtaylor• 13 years ago

By asking all these questions, you're ensuring you provide a better service than a generic competitor. Don't sell a technology/service - sell a business solution! This idea is the core argument that patio11 is always driving home. By selling a solution you make it much easier to get away from hourly rates. Or at the very least, enable you to increase your rate to silly money levels.

driverdan2• 13 years ago

This is true about every product. Focus on the customer's needs / pains and provide a solution. The underlying technology either doesn't matter at all or is an insignificant part of it.

Put solutions first and then when you discuss technology always take into consideration your client's level of expertise. If the client is non-technical keep technical discussions as high level as possible. Highlight ease of use and how non-technical the product is. If the client is a technical non-developer / power user highlight technical features they'll use. Developer level clients can usually figure out the tech themselves but talk some shop to build rapport.

j45• 13 years ago

The thing that gets forgotten is businesses do not have technology problems. Businesses have business problems that technology may help with.

Customers, and end users especially, rarely care what you code in, or what you're using. This does not automatically mean closed or proprietary solutions, only a reflection of whether you've built enough trust with them.

Customers are hiring you to be the guide through the decisions that they need to find and make to ensure they have the ability to communicate how they wish to on their website moving forward. Spending time trying to compare megabytes and Wordpress' doesn't communicate solution for them so quite often they will go for the sizzle rather than the steak.

crikli• 13 years ago

Here's how I sell charging what I do for web development on top of WP/Drupal/RoR/whatever (if it comes up, which is rarely does unless the customer asks about tech):

"We're planning on using <CMS/Framework" to implement your solution. The reason for this is that <CMS/Framework> allows us to make a running start in development. For example, you do not want to be paying us to write code to manage logging in to your website. That's been done a million times and we don't want you investing into the reinvention of the wheel. Using <CMS/Framework> give us things like managing users and logins. It allows the money that you're investing to be spent on those things that makes your solution unique, those important little details that have brought us to the point where we're talking about building custom software."

zzzeek• 13 years ago

wow what's old is new again. Same reason back in the 90's, all the new web agencies became obsessed with "branding" and "strategy" and pushed hard to make the technology / programmers invisible.

jongold• 13 years ago

This was one of the key points in Brennan Dunn's 'Double Your Freelancing Rate' - sell the solution, not the technology. http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/

bpatrianakos2• 13 years ago

In my experience, from day 1 it was clear no one cared about the technology. Sure you'd get some asshole know-it-all types who thought they knew how web design and development worked better that you did but most of the time people would basically say "hey, I need a website that does this and that and the other thing". The technology used was never discussed. All I'd ever tell people was "yes, you can update all of the content and a good portion of the design yourself". People who mentioned technologies were usually just parroting what some other uninformed person was saying.

I'm really curious, it seems a lot of people here may have made this same mistake, talking about technology rather than problems. Is this because you thought it was a selling point or because the client brought it up? Maybe I've just had unusual clients but this entire "problem" never really cropped up for me during my time working as a solo designer/developer.

dclowd9901• 13 years ago

My exact same first thought as well. I'm surprised that this post isn't a "no duh," but I guess I forget that not everyone understands that what a customer wants isn't a bullet point of features: they want a solution to their problem.

Eons before I got into web dev, I was hocking HP printers in brick and mortar tech stores. One of the things I was taught that I would never forget is that you sell the experience, not the product. It's not an all in one printer. It's a way to get the photos from your vacation off your camera and onto paper. Or a way to privately print your own photos. Products don't exist to be a list of features (if they're good products). They exist to solve problems. The best ones don't even need to be "sold."

bpatrianakos2• 13 years ago

Exactly! I think there's this quality that separates entrepreneurial people from non-entrepreneurial people. That quality is to understand what the customer wants. People who naturally think this way do exactly what you do - they sell on value. Meanwhile those who don't have it end up selling based on tech specs.

I don't mean to imply that some people aren't meant to be entrepreneurs. What I am saying is that there's a certain way of thinking that comes naturally to some and allows them to excel at it faster. But the good news is that this is something that can be learned.

I'm reminded of the very stark difference in marketing I see between Apple and any other PC maker. Apple sells you the ability to listen to your music anywhere, use the web easily, get photos from here to there fast, share your life with your family, and on and on. Then whenever I see any kind of PC marketing it's all "processor speed this, screen size that, Gigs of RAM" and features that don't mean much to anyone. Consumers end up doing what a lot of these website clients do when choosing a product. They seek out the thing they were told is good. So you'll see middle aged men in Best Buy saying "I want a Toshiba laptop because I heard it has X gigs of RAM and blah blah" when really there's not much separating that Toshiba from the other cheap plastic laptops next to it. In contrast I've also seen middle aged women walk into a Best Buy and say "I want the Mac that lets me video chat with my son in college". The PCs in the store let you do that too but they forgot to mention it in the marketing because they were so busy droning on about hardware specs.

