BlogSmall business, Marketing, Promotion and Web Design

There is this phrase that I use like it’s a word parasite - “generally speaking”. I use it quite often when I need to point to a big picture. Get on a same page. Explain something in general or layman terms. Simplify things.

Interesting enough, most clients don’t quite get that big picture. Like for example this guy who wanted a six-page web site to sell about 2000 items of merchandise. Not a biggie. Or another group of partners who calculated the industry’s average price per page, then rearranged the information on the site so it would fit into their budget. Then started calling web design studios (us included) to ask for a quote on few pages worth of web site. Turned out they were trying to get a system the size of a Amazon into those few pages.

If you look at any advertising - you can also see what I mean. For example, look at any shampoo ad. You can see a bottle of product, the hair (that most likely belongs to an attractive woman), the zoomed animation that shows how hair is restored by use of shampoo, and all the other stuff. But you are not being sold the bottle of shampoo. Ad doesn’t even try to sell you that bottle, rather it sells you the ability to be attractive, to get that sex appeal. In other words - it sells you happiness, achievable easier than ever by purchasing just that one bottle. If you buy two - there’s a discount available, so it comes with even more happiness. Generally speaking - by buying a bottle of shampoo you are buying happiness. There, now you have it.

Ability to be “generally speaking” is quite rare, as I have found out. Most of the times when I hear someone “generally speaking” I tend to get very quiet and listen. It’s about the big picture, so it must be important.

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Yesterday I have returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Chicago. Aside from matrimonial errands (my friends were getting married) I had a chance to communicate to a lot of different people from various social groups. Aside from regular chit-chat I was inquiring on the cost of living. Obviously you can get data from various web sites, from Monster.com to specialized ones, including Craigslist. What you don’t get is a “feeling”, the whole picture of quality of life. What can you afford if you are making $XX,000 per year? What can you afford if you make $YY,000 more? Gas, insurance, food - you can get the numbers, but it is usually hard to get an idea.As in many smaller communities, much more business done on a personal referral basis. This is good, because you only need to be good at what you are already doing and think less about marketing to various groups. It is also bad, since “word of mouth” is the slowest communication tool. Also it won’t forget your mistakes as easy as larger, unconnected market. Last, but not least - it’s complicated, because there will be a lot of people with whom you will naturally trade, for example - I create a web site for a car dealer to get a big discount on a car I like. No actual money involved, but I still get something for something.Good thing about coming into such a community - you immediately get a lot of referrals and potential clients. Bad thing is - they all expect you to perform nearly for free, because they were personally referred to you. If you set initial price too high - they’ll just flock away without even bargaining. If you set a reasonable price - they will try to negotiate it down to ridiculous levels, spreading bad news if you don’t let them.Probably that’s why, even though so many people encouraged me to move, I still don’t. New York is still much bigger market.

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Yesterday the lock on my apartment door broke. I went to a hardware store and got myself one of the new Mul-T-Lock locks. Then I asked my father to team up with me and install the lock.

Not so much to my amazement, but just to prove the point, the 3.5 hour installation (including steel plate on the exterior of the door and other minor parts) went exactly the way any web project goes - with tests, beta versions and live releases. We measured the holes and distance between them, we put the lock on the door to see how it would look like (created a mash-up), we drilled the holes and installed parts of the lock without fully tightening screws (there’s your beta version) to see if key is able to rotate and the lock is, indeed functioning, then we tightened the screws and moved on to a next part of installation (there is your milestone).

The point I am trying to make here is no matter what you do - there is always a little project management going on.

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