Know Your Team

It’s a good question to ask who will be doing the work on this project. Who will do the initial website design and applying the design to code? If your website requirements include the creation of databases, custom applications, sign up forms, the kind skill that would fall on a website developer.

What you would want to know is are any aspect of your project being outsourced; website design companies will group a team of experts to tackle an internet project. The team can be assembled locally physically in one office or virtual where a project manager is in charge of a team of independent professionals all hired to work on a specific tasks offsite. Outsourcing becomes part of a bigger discussion we feel you should know when hiring a professional website design company.

If your project is being outsourced overseas the main advantage is cost. The disadvantage is the company you hired to develop your website is now relying on another company to get it done. The company you hired has no control over another company’s calendar. Overseas disadvantages, languages, time difference, available resources, in some places high speed internet is expensive and a simple change request may take days due to the time difference.

Is the person proposing to do your website design and development, the same person who will be doing the work or are they a sales person. If they are not going to be doing the work maybe ask for a conference call for all involved, tell the salesperson you want the designers and developers to hear your vision, this will give you a little bit insight of who you are dealing with.

We were approached last year by a company that only does website development, no design and they wanted us to give them projects we did not have the time to get done. We had one on the back burner that we discussed with this sales rep. I was a little nervous because the answer to every question was YES and all the price was very inexpensive. I asked to arrange a conference call with him and his team. The call was rescheduled 3 time, on the call it was myself, another designer from Web Cola Media, the sales rep and his development team of 1. The sales rep said the call kept getting delayed because the team was so busy working on other website projects that so it was difficult for him to get them all on the call. The developers dog would not barking as the developer was try to control his dog the dog jumped out the window and the developer had to get off the call to go chase his dog.

In the world of the internet business can happen from a home office or even an office with a dog, it was the lack of professionalism and the feeling from the developer that a potential job may come of this and he couldn’t figure out what to do with his pooch.