In last week’s article, What’s a “Gatekeeper” and Why Do I Need to “Get Past” Them?, I outlined a strategy designed to enlist the gatekeeper’s cooperation and get you to the decision-maker. It goes like this:

Since gatekeepers can’t make marketing decisions, but they can say “no” to those selling it, give them something to which they can’t say “no”—such as more customers and increased revenue— or reveal a problem they didn’t know existed, in order to get them thinking: “Perhaps my boss needs to know about this …”

One commentator (“a gatekeeper”) said my example wouldn’t work on them—and proceeded to explain why. Yet, in reality, if I’d walked into that person’s business the day before, there’s a 60 percent chance it would have worked. Why am I so sure? Because one “Big Box” SEO company actually measured a number of different approaches to determine which was most effective. Their research revealed that this one in particular landed an appointment with the decision-maker six out of ten times.

One sure way to fail at prospecting is to believe anecdotal evidence as fact. Anecdotal evidence can come in the form of one person’s opinion—as in the example above—or as your own. Just because you think a particular approach will work or not doesn’t mean it will.

Regardless of how effective an approach is, no “technique” is 100 percent successful. Yet, we’d all like to think we’re the exception, that we’re not as readily persuaded or manipulated as the next guy (or gal). In his book, Influence: Science and Practice, psychology professor Robert Cialdini discovered there’s a huge disconnect between how people say they would react when someone was attempting to influence their behavior, and how people actually react.

For example, one control group was asked if they’d allow someone who requested to cut in front of them in line to do so simply based on their looks. Overwhelming, people denied that they’d make a decision on the other person’s attractiveness, or lack thereof.

But in a blind study using people of average looks and ones with “super model” good looks, the super models were allowed to cut far more often than the average-looking individuals. Other similar studies have shown that good-looking individuals obtained help more readily than the average-looking men and women. Clearly, the majority of people aren’t even aware of the factors that influence and persuade them. The truth is, each of us is more susceptible to being persuaded or manipulated than we’d like to believe.

People will always offer anecdotal evidence why a particular prospecting method doesn’t work. There’s even an entire industry that’s sprung up around the myth that “cold-calling is dead.” Yet, most of these voices have either a bias or an agenda. (And what better way to sell your “new and improved” prospecting sales program than to convince your audience that the “old way” no longer works.)

The only way to know what truly does and doesn’t work is by obtaining objective proof. And that requires testing your approach enough times to demonstrate whether it’s successful or not. There are many who scoff at tried-and-true sales and prospecting methods. But as one of the wiser members of SitePoint’s forums recently said, “Trivialize the value of sales at your own risk.”

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In my previous article, What Every Freelancer Should Know about Prospecting for New Business, I said that selling is easy but prospecting is hard. And by far, the most intimidating aspect of prospecting is when you have to interrupt a complete stranger and attempt to get him or her to agree to meet with you. But to get to that decision-maker, there’s another, all-powerful entity you must first confront …

The Gatekeeper.

Gatekeepers can’t make marketing decisions, but they can say “no” to those selling it, because it’s their job to protect their boss. That’s why opening with “Hi, I’m from [INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]. I’m looking for the person who handles your marketing,” is generally a bad idea. If the gatekeeper is empowered to say “no” to sales people, why would you utter a phrase that immediately labels yourself as one?

Encountering resistance is natural part of prospecting, and you won’t get far selling your services if you’re not prepared to respond to it. But you can circumvent it entirely by treating the gatekeeper like he or she is the decision-maker.

Yes, you heard right. You see, in a typical prospecting call, three things must happen. You must:

1. Get to the decision-maker
2. Say something interesting
3. Ask for the appointment

But that three-step process doesn’t have to occur in that order. Suppose you “broke” the pattern like so:

1. Say something interesting
2. Get to the decision-maker
3. Ask for the appointment

But wait a minute, John. Treating the gatekeeper like the decision-maker makes no sense. Didn’t you say the gatekeeper has no authority to say “yes” to marketing or advertising? That’s right, I did.

But they don’t have the authority to say “no” either.

Let me be more specific. They don’t have the authority to say “no” to the end result of what you’re selling. Such as more customers, increased revenue, more effective online presence.

Treating the gatekeeper as the decision-maker disturbs their complacency. You need to put this thought into his or her head: “Perhaps my boss would want to know about this …” or “We laid off five people last month. Maybe we do need to improve sales …”

Working at AT&T, before I stumbled upon this, secretaries and receptionists would tell me, “We don’t advertise in the Yellow Pages.” (I often found out later that they did.) Even if I did manage to get to a decision-maker, the most common response I’d hear was “I’m not interested” or “We’re all set.”

Sales trainers refer to these as “objections” and teach you to “overcome” them. But, in reality, these rebuttals are resistance—you know, that knee-jerk reaction most of us have when we realize we’re being solicited. By acting like the gatekeeper is the decision maker, you can get past that by leveraging the fact that they have no power to say “no” to executive-level decisions that may affect the well-being of the company. Ironically, assuming the gatekeeper has the power to say “yes” actually takes away his or her power to tell you “no.”

This is known as a pattern interrupt. That’s when you interrupt that “knee-jerk” reaction (or pattern) with which gatekeepers are accustomed to responding to sales people. If you keep doing what you’re doing, and you’ll keep getting what you’re getting—a “knee-jerk” response:

Hi, I’m from XYZ Web Design. I’m looking for the person who handles your marketing.

Umm, yeah. We’re all set, thanks.

But interrupting the pattern yields radically different results:

I noticed something about your website and I have a concern that you might be losing business to one of your closest competitors, without even knowing it.

Umm, let me get my boss …

Now you try.

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According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50 percent of small businesses fail in the first five years. Included in the “Top 10 reasons” is “lack of sales” or, as a recent Forbes article described it: having no clear marketing funnel.

You need to develop a way to cost efficiently attracts leads, then convert some of them. This seems so basic, but hundreds of thousands of businesses start with no clear marketing funnel and then have to rely on luck or referrals to get customers in through the door.

A marketing funnel is the process that brings prospective buyers into your sales cycle and enables you to close a deal within a specific time frame. Unfortunately, there is no one “silver bullet” that magically drops prospects into your sales funnel. Effective marketing is more like a team than a shotgun. And a key player on that team ought to be hunter-style prospecting. (That’s when you head into the jungle to eat what you kill.)

Prospecting for new business can seem like a terrifying proposition, so if landing new or better-paying clients is not mission-critical, feel free to avoid it. But unless you’ve built up an existing base of repeat clients, or you generate sufficient word-of-mouth recommendations, prospecting for new business is essential to your survival.

