16 – The Right Way to Present Web Designs to Clients (and Avoid Endless Revisions)

[00:00:00] What’s up y’all? Welcome to the Web Design Empire where we share stories and strategies to help you build your web design empire from a side gig to multiple six figs. I’m John.
This is Kelly. We’re both full-time freelance web designers who’ve escaped the real world. Broke up with our job, our bosses. Our cubicles and our commutes, those dreaded commutes over 15 years ago, and we haven’t looked back, we’re also course creators. Check out break into web.com. We’re web design business coaches, web design store owners.
Kelly owns Airbnbs and I’m a touring professional musician. All that to say we are forever building our empires. Today we’re talking about how to effectively present your designs to clients in a way that’s going to reduce revisions and finish projects faster. This method I’ve been using, usually, within one or two rounds of revisions done.
I [00:01:00] rarely see a round three anymore or anything beyond that. , I’m very excited about this topic. I know a lot about this topic. He really is. You guys, I’ve, definitely made mistakes and learned from them and we’ll hit all that stuff at first. How is your week going, Kelly?
How’s it going? , We actually just went to Nebraska quick, for a couple nights. My nephew graduated, from high school, so went back for his graduation party, saw some family that I haven’t seen in a long time, which was awesome. Like extended family. So that was great. And yeah, now we got dance recitals coming up.
We just had a musical recital. I don’t even remember what else is going on. Volleyball camps. I know that’s in there. What about you? Have you been, you’ve been traveling? Yeah. Yes, the, I took, my entire family, so I have two daughters.
They will be two and four here next month. And then also took my mom and dad for a week down to Panama City Beach, Margaritaville Beach Cottage Resort. It was like across the street from the [00:02:00] beach. It was amazing. Oh, it was amazing. It was a, it was the, I imagine , like a subdivision of houses all painted and fun pastelly colors, but like, oh, cool.
I love that. But like, muted ones, like, yeah. Yeah. Not like, ah, you know, and, beach was across the street and you could rent umbrellas of course. And, but then on the resort there was a big, big pool, a a massive lazy river and a couple water slides. A, a pool that the kids could walk into, you know, instead of like, are your girlies big enough to do water slides or no?
Not yet. Not quite. The first day I took our, she’s three right now, but I took her down and I was trying to pass her off to Corrine at the very end of the water slide, but that didn’t happen. So before she goes under Okay. And we both went in and that she was kind of done after that. But no, it was amazing. And so what was funny was I booked it on Airbnb.
Mm-hmm. And, when I checked out, they gave the resort, gave me a bill that included room charges on there. And I was like, Hey, I’ve already [00:03:00] paid Airbnb. And so they removed them. But when I added up what I would’ve paid, going directly with them. It was cheaper. It was about $1,800 cheaper. Yeah.
Lesson learned next. Isn’t that funny? , That’s really interesting. , In other news,, we had, uh, basketball jerseys made. Check this out. I see you’re wearing a jersey.
Aw, that’s adorable. Why’d you pick 22? Well, that was my high number in high school. Oh, okay. But our, and they’re reversible. Um, so our, our, oh, very nice whole, our whole team has ’em now. Nice. And where do you play? Just at the gym. Open gym night. Well, there, there is a league, but no, these are just more for like, it’s just, it’s just a, another, it’s just a piece of clothing.
My 14-year-old wears jerseys to her hiphop class, so it’s just kinda like that. Yeah, just like that. Like, like I, I think some of the, some of the girls are excited. It’s like, okay, cool. Like, great. Yeah. Jerseys are, yeah, schwag. [00:04:00] Love it. Alright, let’s get into this. How do effectively do designs to your clients and reduce revisions, which in turn gets projects close faster, makes you more money.
Yep. I came up with this a few years back and actually there’s a full training of this in break into web. Yes. So if you’re curious, there’s a, when you sign up for break into web, not only do you get. A technical course on here’s how to build a website from scratch. You also get a, a full fledged business course that’s full of like how to grow your business, where to find clients, how to price all this stuff in depth.
There’s email scripts in there, there’s all kinds of stuff to help you. And then you also get this, a bunch of these little advanced mini courses Yes. That we have ranging everything that didn’t really fit into either category. Yeah, yeah. Everything from SEO to WooCommerce to, uh, there’s a design masterclass in there.
And this is one of the mini courses. It’s a one video. Yes. It’s 40 minutes long. And I go through a real client, project that we did and launched, and I [00:05:00] go through how I presented each deliverable to them. So we’ll get to all that, but. How do you wanna do this?
I have a bunch of, I have like, I know you got all the guts. Mm-hmm. And honestly, like this is something that I do as well, but I don’t think I do it quite to the level you do. And so I have questions and I know mistakes that I’ve made. And so I will kind of interview you.
