I’d like to think that with each new successful website project, whether it’s for an existing client or a new client, I learned something new. The key of course is to take that new knowledge and merge it into my process, and better yet form new habits for continual improvement.
One lesson I am always reminded of is that the Client isn’t as techie as me. I always have to catch myself and tone down the techno-babble when communicating something about the project specifics. You as the client either don’t care about the “behind the curtain” stuff, or are mildly interested but your eyes glaze over when I start talking about optimizing the MySQL instance or PHP 7 upgrades.
I’ve mentioned this before, but you as the Client always want to know what is going on with the project, even if there’s nothing going on because I’m waiting for you to give me content. Communication is king, and when it’s not there it breeds suspicion and trust begins to erode.
And you don’t really want a website. You say you want a website, but what you really want is more customers, more visitors, more activity to better your business’ bottom line. This is directly related to the techno-babble point above, in that you’re hiring me to solve a problem and a new or better website is just a tool to make that happen. I need to always remember this in my marketing to new prospects so that I speak to their business needs and not technical stuff (e.g. I use PHP7, HTML5, and CSS3 for all projects!).
As I continue to grow my business and learn from my mistakes, I strive to take these and other lessons to heart so I can better serve you and deliver successful solutions.