Negotiating

First, a funny cautionary tale. It is up to the professional to handle the usual “do this and we’ll later do X, Y, Z” gambit (simple: We’ll give you a repeat client discount at that time! Til then we need to charge you enough to really get our attention, and keep your project a priority) to budget (well, let’s revise the project to fit your budget – i.e. show them how they’re getting less)…. The good news: we always sell based on investing into their own business. All our projects are designed to be profit centers, not a cost item.

Design Seeding

One of your jobs as a sales professional is to give us “seeds” to work with. This includes: Design “seeds” as you see below Search Engine Optimization Keyword Seeds Content Seeds. We can rewrite whatever is needed, but need the initial expertise of the business owner or entrepreneur. One of our internal rules when starting to get some design ideas for a new site is first to look at their old site, if they have one, for certain elements you think they’ll like. Usually, this is a good source for colors and fonts, and if a client has an existing website, we’ll reference it as a general inspiration, though of course we want to wow them with something much better. This is practically never an issue, simply because the web keeps changing, so most old websites still use tables, or bad code, or static “locked down” code that the client can’t edit. Anyway, reference a client’s logo, storefront or office, any brochures, and their old website for some inspiration. Last, here’s a short list of great websites to peruse periodically to see what’s new an exciting. This is a partial list as seen originally on http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/pages/top-50-resources-for-design-inspiration.aspx cssbeauty.com cssdrive.com thefwa.com thebestdesigns.com cssvault.com unmatchedstyle.com designmeltdown.com designshack.co.uk webcreme.com cssheaven.com cssremix.com bestwebgallery.com cssmania.com patterntap.com csselite.com cssclip.com designbombs.com siteinspire.net edustyle.net styleboost.com

Tracking Your Leads

To track your leads, just add "?agent=YOURCRMLOGIN" to the end of any URL. This is most often your first initial, last name - anyone who registers through that URL will automatically show up in your CRM pipeline. Example: http://SwiftWebDesigner.com/free/?agent=rvetruba