How about that? Interview me. Okay. So I think where we start is, is why, why, and when you say present, are you talking about like a, you’re not doing like a live call or like an in person presentation? This is a prerecorded video that you’re sending. It could be live and in person, but I like to do them at home with, through like Loom, using Loom.
Okay. Okay. Perfect. I mean, it could, it could be through Zoom, but I just think it comes off better. If you can get your complete presentation without them interrupt you, right. Without getting interrupted. Exactly. Yeah. I think that is the whole point. And again, the purpose of these presentations, besides you know, without being [00:06:00] interrupted , is ultimately to prevent endless revisions.
It’s also to prevent, like. Micromanaging, you know? Yeah. You want to present it in a way where they see you as the expert and that it’s this one and done. Like, I nailed it, you love it, kind of thing. As opposed to, well, let me see some rounded corners somewhere, or whatever.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then also, you don’t want, I think you also wanna prevent just ghosting or crickets, , where , you want to provide this.. This process for revisions and feedback so that they’re not just like overwhelmed with, point being, you don’t wanna just send them a link and say, here it is.
What do you think? You know, , worst thing you can do, that’s the worst. Yeah. And of course, that’s where we all started. And so that’s why, John has evolved into this really cool process that works really well. So I think that kind of covers the why, right? That’s the point of these presentations.
So let’s start with the prep. ‘Cause I assume from the very beginning, the client knows , they’re awaiting [00:07:00] this presentation. But there’s also several steps that have already been checked off before this comes. You’re not just going from, client signs off, sends a check, and then boom presentation.
Like, let us know the prep, the before prep. Yep. Yeah. So every project at artillery, we start with strategy. And there’s a strategy call that happens where we listen to their goals. I wrote down here, clients want to feel heard, don’t we all They want to think you’re taking a lot of time.
It’s part therapy and that’s okay. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. And, you know, they want to think you’re taking time to craft the solution to meet their goals. Even if you had something ready, you can’t just be like, oh, here it is, like too soon. You know? Yeah. And then our strategy questionnaire actually includes some, like a few website examples that they click which one they like the most visually.
And there’s also some, like basic, a few fonts on there that they Yep. That they kind of pick. There’s like a rif. Yep. Mm-hmm. A modern something in between. Yeah. And so that’s usually the [00:08:00] main, and then the other prep is that they’ve gone through a explanation of how our process works.
Right. And the biggest thing, we’ve done that before in another episode, but the biggest thing is, we make it relatable. We say, Hey, building a new website, it’s like building a new custom home. Here’s the four things that we’re gonna get, gotta approval. Have thrown an analogy in there.
Yeah. And so for our process, they’re approving, what they end up approving, is, well they, they supply a site outline Right. That we kind of ag agree on. That’s great. A site outline, you mean like a site map? A site map. Yep. Okay. And then so that’s, and we collaborate a little bit with them on that, but that’s mainly on them.
And then same with their, with the mood board, they kind of send in some ideas of what they like. Okay, great. So what do you use for that? Is this like straight up Pinterest that’s just a Google doc? Nope, it’s just a Google Doc. So they just, they’re like copy and pasting images? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I don’t wanna open up the can too much for them to throw in 80 images that I’m just, yeah.
Honestly, sometimes I look at what they send, but I don’t really draw [00:09:00] inspiration from it usually because they’re not, I, they’re not designers, they’re not. But it does help establish kind of a vibe of like, okay, they like the open, airy, white space kind of concept versus something more, I dunno, cluttered or curly or whatever you wanna call it, you know?
Well, when we ask ’em for the mood board stage, , we say, Hey, paste a few links that sites that you like and Right. If you can’t paste a few you don’t like and tell us why you don’t like them. Oh, okay. And so that’s kind of, that’s kind of when we get a lot of, like, this site seems really cluttered.
I can’t, it’s hard to use it, there’s too much text on here. Stuff like that. So those two pieces are kind of more on them, but the actual, actual items that we’re gonna present to them and get. Approval on is a wire frame homepage. Wire frame, usually. Okay. Sometimes there can be a couple other key pages that they want a wire frame for, but the typical project, we’re only doing the homepage.
Got it. So there’s that, there’s the style tile, which , it’s like meeting with an interior. It’s your version of the mood board. It’s [00:10:00] like the clear version mood board. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, and it’s visual. It’s small and it just, it kind of shows an example, title, paragraph, A button. What colors would we use?
Some stock photos. Photos, like call out text. Yeah, call out text. And some stock photos that, that we get. So that’s the second. It’s literally an image. It’s literally an image that’s all packed together. And then that’s the second thing. And then the third thing is the, we do home mockups still.
And so we’ll send ’em over the home mockup, which is literally just the marriage of the wire frame they approved. Right. And the style tile they approved. And so, right. That’s one little hint there is when I present the home mockup, I remind them that I sh I don’t show them the home mockup right away.