*In fairness, I've seen the marketing of PCs improve a lot in recent years and it has started to get away from this sort of thing but not enough yet.

michaelbuddy2• 13 years ago

Sounds great. But websites touch everything so you have to get specific. You have discussions about how things will be maintained and integrate. Now these might be scheduled after a sale, but not always. Being vague creates suspicion to me, so you have to show me, I don't trust a salesman with a short list of rounded benefits.

Too bad in retail, the salesman is pretty much gone after the sale. Then you're stuck because the benefit of the technology doesn't actually work in practice because people have specific needs AND some processes are better than others.

So I'm not a huge buyer into the benefits sell. I think it causes people to get lazy about what they need to know about their product and I think it also puts them into assumption mode about their customer, that they don't think deeply, and that they are oblivious to any useful technical details. And those of us customers who have gotten burned before rarely forget it.

With that said, I think leading with the benefits is great, the trouble is, when everyone leads with the same general benefit "it will make x easier" it becomes time to again leverage something to set yourself apart.

cooperadymas2• 13 years ago

(All of this based on my personal experience.)

WordPress has become popular enough that many smaller businesses who need a (new) website and do a few minutes of research often come across it. Most of what they read tells them that it's the best platform for their website. They don't really know why, or what WordPress does, but they get it in their heads that they want a WordPress website. Not that there's anything wrong with that in and of itself.

The same thing used to happen with Flash. Clients would come to me insistent on having a Flash website, or at the very least, a Flash intro page. This one there does come with an inherent problem. Thankfully, this one has gone to the wayside.

127001brewer• 13 years ago

"WordPress has become popular enough ... they get it in their heads that they want a WordPress website."

From my personal experience, small businesses really want to just be able to infrequently add or update content. Most of the time, WordPress seems like a huge hammer for small nails.

Can anyone recommend a light-weight system that allows the "regular folks" add or update content without the extras (such as changing "themes", etc)?

azazo• 13 years ago

I have had a similar experience with small businesses over the past year. Even if they don't know what WordPress is someone has told them that they should use WordPress.

I position any project as a way to increase business through design, SEO/SEM, conversion rate optimization, but I find frequently that WordPress is a selling point.

jiggy20114• 13 years ago

It can come up for a few reasons.

1) They ask about it, which may be because they know a little bit about it. For example they tried to DIY it and failed, or they have a half finished version another developer did. Or they want to know how big the market is to get someone else to finish the project if you don't pan out for them.

Or they just have heard some vague stuff that they have read on blogs "Is Wordpress or Drupal better for SEO?" as if the choice of platform is going to rocket them to the front page of google...

2) I ask about it. Because sometimes they already have hosting that they want to use, in which case obviously you need to make sure the technology is going to fit that. The hardest thing sometimes is trying to persuade someone that the uber-cheap hosting provider they've chosen sucks and they'd have a better experience is they paid a few more $ a month.

I've been burned by this before, developed a system for a client. Installed it on their server and then found out they don't support PHP5 or PDO or anything even remotely modern and won't enable it for you.

LordIllidan4• 13 years ago

Shouldn't you ask what features the server supports (and what they can enable) before you even start developing? (Or whether you can host it yourself (in the case of websites))

davedx• 13 years ago

A lot of my clients are technically proficient. My biggest repeat client used to cut code for his own web shop, another is a friend who studied Computer Science, another is a startup with a CTO who worked for Google.

Sometimes I wish I had more freedom of choice with technology.

Someone• 13 years ago

I have the opposite experience: 'customers' (in my case, these always have been colleagues from management/sales/marketing) always describe their problem in terms of a solution. Worse, that solution may not even be appropriate for solving their problem.

Famous example: 'we want GPS'. Turns out the need is for navigation by the blind inside buildings (=> poor signal, if any, and a need for one meter or so resolution) or for finding entrances to buildings (that data did not exist 10 years ago and probably doesn't even today. Say, you get out of a bus at a large hospital. Where is its entrance door? Can you even tell what side of the road it is on?)

Sometimes technologies get attributed magical qualities that you cannot get out of people's heads.