Prospecting involves creating conversations that lead to sales. Having a great blog and social media activity is all well and good. But unless they create conversations that lead to a steady stream of sales, you might be hiding behind marketing to avoid selling. If your conversation is not designed to bring the other person into your sales cycle and close a deal within a specific time frame, it’s not prospecting.

Using an “Interest-Creating Remark” to Set Sales Appointments

Here’s what those confronted with the need to “sell” their services don’t like to hear: that prospecting requires interrupting people. In order for that interruption to create a conversation, you need an interest-creating remark as an opener. Here are three approaches:

Quote a Trend or Statistic

You can use trends or statistics to grab a prospect’s attention:

Trend: “Mobile search is projected to surpass desktop searches in less than two years.”
Statistic: “61 percent of mobile consumers will leave a site that’s not mobile-ready.”

The problem with using facts and figures is that they don’t “grab” like we expect they should. In order for a statistic or trend, to be effective, you need to take it one step further and disturb their complacency.

Disturb their Complacency

While trends or statistics make perfect sense to you and me, the typical business owner fails to make the connection between how that fact or figure affects his bottom line. You must “connect the dot” to address the other person’s unspoken response of “So what? Why should I care?” Go ahead, shake him up a bit.

I noticed something about your website and I have a concern that you might be losing business to one of your closest competitors.

How so?

You don’t have a mobile website, but XYZ Company does. 61 percent of consumers will abandon a non-mobile site for a competitor’s whose is. You might be losing business to XYZ, without even knowing it.

Offer a Solution to an Assumed Need

Two recent surveys have revealed the following about the typical small business owner:

• 76 percent of SMBs said “how to attract new customers” was their “top concern,” and 69 percent said it was “the #1 challenge” they face
• The average business owner works more than 50 hours a week and sleeps less than seven hours a night

From this, you can “assume” that many SMBs are highly-concerned about attracting new customers, but are too time-strapped to do it themselves. Marketing Pilgrim put it like this:

For the small business owner, it’s all about ROE – Return on Effort. They already have their hands full with the day to day running of their business, so there’s little time left over for anything else. If all a person has to do is say “run it again” when the newspaper calls about their ad, that beats the hours it will take to learn about Promoted Tweets on Twitter.

Based on the above, can you fill in the blanks for an effective interest-creating remark?

We help business owners who are concerned about _______________________, but don’t have _______________________. Is that something you need help with?

It’s not What You Say …

Over the years, I’ve become convinced that at least half (if not more) of your success lies in how you say it. A mediocre interest-creating remark delivered well will win out over an outstanding one delivered badly.

Now’s not the time to exude passion. So be charming, be likable, be casual—even nonchalant. Just don’t be intense. You’ll just freak the other person out. And freaked-out prospects usually don’t agree to an appointment.

At least in my experience.

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In my last article, I said that you can easily mimic the practices “Big Box” SEO companies have used to make themselves into such effective sales organizations. One of those practices is prospecting for new business.

Prospecting is contacting people with the sole intention of drumming up business immediately. Every industry has a predictable sales cycle—that is, the time required to take a client from first meeting to final handshake. The higher the cost and the more complex the sale, the more time involved. The sales cycle for a box of nails is around 30 seconds. For multi-million dollar enterprise application software, it’s more like 30 months. The goal of prospecting is to find someone who’s likely to buy your product or service within your typical sales cycle.

Because prospecting can be downright terrifying, it might be helpful to establish what prospecting is not—just in case you’ve deluded yourself into thinking that your current activities can be construed as such.

Prospecting is not Selling

Selling is easy. I love selling, even when the prospect doesn’t buy. Prospecting, on the other hand, is hard. Prospecting is finding someone to whom you can sell. Selling begins only after prospecting reaches a successful conclusion.

Prospecting is actually a form of marketing, which is why cold-calling is called tele-marketing not tele-selling. I make that distinction so you may realize that it’s entirely possible to have someone else do your prospecting, leaving you to do the selling.

Inbound Marketing is not Prospecting

Yellow Pages, paid or organic search, and blogs all help you be found when potential customers are in research or buying mode. Inbound marketing is when the buyer is seeking a seller. Prospecting is the exact opposite. It’s the seller seeking a buyer.

Connecting on Social Media is not Prospecting

While posting special offers on social media channels is a form of prospecting, doing so exclusively is the quickest route to being “unfollowed.” The primary purpose of social media is to establish relationships with your followers. Those may lead to sales, but social engagement cannot be called “prospecting” in the strictest sense of the word.

There are many ways to communicate with potential buyers. But unless the sole purpose of that communication is to bring the other person into your sales cycle and close a deal within a specific time frame, it’s not prospecting.

What Prospecting Is

Here are the activities I define as “prospecting”:

Cold-Calling

Cold-calling is using the phone in an attempt to set up a sales appointment with a decision-maker.

Cold-Canvassing

Cold-canvassing is cold-calling in person. Rather than trying to reach a decision-maker over the phone, you walk in.

Email Prospecting

While I don’t personally advocate it, you can use email to the same end. Sending unsolicited email is less effective than other prospecting methods and can land you on the wrong side of the law, if done wrong.

LinkedIn Prospecting

While prospecting on social media is generally frowned upon, LinkedIn is the exception to that rule. When done properly, LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for gaining new clients. The reason it’s so effective is that it allows you to target prospects who have a highly probability of needing what you sell. I’ve been prospected a number of times on LinkedIn and in many cases, it was something we were already in the market for.

To Prospect or Not to Prospect

A colleague recently shared with me that his business has changed from chasing new projects to managing long-term clients who pay to keep him within easy reach. But this doesn’t happen overnight. Here are some reasons you might engage in some or all of the prospecting methods I’m recommending.

• You’re just starting out and need clients right away
• You’re in a slump and need clients right away
• You’ve gotten lazy about your other marketing activities and need clients right away
• Your other marketing efforts have suddenly dried up and you need clients right away
• You’ve just lost your two largest clients and you need to replace that revenue right away
• You have too many cheapskate, over-demanding clients and you need to replace them with better-paying ones right away

Are you beginning to sense a common theme? I’ve had people comment that they’d rather quit their business and work for someone else than resort to cold-calling. Personally, I wish I’d learned to cold-call and prospect effectively before I decided to quit my web business.

How about you?

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According to a recent survey by International Data Corporation (IDC), PC sales had the biggest slump since records began in 1994. Shipments dropped by almost 14% in Q1 2013 compared to the previous year. Cue doom-laden stories from The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, ABC News, Business Insider and the BBC with subsequent share price drops for Microsoft, Intel and HP.

