You Don’t Have to Compete
I am usually not a huge fan of email newsletters but I do have one exception, the SitePoint Tribune. If you are web developer you probably are already familiar w/ SitePoint and have been on their site and read their books, they put out good stuff. This morning one of their editorials caught my eye and I thought that it was worthy of sharing, especially since I had this same conversation the other day with a friend who does a lot of freelance work.
The editorial was inspired by one of the SitePoint forum users who asked the other developers on the forum if they even bothered competing against other companies because he felt that most companies almost always choose the lowest price when accepting bids but I tend to disagree w/ that philosophy, there are clients out there that will honestly pay more because they feel they will get a better product at the end of the day. I can’t think of an instance where my partners and I sat down and decided to underbid a project so that we could land the deal. In fact, we have even jacked up our proposals a few times in the past because we didn’t want to come in too low, or because there were some loose cannon’s or variables that we just weren’t sure about.
DrQuincy asks an excellent question in the forums: Do you bother competing with other companies? He writes about how he feels he’s wasting his time when competing against others because the client will almost always choose the lowest price. I totally agree — I hate competition for web development projects.
Looking at our projects on at the moment, we have 12 web sites under development: ten are redos of existing sites, while seven of those are sites we originally did. Two projects are new, both having been referred from existing clients. We have been the only web developer quoting on those 12 jobs. I love that! The advantages of being the sole developer putting forward a project proposal are numerous, but here are the main two:
- You’re 99% certain of winning the job.
- You can charge more.
The big question is: just how do you position your business so that you’re the only ones quoting on a project? What we do is simple — just two things:
- We ask our happy clients to refer us their friends.
- We position ourselves as experts so that existing clients and prospects assume we’re the best and never consider going elsewhere.
You see, it’s all about trust. If you’re a trusted provider or expert, there’s no reason for the prospect to go elsewhere. Fairly simple really and it can turn you from a struggling web development firm into a successful one.
Here’s something else that I shared with my friend that he got a pretty big kick out of. When we put together proposals for potential clients, we put a lot of time in estimating development costs and making sure that we totally understand the scope of their project, but once the proposal is in their hands we don’t do the daily or weekly telephone follow-up thing. We pretty much stay out of their hair unless they have a question or are ready to contract our services. It’s not that we don’t want the business, it’s one of my quirks I guess but I hate to play the part of a salesman.
I guess another one of my quirks is that if I don’t get a good vibe when talking to a potential client, they usually don’t even get a proposal. I know this sounds like poor judgment, especially in this economy, but there’s nothing worse than getting saddled to a client that you don’t work well with or who knows everything for an extended period of time. Fortunately my business partners feel the same way.
