Author name: LRadmin

Hiring a contractor to do anything for you, including creating a website, requires a partnership. Both sides have needs and expectations. It is the customer responsibility to be sure their expectations are clear. Contractors are not clairvoyants and can not know everything the customer may be thinking about inclusions, exclusions, and time-frames.
Ask Questions and Do Your Research
If you don’t understand something, JUST ASK. It’s not macho not to ask, just dumb. Contractors cannot know what your expectations or assumptions are. Good contractors will try to find out, but even so, they can’ know all that you are thinking. So, if…

Continuing on with the things that create a better working relationship with any contractor, this week I cover Know Your Limitations and Read the Contract.
You’ve got to know your limitations
For each of us there are three resources: time, money and energy. Before starting a project it’s a good idea to evaluate how much you are comfortable spending and what you are capable of spending or investing of each. Basically, how much do you want to spend, and how much could you spend. The reason for this is that your wants may exceed your capabilities in one or more areas and you…

Summer is a time of starting fresh. A few years ago when I thought of moving, I purged the house for months of decades of acquired treasure. When you live in one place for a long time, you tend to get everything pretty much the way it works for you easily on a day to day basis. The problem is, you tend to put aside a lot of things and store things you no longer need. I found that the biggest impediment to getting rid of old clutter was recalling how much money I had spent on it. Today those…

In my last post, I talked about what it takes to be a good client. These guidelines apply whether hiring a web designer to create your business website or a painter to recolor your living space. You know how you want for the desired end result and you know what you can afford to spend. Good communication with a contractor means letting them in on those expectations.

I write about this as much to remind myself as I hire contractors as it is to share my insights for you when you hire one.
Define the desired end result
“We can hit the target,…

I love my clients and it is my primary goal to have them thrilled when their website is complete. That isn’t possible without identifying expectations and meeting them. I start with terrific clients (most of the time) who have a good understanding of what they want. The biggest challenge in any relationship based on delivery of a product or service is expectation management.
Contractors Have Expectations Too
Good contractors clearly state their expectations of what the client needs to do or provide, when and how. My clients receive a proposal with pages of information intended to manage and clarify expectations. I ask hundreds of questions of…

A website is very much like an iceberg in that what you see is only a (small) part of the whole, and it’s the part you don’t see that can really hurt you.

A Professional Web Designer spends hundreds of hours to learn

With all the modern technologies, anyone can throw up a website, but that is like saying anyone can paint. Just because you can put paint on a canvas, doesn’t mean you will create a great painting. Creating a great painting (or a great website) will mean hundreds of hours of time and learning.  And that doesn’t address whether you…