The meltdown has been attributed to factors including the continuing recession and a poor reception for Windows 8, but the primary reason was highlighted by ABC News:

The ailing personal computer market is getting weaker, and it’s starting to look as if it will never fully recover as a new generation of mobile devices reshapes the way people use technology.

So we can conclude that people have started to shun personal computers … in favor of portable personal computing devices. Why is this a major news event?

The survey indicated more than 76 million PCs were sold in the first three months of 2013 and the industry is on target to sell 300 million by the end of the year. In addition, tablets should account for a further 200 million sales. Is half a billion units a decline?

The real story here is the viability of tablet and smartphone devices combined with increased reliance on cloud computing. Most people are data consumers; if you’re browsing information or sending short messages, a portable tablet with a simpler OS, long battery life and online collaboration makes a lot of sense.

That said, I attempted to write this article on a tablet and it’s a painful experience; an on-screen keyboard, small display and awkward text selection makes me long for my PC. Data production requires a more suitable device and let’s not forget a tablet is a secondary computer for many people.

The news would have been more concerning were portable machines significantly less expensive. If anything, a decent tablet or smartphone cost more than a mid-range laptop. Perhaps the only commercial concern is the extended life of PCs. Component reliability, cloud processing and alternative computing options result in a reduced incentive to upgrade as frequently. However, this must be offset against users owning multiple gadgets.

The most we can gather from this news is that mainstream computing habits are changing. A PC may still be necessary for “real” work, but a tablet or smartphone is useful for surfing the web, analyzing reports, sending short messages, reading eBooks, listening to music and watching videos. Device contexts have changed; not sales.

The good news for web developers: we don’t care what people choose to use (or shouldn’t — take note anyone who neglects to test multiple browsers!). A decade ago, desktop developers could target a single OS (Windows) and guarantee operation on most computers. In today’s mountainous computing landscape, developers must target multiple versions of Windows, Mac OS, iOS and Android to have the same degree of coverage.

Fortunately, the web offers a cross-platform standard (HTML5) with comparatively simple mobile support (responsible design). Perhaps the PC will die, but personal computing combined with web technology has a bright future.

In last week’s article, Competing against the “Big Box” SEOs, I said that, faced with declining revenue, traditional media outlets are adding digital to their offering. This means that some of your best clients are likely being approached by their radio, Yellow Pages, or newspaper rep—perhaps someone they’ve purchased advertising from for years—and being offered the very services you provide. Or ones you don’t.

Add companies like Reach Local and Yodle into the mix, and you’re up against some highly-experienced sales people who know how to prospect and close business. That’s not to say there’s no more room for the individual freelancer. But in the same manner that WalMart and Home Depot have displaced the neighborhood merchant and local hardware store, the same threat looms for the local freelancer.

So what tactics do these companies employ that makes them so successful? For starters, they no longer position themselves as “web design” companies because—let’s face it—businesses need more than that to succeed online today. So why are you still hanging onto that label?

No, most have evolved into some type of web or digital marketing agency, which includes both organic and paid search, display advertising, social media, and even reputation management. This means there’s always something to offer a potential client, regardless of whether he’s a beginning, intermediate, or super-savvy web marketer.

Armed with a full quiver, these reps will approach your clients by looking for a “hole” in their marketing armor. They won’t bother discussing how their h1’s and title tags aren’t properly optimized. Instead, they’ll zero in on something more basic, like how their website isn’t mobile-friendly, or that they don’t appear in the local search results and how those impact their bottom line.

When used properly, this becomes a powerful prospecting tool; and by far, the most effective tactic a “Big Box” SEO rep will employ is hunter-style prospecting.

What’s Hunter-Style Prospecting?

You’d think that today’s enlightened digital agency would rely exclusively on search and social media to find clients. While they most certainly do employ these methods, the standard fare for their sales teams are cold-calling and cold-canvassing.

If you think these methods are ineffective and “old school,” you’d be wrong. Traditional media reps have used both successfully for years, and the “enlightened” digital agency has followed suit. You see, these companies understand one important demographic regarding the typical SMB—that they’re extremely time-strapped. In fact, a recent survey revealed that the average business owner works more than 50 hours a week and sleeps less than seven hours a night.

This means that after a 10-hour day of scheduling service calls, maintaining his trucks, paying the bills, making sure his shop meets OSHA regulations, struggling to complying with the new health care laws, worrying about cash flow and wondering if he’ll make this week’s payroll, Fred the plumber has no time or inclination to think about his advertising or whose marketing blog he ought to be reading. Nor is he likely to follow any of them on Twitter.

The Big Box SEOs know that an old school cold-call or unexpected drop-in the quickest way to get on Fred’s radar. Sure, Fred may get mad and throw the rep out. But the best sales people know that with a powerful interest-creating remark, six out of ten “Freds” will agree to an appointment.

Many of you decided to sell your services because of your technical expertise. For me, that expertise was being a good front-end web designer. After teaming up with a business partner who was a programmer, we thought we had all we needed. But we soon realized that our success or failure hinged on how well we could market and sell, not how well we could design and code.

The good news is, you can adopt the principles and practices of the Big Box SEOs. By “principles” I mean that they have a well-oiled prospecting machine that drives new business. Do you? A typical rep for one of these companies may need to close five sales a week to meet quota. Multiply that by dozens of reps, and you begin to see how much business these companies must bring in to maintain and stay profitable. You, on the other hand, may only need to close two sales a month to make a good living.

By “practices” I’m referring to the specify tactics they employ. While cold-calling and cold-canvassing are effective, you may have a different method that brings in sufficient business. So long as you have one.

Do you?

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You’ve heard this before: never work without a contract. The problem is, contracts can take different forms and shapes.

This is actually a good thing, as it means that the law allows you to be flexible in allocating the various obligations between you and the client, but it can also make you feel overwhelmed by options and legalese.

Let’s try to shed some light over developers’ contracts.

Important stuff

Some basic legal information, first. I promise I’ll try to keep it short and simple. Web developers usually go with one of two types of contract. One is the “work for hire”, and one is a version of a “service agreement”, that can be more or less long and complicated according to how big the project is. In both cases, you’re considered as an independent contractor under labor and tax laws (while laws my change across states, every civilized country should have some form of independent contractor relationship).

The main difference between the two types of document is in the management of intellectual property (IP — normally IP just means copyright, but the concept includes also patents and trademarks). Copyright belongs to the creator, in the moment the work is “born” (technically, the moment your creative work is embedded in a “fixed format”, that is, you write it down in an text editor).

