The truth of the matter is I never thought so either until the last few days of watching draft coverage. In reality the way teams pick players is similar to the way you SHOULD hire a web professional to design, develop and manage your website.
Here are the reasons, hear me out, they will make sense to you. (I think)
Film: Countless hours of film are watched on every player projected to be in the draft. The similarity here is that you should thoroughly review a designer’s portfolio. Don’t take their word how good they are, review their sites and see for yourself. Click around, do you see errors? If there is evidence of sloppy work, they probably aren’t the company for you to enter into a relationship with.
Team Visits: Players are invited by teams, and are tested and interviewed. For you this is the meeting you have with the web pro, it can be in person or via a phone call. Prepare a list of questions, hit them with your requirements and see how they answer. If they talk down to you or can’t answer any questions then cut the interview short. Now some questions require research so if the web pro tells you they’d have to look into certain requirements, that is ok and actually a sign of honesty. More than anything ask yourself, is this someone I can work with? if you are uncomfortable at this point the relationship won’t get better.
Background Research: Teams thoroughly look into player backgrounds and seeming top picks drop like a stone as they have questionable morals or red flags. For you this is checking references. Ask for a few clients to speak to and see how this person is to work with. Also see how they respond to support requests. If they don’t respond quickly, move on.
Bottom Line: See, it is a very similar process, both take a bit of work, but in the long run you will be happier if you follow these steps. Some NFL teams to better than others year after year. The reason is simple, they follow tried and true practices and always seem to come away with the best players. While it is luck grabbing players like Tom Brady in late rounds, in business we make our own luck. So put the time in before you hire a web professional and you will be much happier long term.
Now Web Development, and site management is a service business. There should be no confusion about this. You aren’t doing your clients a favor by building and/or managing a website. They are paying you and therefore deserve every consideration. You MUST do everything you can do to please your clients.
In fact, in my opinion, many of the no-win situations are the fault of the developer/designer and not the client.
To try and assist both sides, here are some ideas both from the development side and from the client side. Hopefully this will help you with your next web project.
Web Designers/Developers/Website Managers
Contract: The best thing you can do is have a contract which spells out exactly what you are going to do, what it will cost and what will happen if you build things not in scope. So for instance if you have a contract to build a 10 page website and it grows to 20 pages, what are the additional costs?
Phases: Break your project up into phases. Then have your client sign off on each phase. So for instance if you are designing a site have the client sign off on the design. This way they can’t come back and want to blow up what you have done.
The never ending project: Now one of the trickiest problems web developers run into is the site that never gets finished. We have all had these projects and they are bottom line killers. We have to pay our team members, but don’t get final payment until the site launches. This too can be solved by a good contract which spells out that final payment will come due x days after all the work has been done (whether or not the client sends content).
Clients:
Misunderstanding of requirements: Now many times the issue is a a developer just doesn’t get what you are looking for. You can do yourself a favor and save yourself headaches by having a requirements list which spells out exactly what you need. Make sure your designer/developer understands exactly what you need.
Contract: Insist on a contract, and make sure your developer clearly states exactly what your project entails. Make sure you own your code and that the contract spells out what happens when the relationship ends. This will save you angst and money if the relationship goes south.
Sign-off: Make sure you can sign off at different steps along the way. So you don’t get a site delivered not living up to your needs.
Bottom Line:: Notice how similar the ideas for the 2 sides are? Both want a quality product, completed in a reasonable amount of time. While Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru by cheating, If you take steps in advance of a web project, both can be satisfied and head off any problems.
