Comments on: Copywriters Are Not Mind Readers

By: Marya Miller

Marya Miller — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 18:37:16 +0000

I have to agree, Kimberly… It’s not providing the questionnaire that’s the monkeywrench: It’s the number of clients who (a) complete them fully, and put more thought in them than an annoyed ten minutes or less (b) remember the terms of the contract.

I hate being put in the position of saying “that will cost X-$ extra”. But I’ve learned to do it, when it’s warranted.

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 17:59:28 +0000

This post is so true. I can count on one hand (no, make that four fingers) how many times a client has carefully taken the time to complete the questionnaire I provide at the onset of a project. In fact, this is usually the most frustrating part of the whole job – it ranks right up there with being asked to “revise” whole thing from another angle. How can we help clients get the results theywant without understanding important details like who your target customer is and your objective?

By: Marya Miller

Marya Miller — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:36:07 +0000

Angela, you’re so right about the “business” part being missing, with some people – and they seem to hope to make up for that by dumping the responsibility on whoever they hire. Not just for their project, I hastily add – but for all the general business knowledge they can’t seem to be proactive enough to go out and learn.

What continually boggles me – and now I’m talking about my former web design business here – is people who forget the contract says ‘2 MINOR revisions, max’ – and keep coming back with change after change after change after change… It’s the whole mind-reading thing and the expectation of endless revisions that pushed me out of web design in the end. I found myself thinking things like: “Sheesh. If you don’t know what you want at all… how am I supposed to come up with this perfect magic theme?”

But LOL – I soon learned that if I just went ahead and designed something out of thin air, based on every clue they’d given me, it was amazing how fast they’d haul out an incredibly… well… specific list of specifics – *after* the fact! ;-D

And I’m like, “Why couldn’t you have given me this list before I started designing?”

Copywriting is a bit like that occasionally… but nowhere near as bad as web design!

And now I’d better get back to that HTML coding I’m doing…

By: Angela Wills

Angela Wills — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:18:14 +0000

I think this is a very common problem on the internet and I ran into it all the time with clients. The problem, as I see it, is people come to the internet looking for a quick-fix, internet riches, their cash cow and don’t see it as a ‘real’ business or think they need to do ‘real’ work to become wealthy online.

And for years it’s been propagated by many outrageous claims by internet marketers selling ‘make money on the internet’ products and hype-filled seminars.

What many of these clients don’t realize that is in order to build a real business with a real possibility of success they need to do research, lots and lots of it. Sure, some people just ‘fall’ into the right business but you can’t make yourself do that – it happens with the right situation, drive, desire and attitude.

A real business takes research, a connection with your target market and a mental attitude of awareness that you are running A BUSINESS – not operating a little cash machine that spits out $100 bills.

Ok – this turned into quite the rant and maybe even a blog post! lol… can you tell the attitude of unprepared-ness and lack of business understanding has gotten me a little annoyed?

By: Marya Miller

Marya Miller — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:59:43 +0000

Oh, that’s a given! But one thing I learned very early on, Codrut, is that even when you have such a contract or agreement, there are still clients who apparently don’t even bother to read the agreement.

By: Codrut Turcanu

Codrut Turcanu — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 08:51:27 +0000

I’d say that a contract or agreement where we clearly state what each part gets/does it required. This way both parties should be protected.

What do you think?