If you work under a “work for hire”, the copyright of your work is automatically assigned to the client. Instead, if you use a “service agreement”, you can decide if, when and how the copyright of the work created will be assigned. In both cases, you’re exchanging intellectual work — the so-called “deliverables” — with money or equivalent (shares, future revenues, etc).

The List

Contracts are a little bit like code. There are some formulaic parts that are always repeated to make sure everything is covered, and there are the important sections that are unique for every deal. This is why templates are useful: they take care of the formulaic parts for you, so you can concentrate on the relevant parts.

You, and only you, can spell out what you’ll build and how to deliver it. Remember, as you should never deploy code you don’t understand, don’t sign a contract you don’t fully comprehend. I will try to explain some of the main things, but don’t hesitate to go to a lawyer for help.

Time for the exciting stuff: let’s go through the most popular real world examples.

1. AIGA’s Service Agreement for Interactive Projects. This is the gold contractual standard set by AIGA, the professional association of designers. While it was drafted for design jobs, it’s the perfect contract for big projects that involve a lot of design and code. This document is very long (there’s a short version), but is also very protective of the designer/developer interests. If you look at the section that deals with IP, you can see four main possible variations:
   1. Full assignment: after the price has been paid in full (don’t forget this part) you “assign” the copyright to the client, in full as well. This means that he now owns what you created and he can do whatever he wants with it. He usually doesn’t even have to credit you for the work, but this contract lets you keep the right to display the work in your personal portfolio.
   2. Limited license: you keep the ownership of the work, the client pays you a licensing fee to use it. The terms of the license can be as flexible as you want. You might want to let you client use the code for only that specific project, for example. Of course, the broader the license, the higher the price.
   3. Exclusive license: you guarantee to the client that you won’t use the same code or design for other, third party projects. While exclusivity is usually a perfectly acceptable request, you might not want to license exclusively those snippets of code that you recycle for every project (so-called “design tools”). But wait, this has to be subdivided further:
      1. Exclusive with modifications allowed: the clients get not only to use your work, but to edit / adapt it as he pleases.
      2. Exclusive with modifications not allowed: the client can’t change or add into what you did. A pretty rare, but absolutely legal, provision. If you are such a big shot to negotiate this for a good price, cheers for you.
2. Andy Clarke’s Contract Killer is a very different approach compared to AIGA’s. It’s a short contract in plain English, that sets the terms rather bluntly and doesn’t waste much time in miscellaneous legal clauses. Loved by designers, it’s getting popular among developers and UX people, too.
3. Eric Adler’s Website Designer Contract is a good compromise between the AIGA’s legalese party and Clarke’s British humor. While focusing on design, it takes into consideration coding, and has some nice tips to guide you through it to make sure it works for you.
4. Daniel Bearsdley’s Development Service Contract is more oriented to back-end developers, and takes into consideration parts of the code you might want to release under an open source license. This one’s really short though, and for more complicated projects you might want to check out the next examples.
5. Ross Kimbarovsky, a developer and former attorney, published this Contract for Developers Who Hate Contracts with a handy guide to contracts that’s definitely a recommended read. It talks about stuff that a lawyer can’t really help with, like setting milestones, negotiating the agreement without much hassle and writing a decent statement of work.
6. Speaking of SOWs, while they’re not strictly legal documents, statements of work are legally binding and often govern the operational side of the contract. There’s really no single school of thought on writing a good SOW, as it highly depends on your type and style of work, but here’s an example for Digital Advertising.
7. Remember that independent contractor agreements can be also called work for hire.
8. While you’ll mostly use independent contractor agreements like the ones shown so far, you can’t really go without a classic Software License. For large custom software projects, a licensing agreement might be precisely what you need. This example comes from a lawyer, who goes a long way to explain what the different parts mean and the business decisions behind them.
9. App developer? Don’t worry, this Contract for Mobile Application Development Services is a great starting point.
10. Last but not least: consulting. Everybody’s done it or will consult at least once, so bookmark a Technology Consulting Contract.

Conclusion

I hope this curated and explained list of sample developer contracts was useful. If you’re looking for some other template that you might need, see if you can find it in this larger list. Also, feel free to share comments and suggestions in the comments!

Disclaimer: This article wants to be useful and informational, but keep in mind it is not legal advice and all the legal documents cited are only to be used as a starting point. The author, the publisher, Docracy and the original authors of the documents cited disclaim any liability connected to the use of these material without a licensed attorney.

Over the last two months, I’ve discussed how to keep track of the money you make with your web design or development business.  There is some work to be done before the first payment from a client rolls in.  It’s called the contract.

It defines what the project is, what you will be paid and governs disputes.  It’s the silent partner that supports your endeavors.

Draft a Good Contract

If you have a contract drafted by an attorney, I’m very proud of you.  You are ahead of the game.  If you contract is less than a page long or – gasp! – you don’t use one: now is the time.

The Project

This is the portion of a contract that will change from client to client and from project to project.   It needs to be specific.  What is included?  Will you do six revisions or two?  Will you purchase stock art for this price point or not?  Is your client limited to a certain cost for stock art pieces?  This about what you won’t do as much as what you will.

What You Need

You know what you need from a client in order to get the work done.  It is your responsibility to require it.

Do you need art from the client?  Logos? A client’s responsibilities should be clearly delineated.  Clients that want a website often have absolutely no clue about the amount of work that will be required of them.  It never occurs to them that you do not live in their head and cannot magically extract all the information you need to produce a fabulous website or design.

If they are to provide content, say it.  If they will input their own products into the shopping cart, say it in the contract.  How should they provide direction and respond to your inquiries?  How long do they have to respond before they lose their spot in the schedule?   State it in the contract!

For example, the contract I have for my husband’s business specifically requires all direction to be given in writing.  It also allows that if verbal direction is given and he makes such changes he is not responsible for the result.  The reason for this is simple.  When clients give instruction verbally, there is nothing to which he can refer back.  You set yourself up for a we-said/they-said situation.  Some clients refuse to use email, for some reason, and only want to talk on the phone – they must accept responsibility for the resulting work.  I know you are thinking sometimes you have to talk, writing won’t cut it.  In that case, the client reduces their instructions to an email after the conversation.  You may find that what they said is not what they meant, or there is some aspect that was overlooked.

We also like to define whom we take direction from in the contract; this eliminates the problem of too many cooks in the kitchen.  We have one point of contact.  If that person sends an email, we do what is asked.  If anyone else sends an email with instructions, we forward it to our point of contact for approval.

