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What Doesn't Work
4:32 with Paul BoagPaul dispels some preconceptions about how marketing works by discussing various strategies, including cold calling and networking events.
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[Paul Boag] So let's look at the issue of marketing and promotion.
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I want to start by doing something slightly strange.
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I want to look at what doesn't work,
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because I think there are a lot of misconceptions and preconceptions
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surrounding how to market your work.
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Let's look at some things that don't work well.
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In my experience cold calling, advertising,
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bidding sites, and networking events don't work very well.
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Now you might be thinking, "Well they work for me,"
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and I'm not saying they never work.
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I'm just saying that I don't think they're the most effective way of working.
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So why don't these things work?
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Let's apply some of the principles of user centric design
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by putting ourselves in the place of our potential prospect—our potential client.
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First of all let's look at cold calling.
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The problem with cold calling—by picking up the phone and just ringing someone
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you want to work with—is that you have to call them at exactly the right time.
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They have to have a project that they want to work on there and then in order
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for your call to actually be useful. Now think about it for a minute.
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What are the chances of that actually happening,
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because if you're not calling them at exactly the right time
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all you're going to do is just annoy them,
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and they're certainly not going to want to work with you in the future if that's the case.
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Then there's advertising, isn't there?
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The problem here is that there's just too much choice.
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There are too many people out there clamoring for attention,
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going, "Look at me! Look at me! Hire me!"
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The trouble is that you'll find that advertising gets really expensive,
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and you're just going to be one voice amongst a million clamoring for attention,
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and the problem is as well from a user centric point of view
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is that for most clients buying a web site—
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paying for a web design agency to come in and build them a web site
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is an important purchase and it's too important a purchase
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just to kind of go along to Google and click on the first ad.
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It's something that needs some kind of recommendation behind it.
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Then there are those bidding sites, aren't there? You've seen them.
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You go along to something like Elance
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and you enter in your details and you ask web designers to pitch,
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but my problem with those is it's all about price.
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They're the only things that define whether or not you win the work,
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so it all becomes a race to the button,
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and your profit margins will just evaporate into the air.
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Finally, there are those networking events.
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My problem with networking events—a lot of people really like them
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and enjoy them, and they are great fun.
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It's great to meet other people working in different industries and sectors,
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but my problem with them is that everybody is selling and nobody is buying.
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You'll go along to these events hoping that someone will buy your service,
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but if everyone is selling then how are you going to win any business through it?
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So the big one is about hiring a salesperson.
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Should you hire a salesperson to do all of this stuff for you?
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Well that's a tricky question, and I have to say
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I don't think hiring a salesperson is the answer.
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After all, how do you motivate them?
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Do you put them on commission?—but commission on what?
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Is that commission on sales or commission on the profit that you make on the project?
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If it's sales, then they're just going to promise the earth, aren't they?
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"Oh yes, we can do all of these really complicated technical things
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on your web site for 50 pence" because they want to win the project
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so that they get their commission on that project.
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They don't care that you're not going to make profit on it.
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If however you provide them with commission based on profit margins,
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well that's a bit unfair on them, because your profit is so dependent
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on things outside of their control. It's not their fault if the client is badly managed.
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It's not their fault if you get stuck on a particular technical problem.
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So it's very hard to motivate an external salesperson.
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So what is our conclusion from all of this?
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Well, basically, traditional sales and marketing approaches just don't work
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when it comes to promoting your web design business.
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