TamDenholm2• 13 years ago

Aren't google working on that problem as an expansion of google maps by asking people to provide building floor plans?

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/floorplans/

virtualwhys2• 13 years ago

WordPress does not bode well for the roll-your-own crowd; that is, if you aren't able to leverage a custom backend designed to solve business requirements that WP cannot out of the box.

I started out in PHP years ago and WP put me out of business for custom PHP work -- thankfully ;-)

These days if the client wants some dirt cheap WP bling, I say ok...and then do the shop cart, custom etc. in Scala on the backend -- both client and coder are happy, nice mix.

chc• 13 years ago

WordPress can do all that. It's just an unnecessary pain.

virtualwhys2• 13 years ago

"WordPress can do all that"

Can do all what? What WordPress can do out of the box is far less than what it can't do, which is every custom website functionality one can imagine; thus the custom backend.

I agree, trying to stretch WordPress, Drupal, etc. beyond core functionality is asking for pain, not to mention dog slow performance.

gesman• 13 years ago

Title is a bit misleading, but bottom line is:

Do not sell website, sell online business solution.

bdunn• 13 years ago

patio11 and I had a great conversation about this a few months back: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/10/10/kalzumeus-podcast-3-grow...

But basically, here's the trick to close more deals and make more money: Become an investment, not an expense.

Spending money on technology (Rails, Wordpress) is an expense that implicitly doesn't correlate with any business "win". For most businesses, that win is making more money. However, when you get past the reason someone approaches you ("I need a website") to the core pain they're experiencing ("I need more customers!!!"), you can tailor everything — your proposal, meetings, execution, handoff — toward that end.

Instead of, "I will build your restaurant a website in Wordpress" — which doesn't answer the questions, "Will I make more money than I'm spending on this guy if I do this?"

Try, "I will tailor your website to get you more walk-in customers.", which conveys that you're going to be focused on getting them more business.

I've talked about this in length in my books, but I've also covered this on my podcast, most notably with the recent episode (#8): http://brennandunn.com/category/podcast/

jordanlev• 13 years ago

parent also has a reasonably-priced e-book that is fantastic, and dives much deeper into the concepts outlined by this blog post: http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/ (no relation, just a happy customer)

crunchcaptain• 13 years ago

+1 for Brennan Dunn (he has a great blog for web design / creative firms)

codegeek• 13 years ago

Good stuff. This advice can actually be applied to any generic software development area and not just web. Let me explain. I work with clients who can be technically savvy and when we start a project, instead of discussing "what is the need", they would go into "I need an excel macro that can pull this xyz data from abc source and do blah". I tell them "Sure that could be a way to address your need BUT what is your need again ? I need to understand what it is that you are looking for rather than getting into the how. Once we have clarity on the what, I am more than happy to discuss some of the hows or the implementation details".

nati• 13 years ago

Don't sell a technology, sell a solution!

LordIllidan4• 13 years ago

Is it seriously this hard to sell wordpress/drupal solutions? I work at a small company (Maltese based) - we do this every day. We never really bring up the technology itself - it's all about the customization and the effort required to develop a custom theme and integrate any plugins (some may be custom) required.

Perhaps we've been lucky with our clients but nobody has said that Wordpress is free, ergo I should be charged way less. We do not charge anything for the CMS itself - we charge for the implementation.

Also agree that talking to clients and puzzling out what he really needs is extremely important. Often, what a client says can be way different than what he means - and that can bite you hard. I've learnt to constantly ask for clarification if the client is being vague.

About SEO - Damn if I hate all the SEO "gurus" cropping up trying to peddle snake oil or some dodgy techniques that should, in theory, shoot them up the rankings, but in reality, does absolutely nothing.

robomartin• 13 years ago

Print this and post it where you can see it every day:

People go to the hardware store looking for HOLES, NOT DRILL-BITS.

Don't sell drill-bits. Sell holes.

wilfra2• 13 years ago

I don't get it. How do you sell a hole?

TamDenholm2• 13 years ago

I think the point is that if i'm hanging a picture, the only thing i care about is the picture being on the wall. The process of that happening is irrelevant to me, i go to the hardware store to buy a drill bit because thats what i know will get my picture on the wall, i dont care if it has a carbon fibre tip and its heat resistant to 200 degrees, i just want my picture on the wall, so if you were to instead offer me a small hook with some double sided tape on the back that i can just stick to the wall, i'd probably take you up on that offer because it accomplishes the thing i care about with less hassle. Things like that are how businesses are born.