Review of Work

How will you provide the work to be reviewed? If you have a development domain to which your client will have access, put that in the contract.  If you prefer to provide PDFs of designs for review, then state that.  There is nothing more frustrating than sending a client a document to look at and them responding with, “I thought I’d see live versions to play with.” (Yes, of course, we code several different versions because we like to waste time.)

Project Completion

Believe it or not, this is often the biggest sticking point.  If you’ve been designing or developing sites a while, you know this.  Clients never think sites are complete and designers think all the stuff at the end is maintenance or content work.  It is best to determine in the contract when the work is complete, and, therefore, when the final payment is due.  For us, this is substantial completion: “The project is ready for upload to the client’s host”.  It does not mean that we won’t do anything else; there are always tweaks and minor fixes.It just means that the work is complete by the standard in the contract.

Disputes

If your web design or development firm has any longevity at all, at some point there will be a dispute over a contract.  Often it will have nothing to do with any failure on your part; it’s just a fact of life.  Deciding how and, more importantly, where they will be resolved is an important part of your contract.  This is known as a jurisdiction clause.

Non-Payment

It is important for you to address when you can stop work for non-payment, especially in a contract where monthly work is required rather than project-based work..  Projects have discrete payment milestones (we’ll talk about that later) that must be paid before work continues.  For clients for whom you are providing monthly maintenance services, when do you stop work for non-payment?

You might know in your head when that is, but you need to let your client know as well.  Will you refuse to continue work if they have a bill over 60 days old? Or is it 30 days?  This clause also gives you an opening for bringing up non-payment with a client by making the contract the “bad guy.”  For example, the contract says if you don’t pay by x, I have to stop work.  It’s not me, it’s the contract.

Approvals

How do you know when something is approved?  This goes along with what I said before about getting direction in writing.  However, we have found through painful experience that sometimes ‘approval’ doesn’t always mean ‘approval’.

It has happened on multiple occasions that clients have said “yes that’s it, let’s build it!” and, halfway or all the way through coding, they decide they want major design changes.  Because it was not adequately addressed in the contract, we had to undertake the redesign and recoding without adequate payment.

To circumvent this problem, we require clients to sign a short document that gives design approval and acknowledges that if design changes are made after this point, hourly fees to revise the design may be incurred at our  discretion.  This keeps clients from jumping the gun.

Begin Date

The date of the contract does not have to be the date you start work, but if you will start at some point in the future, better have it in the contract.  I like to give my husband a week to get started, though usually he gets started sooner.  Sometimes a bunch of work comes in all at once and having a little leeway makes the difference between six hours of sleep and two.

Boilerplate Contract

So, hopefully you have a good contract from which to work.  Now it’s time to create a boilerplate contract.  Boilerplates make it quick to go from sale to contract to payment.  It’s not a big deal, I’m sure you use an old contract to create a new one all the time, but there is a bit of a method to it.  It keeps you from leaving old names and old information in a new contract.

• Refer to the client the same way throughout the document and avoid using names except at the beginning (first paragraph) and end of the document (signature block).  We refer to the client as “Client” throughout our contract.  You could use Customer or Owner.
• Keep all the changeable paragraphs together.  For us that means the description of the project and payment paragraphs are together not spread out all over the contract.
• Save a copy of work descriptions that you use over and over to cut and paste into your boilerplate or create multiple boilerplates, if you seem to be creating the same contract repeatedly.

Know thy Client

Before sending over a contract for signature, be sure you know who the client actually is.  You may have been speaking with Susie Smith and she wants to sell her Toe-Cozies, but she might have a company that should be the client in the contract.  A little side note: if you are a little unsure about whether they are actually a company or if they’ve really filed all their documents (startups are like that sometimes), try to make the company AND the owner as an individual as the client collectively.  Should you need to sue for non-payment, you can go after the owner individually as well.

In addition to knowing whom your client is, you should also know who has the authority to bind that client.  For individuals, that is obvious.  For companies, it’s usually the officers of the corporation, but some companies have other authorized personnel.  Make sure they have the authority to enter into the contract and make sure their title is listed under their signature, next to the printed name of the individual.

Finally, make sure you know where your project emails go and where your billing emails go.  Often they are not the same person.  If you send your billing emails to your project contact, then they have to send it on to Accounts Payable or whatever.  You are relying upon their good graces to forward it, and if they forget to do so, you are delaying your own payment.

A Word About Billing

For project billing (those where you have set your price by the project and not by the hour), I recommend dividing the cost by thirds at the very least.  My husband used to do half at the beginning and half at the end.  The problem with this is that some clients would drag their sites on forever.  We would extend the term of the contract because he wanted to complete the project and get paid, but some simple sites when on almost a year!  Now a third is due upon signing the contract, a third is due when the design is approved (see above) and the final third is due upon substantial completion but before anything is uploaded to the client’s host. Not only does he receive more money before the project is over, the invoices are less daunting to the client and they tend to be more forthcoming with finishing the work.  You could even divide it into fourths or put clients on monthly payments (debit their credit cards automatically please!).

For monthly billing, the more descriptive you are, the more quickly you will be paid and the more work you are likely to get.  I know this seems like a lot of work, but if you use a timer that integrates with your accounting system, all you have to do is describe what you just did right before you stop the timer.  It takes a few seconds.  That description can then be transferred over to the invoice.  Easy!

If you are not accepting electronic payments like PayPal or credit cards in some other manner, you are losing business.  I know that services like merchant accounts or PayPal take a percentage of your hard-earned money.  However, you are more likely to be paid quickly if you accept credit cards, and you are likely to get more clients.  The benefit definitely outweighs the cost.  And once you start accepting credit cards, raise your rates a bit in the following year.

Getting the Contract Signed

Electronic document management is a real boon to the contract process.  Although this isn’t required, it does speed up things up considerably.  The less time you spend on administrative work, the more time you have for work that pays!

I like Echosign, but there are a lot of providers out there.  You can do up to five contracts for free per month with Echosign (10 if you let them tweet for you when a contract is complete – and who doesn’t like to let everyone know they just go more business?).  Not only is it fast, it stores the contract as a permanent record for both you and your client.  Plus, it works just fine in the event of a chargeback or legal dispute.  You can even create a document library so that your boilerplates (with client info left blank, please) can be quickly sent off for signature.

Finally …

If you combine the tips in this article with the habits in my last article, you will find that your sales cycle is shorter, you are paid faster and your projects are completed a bit quicker so you can move on to the next one!

This past week, I was out of town attending a four-day sales training session. One of the trainers made the point that every organization that is serious about selling its products or services has developed a standardized sales process for its reps to follow. I’ve worked for enough of them to confirm this to be true.

Years back, when it came to selling advertising, the various media competed for wallet share. Yet many companies advertised in multiple channels, so it wasn’t a zero-sum game. That meant the Yellow Page rep could still sell advertising to a business that had invested heavily in radio, television, or even another Yellow Page directory, because they complemented one another.

All that’s changed, however. Faced with declining revenue, traditional media outlets are adding digital to their offering. So instead of competing with online media for ad dollars, Television, Radio, Yellow Pages, and Newspapers are competing directly with online media by offering the very same services.

This becomes a zero-sum game-changer, because now you’re up against some formidable companies, with a strong and experienced sales force. Yellow Page reps from companies like YP Interactive and SuperMedia are some of the best-trained sales people around. And they’re hard at work cold-calling and cold-canvassing your target market: the small- to medium-sized business.

What’s more, these small- to medium-sized businesses expect companies who provide marketing services to offer the full Monty, from search to social to local. Suddenly, being a mere “web designer”—or even an “SEO”—might make you seem antiquated.

The renowned Peter Drucker once said, “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” If you’re serious about building your business—even if that business will never employ anyone other than you—then you must get serious about creating and keeping customers. And the first part of that equation means prospecting and selling. After all, nothing happens until a sale is made.

How to Create a Customer

You may one day enjoy the luxury of obtaining all your business through word-of-mouth. But most companies do not start out that way (and those that do are the exception, not the rule). So until that day comes, you’ll have to engage in either or both methods of customer acquisition: prospecting and networking.

If nothing happens until a sale is made, then selling can’t take place without prospecting. Don’t confuse the two. Prospecting is simply finding qualified leads that may buy your product or service. Selling is everything that happens afterwards.

Networking is prospecting’s hipper, gentler younger brother. (And if you must throw social media and content marketing into the mix, that’s just networking via fiber-optic cable rather than face-to-face.)

The most serious among us will participate in both—because they know each has its strengths and weaknesses. Prospecting is fast but nerve-racking for the faint-of-heart. Networking is slow but can generate word-of-mouth gravity that pays dividends over the long haul. Prospecting is pay-per-click: instant ranking, but the leads dry up equally fast once the budget is spent. Networking is SEO: a long-term commitment that pays for itself over time. It’s no longer an either-or proposition. Your survival may hinge on doing both.

How to Keep a Customer

Keeping a customer is easy. Just make it impossible for them to leave. I don’t mean resorting to underhanded tactics like holding their domain name or source files hostage. Rather, ask yourself whether your business is designed to produce a one-time customer or a life-time client.

I said earlier that SMBs expect web companies to provide a full suite of marketing services. If you’ve pigeoned-holed yourself into the role of “web designer,” you’ve opened yourself up to your clients looking elsewhere for their other digital marketing needs. The concept of making the fourth sale first means anticipating your clients’ needs even before they know they have them.

Bear in mind that there’s a big difference between repeat business and loyalty. Despite the popular notion, providing “outstanding customer service” is not the key to retaining clients. That’s the cost of entry, one that your competition can easily match.

Loyalty, on the other hand, is a completely different commodity. Loyalty is when your clients turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you.

Competing against the “Big Box” SEOs requires you to be as good, if not better, at client acquisition and retention as they are. Their greatest strength—their size—is also their greatest weakness. Do you know how to exploit it?

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I do relatively little web design but the process has become increasingly complex in recent years. The days of static Photoshop mock-ups are probably over when you consider…

1. Responsive Web Design. If you’re using RWD (and you really should unless you’re creating a separate mobile app or website), you’re adapting the layout for the device dimensions. A single mock-up cannot illustrate all eventualities.
2. CSS3. Transitions and animations are cheap and easy to implement, but demonstrating them on a static screenshot is not possible.
3. Client expectations. Showing a lovingly-crafted mock-up to clients leads to confusion when the final site looks totally different in IE7.

Many designers have switched to browser-based mock-ups. It’s provides a far better representation of the final site and the code can be re-used accordingly. If you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you’ve just spent a lot of time and effort developing a prototype which the client hates.

Have you considered a more low-tech approach for the initial design stages? Pen and paper served us well for a millennium or two so why not draw the initial mock-ups? Admittedly, few of us are great artists and panic when faced with a blank piece of paper. But it need not be blank.

sneakpeekit provide a range of attractive, purpose-built sketch sheets for different uses including:

• desktop browsers
• tablets
• smart phones and
• grids with 1140px, 960px, 768px, 640px, 480px and 320px guides.

The packs contain various templates in PDF and JPG format. There are also Photoshop PSD grid templates should you want to scan your sketch and convert it to a graphical mock-up.

Did I mention that the sketchsheets are free to download and print? All sneakpeekit.com ask is attribution and a little promotion.

I like the sneakpeekit sketchsheets. They’re attractive, useful and provide a great starting point for design work. Carry a few around — they’ll give the impression you’re a web professional. I wish I had them years ago!…

In last week’s article, So You Got the Meeting. Now What?, I outlined the first three steps for conducting a successful sales meeting. To recap:

1. Preparation

Preparation is everything to you do to prepare for the meeting beforehand, including having a pricing strategy in place, and researching the company’s products and services.

2. Introduction

Introduction is the warm-up phase where you lay the foundation for building trust and rapport.

3. Fact-Finding

Fact-Finding is the diagnosis stage, where you find out everything you need to know in order to recommend a solution.

Without further ado, here are Steps Four through Seven.

4. Value Presentation

Simply put, value is anything someone is willing to pay to have increased or decreased. But you’ll never know what that “anything” is unless you ask the right questions.

Once you’ve established your prospect’s definition of value, it’s time to demonstrate how you can provide it. To do so, you must position your services as the means to making your prospect’s business dreams come true.

Tangible value—measured in terms of financial numbers, percentages, dollars, or time—means increasing revenue, reducing expenses, or saving time. But subjective or intangible value is something you can’t put a number on to give it meaning or value. It’s the status of being successful business owner, the luxury of retiring early, the security of having a nest egg for the future, or the pride of being able to pay for a child’s Ivy League education.

Value isn’t always about money. The more you can get your prospect focused on the emotional and intangible benefits money can bring, the better your chances of becoming the vendor of choice.

5. Recommendation

Once you’ve diagnosed the problem, it’s time to prescribe a treatment plan. I learned the hard way that offering a single solution means walking away or lowering your price if the prospect balks. As part of your pricing strategy, you need to bring more than one option to the table.