Pent• 13 years ago

You are selling them the result, not how you got there.

angersock• 13 years ago

At holesale prices, duh. :)

And you do it holeheartedly, giving the customer the hole nine-yards.

It's a holesome experience, the fruit of a holistic approach.

tomkin• 13 years ago

I thought I was going to be posting a snide comment here, but I decided to read the whole article and came to the conclusion that the OP is correct. I'm a believer in giving the client the real deal - here's how I build your site/app/etc. Make them feel good about it.

There is something to be said for the "Deck Builder" analogy. The Deck Builder doesn't ask you how you'd like your nails hammered in, or what type of treatment on the wood you'd like to use. He uses his expertise to make decisions based on the environment around him, including size and scope of the project. He takes care of that for you. That's part of why you're hiring him/her.

Also, there have been many times where I have sold X and then realized, after deeper analysis, that Y was a better choice. Now I have to back peddle and re-convince the client why that change is occurring, since I made such a point to mention X before.

downandout• 13 years ago

This is spot on. The reality is that most people responsible for buying web design services do not have a need or desire to understand the technical details that you are being hired to handle. They only need to be made comfortable that you understand the technology and the business problem that they need solved. Every once in a while you'll run into someone that has heard some specific tech terms of which they have no understanding but insist on using, but those people will make themselves readily apparent to you, at which point you can whip out all the tech talk you wish.

sixtypoundhound• 13 years ago

Wordpress Blog: $25/month (assume premium hosting, some common plugins and templates)

Enterprise Content Management System: $250,000....

Same basic CRUD application about 80% of the time :)

rDr4g0n• 13 years ago

Part of the idea, finding the source of the problem rather than taking the solution at face value, can be applied anywhere. In my experience in graphic design, a client will say something like "can you make our logo bigger", which is sort of a cliche of horrible clients, but it's a cliche because it happens so often.

However, if I simply ask "why", I find out that (90% of the time), they just want the logo to be more prominent. As a graphic designer, I know a number of tricks to make elements more visible aside from making them bigger. At this point I can offer a variety of solutions that increase visibility while maintaining the balance of the original design.

alinspired• 13 years ago

Same applies to any sales (especially driven by sales engineers), but often demos go back to showing as much screens/options/features in the product as possible during given time

davemel37• 13 years ago

This is an excellent insight about getting hung up on product instead of value.

This is the inverse of the classic copywriting strategy of asking,"Therefore What?" after every marketing statement to identify the underlying benefits. i.e. we sell drills. therefore what? you can use it to make holes. etc... (my take on the saying, "you sell the hole, not the drill."

Just question everything they say and you'll stumble upon what really drives their decision.

Great Post.

chenster• 13 years ago

Wow, this is one of the best blog post that I've read in a long time. Very simple and straight to the point that customers really dont' know and dont' care about the technology used as long as it brings solutions their problems.

wowtip• 13 years ago

http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Ma...

johnnyfever• 13 years ago

I think perhaps the lesson here is to nail down the requirements properly before you start solutioning.

I'm in the middle of some business analysis training at the moment and this has been one of the main takeaways for me. One of the techniques the training suggests to help get to the real requirements is to ask the question why several times over. Interesting that Brent arrived at the same solution.

joyeuse6701• 13 years ago

Seems like a consulting approach as opposed to technology sales approach worked better. More specifically it was the technique of requirements gathering/engineering that did the trick. This is absolutely necessary in waterfall methods of software engineering, but is usually thrown by the wayside for the sake of speed in agile development.

On another note, I think a lot of tech community is predisposed to using one set of solutions (django, ror, heroku, drupal, wordpress, redis...) and end up sort of shoehorning our preference to solve a particular problem and then selling that particular solution. I'm glad the author was able to distance himself from that.

idev247• 13 years ago

I kid you not. When the article says "Zap! (lightning strike.)". There was a big flash of lightning outside my window. Freaky.

Kekeli• 13 years ago

Good stuff

nilmonibasak• 13 years ago

Customer don't buy technology, they buy service/solutions.

bschaefe_net• 13 years ago

>Instead of taking my prospects “stated needs” as absolute, I question all of them. Eventually they will fess up to the real problem they are most likely trying to solve.

THIS is the difference between a good employee and a bad one. This is why i tell all my admins to CALL THE REQUESTER if they have ANY questions. Don't waste time emailing back and forth, and don't waste time implementing a "solution" that might meet the letter of the law but have the requester coming right back for help tomorrow.

Never Say WordPress When Selling a Web Design Project

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