Start by presenting the higher-priced program as the best solution. But have at least one less expensive option should that be more than your prospect is prepared to pay. (And it doesn’t hurt if your high-priced option is intentionally so. It makes your second option seem less expensive than if you’d offered it first.)

Remember, you want to position your recommendation as your prospect’s means of obtaining whatever he’s identified as his key value indicators in the previous step.

6. Close

Many sales gurus will tell you that now is the time to handle and overcome your prospect’s objections. But if you asked the right questions in the fact-finding stage, you were able to discover any potential objections and address them during the value presentation—without appearing to have done so.

The close is actually where you get your prospect’s “yes” or “no” answer. Closing requires that you push the “maybe’s” off the fence. Those new to sales are often reluctant to do so, because the prospect may land on the “no” side, and “maybe” feels like the door’s still open.

But “maybe” is actually the worst answer. But that’s only true when you’ve been busy prospecting and have other potential clients in your pipeline. If not, “no” is devastating. With other prospects in your pipeline, “no” means you’re free to pursue these other opportunities. “Maybe” means three weeks of follow-up phone calls or emails—something for which you have no time if you have other opportunities to purse. So keep your pipeline full and push for the close.

That’s not to say that you must push back on the spot, during the first meeting. Clients often want time to consider your offer. But you can and should get a commitment as to when that decision will be made and how he’ll inform you of it.

7. Finalize

Even when the close results in “yes,” keep in mind that nothing’s truly final until you have a check and signed contract in hand. So now’s not the time to post a desperate “Help! Does anyone have a contract I can use?” on SitePoint’s business forum.

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Thinking about leveraging your development skills to start your own Internet-based business? Developed a killer app and aiming to launch a killer company around it?

There’s a right and a wrong way to do it. No matter how revolutionary your idea, taking an all-or-nothing approach will deplete your energy, time and financial resources before your startup is even off the ground.

Launching smart starts with paring down your idea to its essential elements. What’s at the heart of your idea? What single, unsolved problem will your product address? And how is it different than apps that are already out there?

Once you’ve arrived at the core of your idea, you’ll have arrived at what is ultimately your most valuable asset as an Internet businessperson – your minimum viable product, or MVP.

MVP Defined

MVP as a development strategy is a way of building web-based businesses while investing as little effort, risk and money as possible up front. Your MVP is what makes your idea one of a kind – the very essence of what your business will be. Consider, for instance:

• Instagram allows users to share beautifully enhanced photos with friends
• Groupon offers daily discounts for local products and services
• Amazon is a one-stop shop for online purchasing
  

While these sites have evolved over time, each began as a single, unique concept. As they’ve grown, their users have helped to define them in ways their original developers may not ever have imagined.

Why It Works

Have you worked for a startup? If so, you’re probably well aware that entrepreneurs nearly always underestimate the resources – financial and otherwise – it will take to get their ideas off the ground. If you’ve built apps from scratch for your clients, you also know that any web-based business will be in a perpetual state of growth and change. As users interact with a new product, their feedback and actual usage patterns will determine how the app will be fixed or enhanced.

Because you can’t predict how users will interact with your app, the best strategy for your first release is to start with a very limited set of features. This will not only allow you to conserve your resources for future releases, it will also allow you to plan those releases based on real usage data, not assumptions.

It’s not just a matter of starting small to reduce risk. It’s about thinking clearly, focusing on your most positive assets and being able to assess clearly as your project – and your product – is developed and honed.

Furthermore, a site that does one thing really well is of infinitely greater interest to potential users than a site that does lots of things poorly. Because it solves a very specific problem, a single great idea will be far easier and more cost-effective to market. And because you’ll have saved time and money on the front end, you’ll be able to make your app even more appealing over time.

The Bottom Line

Launching smart and lean requires homework and soul-searching. Before you start development, take the time to home in on what makes your app special. Again: What one problem does it solve? How is it better than what’s already on the market? Until you’ve clearly and convincingly answered these questions, you haven’t identified your MVP and you don’t yet have a solid foundation for moving forward.

Without your MVP, you’re not ready to build.

Arriving at your MVP before investing a single hour in development will ensure that you’re building something necessary, useful and unique, the factors that ultimately determine whether or not your business is profitable.

In its simplest form, bookkeeping is keeping track of your money.  Most everyone does it for his/her personal finances to some extent – even if it is only to check your balance before making an ATM withdrawal.  It’s not GOOD bookkeeping, but you get the idea.

The Buckets

Bookkeeping starts with a Chart of Accounts.  Think of these as buckets in which you put your money.  There are a few different kinds of buckets.  We could give them technical names and talk about the accounting equation, but that’s not necessary for every day bookkeeping.  Let’s call them Plus Buckets and Minus Buckets.  Plus buckets are things like bank accounts (including credit cards), invoices/sales or assets.  Minus buckets are loans or expenses.  At the end of the year, the taxman wants to know how much you’ve taken out of your Plus Buckets and put in your Minus Buckets.  Most of those Minus Buckets are deductions to your income.

The Content of Your Buckets

The best way to keep track of your buckets is with accounting software.  There are so many programs out there.  The better ones are not free, but just about any accounting software is better than a spreadsheet.  Spreadsheets are a lot of work, and they require multiple entries of the same transactions to get the same information you get with accounting software.  My personal favorite is Xero; it’s easy for a layperson to use but has added features for the Financial Advisor and Xero has great customer support.

For the most part, there are usually just a few Plus Buckets.  Accounts Receivable or Sales, Bank Accounts and maybe a credit card or two.  There are many, many Minus Buckets.  These are the buckets that your tax authority is most concerned with because these are the buckets that you can use to deduct from your income.  You definitely want to deduct as much from your income as legally possible.

Creating Habits

Good bookkeeping is about creating habits.  If you create the habits I list here, you will barely notice the time you spend on the books, and your cash flow and productivity will improve.

#1 – Five Minutes a Day

Doing the books each day is beneficial in many ways:

• You don’t have time to forget what you bought or whose money you were depositing;
• You can catch errors as they happen. In some cases, you have a time limit to dispute a transaction or fix an error so the earlier the better;
• It saves time at the end of the month;
• It will remind you of costs or expenses that need to be passed on to a client – so you can recoup the cost and make more money.

At some point in your day, preferably at the same point in your routine each day, either download or enter your transactions in your accounting software.  Programs like Xero and QuickBooks Online will automatically download your transactions daily from most banks so that all you have to do is review them (QuickBooks does not work well with PayPal).  Review each one and place it in a bucket.  This is called categorizing or expensing.

Whatever the name, it’s a bucket.   Most accounting programs have an automatic set of buckets, but those can be changed to suit your needs. If necessary, associate the expense with a client, or if that isn’t possible, create a draft invoice with that expense on it for use later when you are ready to bill your time. If you do this daily, reconciling your bank statement will be a breeze.

Make use of otherwise unbillable time

Most accounting software applications now have smart phone or tablet apps.  You don’t have to use time that you would normally be working to do everyday bookkeeping. I reconcile my business bank accounts on my iPhone while watching TV or waiting in line.  It’s time I can’t bill for anyway, I might as well make it worth something.  With my Xero app, I can create an invoice on my phone, and it might even be paid before I get back to my desk!

#2 – Five Minutes a Month

If you invoice for your time on a monthly basis, about two weeks after your monthly invoices go out, send statements to any client who has not already paid.  If your invoices are due 30 days after receipt, then change the timeline to five weeks.  Since you are keeping track with your five minutes a day, you will know exactly who has paid and who hasn’t.

People are forgetful.  They say to themselves that they’ll pay that invoice next week, and then it completely slips their minds. A simple statement via email reminds them, and many will pay quickly after receiving the statement.  Most accounting software allows you to create and send statements very quickly and easily. This will increase your cash flow and reduce your Accounts Receivable.

As a side note, I hope you are emailing most  if not all of your invoices.  This is not only cheaper but also faster with no trip to the mailbox or post office.   Clients usually pay more quickly without the snail mail lag time.

#3 – Ten Minutes a Month

At the beginning of each month, use your accounting software to run a Profit and Loss Statement or an Income Statement (same thing) for the previous month.  On this statement you will see how much you made and how you spent your money.  This is where you can decide that you need to cut back on certain expenses or that you have the money to make that big purchase you’ve been considering.  Ten minutes of review will give you a much better perspective on the health of your business.  As you go forward you can compare month-to-month or year-to-year.

#4 – Receipts

The taxman loves receipts!  If you are not keeping your receipts or only haphazardly keeping your receipts, you are playing with fire.  The shoebox method works (that’s throwing them all in a shoebox labeled by year) but it’s messy.  I prefer electronic storage for receipts.  Whenever I buy something business related, before I walk out of the store, I snap a picture with my smart phone app.  If I make a purchase online, I forward the email receipt to my app.  It takes maybe 20 seconds, but I have my receipt forever and no little pieces of paper swirling around my office, car, purse or wallet until they reach their final home.  Once I have snapped the picture, the receipt goes straight in the trash.

My personal preference for receipts is Receipt Bank; it’s not only simple to use but it integrates with Xero so I can see the transaction and the receipt all in one place (and so can the tax man).  However, there are many great receipt storage products out there that integrate with all sorts of accounting software.  Find the one that’s right for you.  Seconds at each purchase will save you hours  searching for that receipt to make a return, organizing your receipts later and getting your documents together for your accountant.

Cost

I’m sure some of you are saying, “But apps and software cost money!  I want to MAKE more money not SPEND it!”  Me, too!  However, if you can save yourself an hour a month for which you can now bill a client, then you’ve paid for the app and software.  More than likely your increased productivity and cash flow will far outstrip the cost.

Five minutes a day and 15 minutes a month should be all it takes for most designers and web developers, even if they have a subcontractor or two.  If you have many subs, send more than 25 to 30 invoices a month, find over time that it takes a lot longer to do the books or you just can’t or won’t create good bookkeeping habits, you might want to seek the assistance of a bookkeeper.

You will still reap the benefits of increased productivity and cash flow, with the added bonus of not having to do it yourself.

I landed my first sales appointment entirely by accident. A co-worker was designing a logo and business card for his girlfriend’s cousin’s company and hooked me up to talk with him about building a website. (After all, I knew more about designing websites than my friend—I’d already designed two.)

Business-wise, I did more things wrong than I did right. Things like no contract, no money down, building the site with no content, then waiting months for content before getting a dime. But correcting those missteps was nowhere near as difficult as figuring out how to handle a sales meeting. I didn’t realize there were specific steps I could follow that would increase my likelihood of bringing the meeting to a successful conclusion—or at least some type of conclusion.

Instead, I felt more like Alice wandering in Wonderland:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

So if like me, you’ve grown weary of “walking long enough” only to lose control during client meetings, here’s the path from handshake, to close, to finalized sale.

1. Preparation

This is not the time to post a desperate “Help! How much should I charge?” on SitePoint’s business forum. Having your pricing strategy in place ahead of time will relieve you of much unwanted stress. Go ahead; do it now. I’ll wait.

Besides knowing what to charge, you’ll also want to find out a bit about the company, its products and services. These days, it’s inexcusable not to know as much as you can before you walk in the door. But don’t over do it; learn enough to speaking intelligently about the prospect’s business.

You’ll also need some marketing intel—like the condition of their current website or how well they rank for their primary keywords. As tempting as it might be to run a 15-page site audit detailing how optimizing their ALT tags and adding structured schema data will improve their search ranking, keep this in mind:

1. Unless and until they become a client, do not give too much information away for free.
2. Beware of confusing your prospect with too much technical information. If he’s “a deer in the headlights,” he’s not moving.

Ideally, it’s best to look for one or two kinks in their marketing armor that will open the door for further discussion—such as a bad review of which he’s unaware; or their business information listed inconsistently on local search directories.

2. Introduction

A lot has to happen between that first introductory handshake and the final one that seals the deal. But first and foremost, the prospect has to like and trust you.

Much has been written about how to develop like and trust in sales, including false rapport-building techniques, such as mirroring and matching the other person’s body language. But here’s a novel approach. How about being a likable and trustworthy person?

A big part of being likable is taking a genuine interest in the other person by truly (as opposed to pretending to) listen. Being liked doesn’t automatically engender trust. But you’ll never gain trust without first being liked.

3. Fact-Finding

If you use the Introduction as a warm-up stage, you’ll find it easy to transition into Fact-Finding. As a rule-of-thumb, I go from general to more and more specific questions as the meeting progresses. So in the Introduction stage, I might start off my asking, “How did you get started in this business?” That gets the other person talking about his favorite subject—himself. At whatever point it makes sense, I pull out my note pad and continue asking follow-up questions until I get all the information I need.

With enough practice, you’ll be able to interview even the most astute prospects without them even noticing.

Those are the first three steps of your journey. Next week, we’ll conclude with the final four, in How to Make a Sales Presentation.

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