I show them the wire frame they approved and say, here’s wire frame you approved. Yeah. Here’s what, here’s what I love about it. Here’s the style tile that you approved. Man, that looks really great. This home mockup is just the marriage of those two things. And usually they just approve it right away.
There’s no like, you know, that’s killer. [00:11:00] ’cause they’ve already, and then as far as like physical prep is, I like the prep. I like to have nothing on my desktop or I have their current or old website pulled up. So they kind of see you before I like showing that. Yep. I don’t show them the new thing right away.
I like to build a little bit of suspense. Yeah. Uh, like I just mentioned with the home mockup. And then I also, if I can, I also try to do, maybe look at their industry. Is there some new thing that was just announced or some new trend that you can maybe open up with, with them about, or is there some interest that they have that you also have?
So, for example, one client we had, was huge, a big football fan and I, I kind of am. , There’s a team that I actually have, you can’t grow up in Nebraska and not have a little affiliation to some football. That’s true. That’s true. But for a while, when Russell Wilson was at Seattle, my wife and I were massive Seahawks fans.
Yeah. And, and so I have like three Seahawks jerseys. And so that day when I was presenting to [00:12:00] him, I wore my Seahawks jersey. ’cause it was, it was playoff playoffs for like the next week. Mm-hmm. And so I open it starting about like, Hey, I think his name was Greg. Hey Greg, how you doing? Sporting the Seahawks today, man, big week next week.
They gotta get it. They gotta make it. And then I’ll continue on. Or hey, whoever, Hey, hey realtor. I saw that, man. , There’s some new. Stuff happening, or I saw that rates went down. How does that affect whatever? Yeah. Show us some kind of anchor, just some sort of Yes.
Yeah. Some sort of connection that you’re on the same page. They know, they appreciate that you know them more than just client. Oh, and the other thing I like to, to have ready before I hit record is whatever I’m showing them. So if I am showing ’em a home mockup and I am gonna show ’em that wire frame and style tile first, I have that stuff already pulled up and hidden off screen.
I put on here, don’t fumble on your computer. Don’t scramble. And going through your explorer finder and they can see all the other projects that you have like that. No, don’t show them all those tabs [00:13:00] you got open. They don’t wanna see that they’re one of 30 projects, you know?
That’s smart. So anyway, that’s press before you hit record. Yep. Okay. Side note, my daughter, they like to go thrifting my teenagers and one of ’em just bought, a Russell, jersey Broncos, and I was like, wow. Good choice. Good choice. He’s not even there anymore, honey. That’s why I, in the thrift store.
I know. I was like, I hope you didn’t pay more than a dollar for that. Anyway. So I am already learning something because, well, for starters, I don’t do wire frames, I don’t do style tiles. I have tried in the past, but for whatever reason, either it’s a mix of me and how I function and my clients and how they function.
They never hit, they don’t get it. It’s probably has something to do with how I’m presenting as well, but they don’t really get it. And it’s just kind of a, okay, now what? , And so I don’t know. That doesn’t work for me. So my presentation that I [00:14:00] send is just. Homepage design. Mm-hmm. That’s when I send a presentation.
And so you’re doing two, at least two steps before that. ‘Cause your homepage mockup is essentially my homepage design, I would imagine. Right. You’re not doing a style tile or a wire frame, so you are sending what comes first style tile or wire frame? It just depends. So Jake and Haley, Haley does the wire frame and I do the style tile.
So it just depends on whoever gets it, their thing done first. But yeah, those gotcha. Those two can happen either order. But a but a presented video is sent for both of those? Correct. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Well, yeah, go in, let’s go into, do you have a different list for each of those presentations or do you essentially follow the same flow?
No, we can just kind of go based on, let’s say I’m presenting a mockup. Okay. Okay, we can do with that.
We know you start with some sort of like interaction, right? You wanna connect with the [00:15:00] client on a personal level Notes, I have be likable, connect right away with maybe a common interest. I already talked about the football example. Yeah. Um, I put here, make them want to approve what you do, you know?
Show them you have some interest in what they do. And then I put know, like, and trust, I said, be visible. If you’re sending a video, make sure they can see you have a professional background or with some points of interest. You have these posters or at that you’re in the corner or something.
Somewhere like Yeah. ’cause I talk a lot with my hands and sometimes I feel like if I’m not on there, there something’s missing. So yeah, definitely show your face. I always start with a smile and, and looking at the thing. Mm-hmm. Like I, I, there’s a countdown in lo 3, 2, 1 and I’m just like. Hey, Greg.
You know, and then I can kind of come leave eye contact. Yeah. But I be energetic in your video. Look excited, engaged, have energy in your voice. This website is gonna help slam some pre-workout. Yeah. Oh, too. Totally. This, you gotta keep in mind that this website is gonna help their business grow. So this is an exciting new tool that they’re [00:16:00] gonna be able to use.
And also who you’re presenting to. If you do a killer job, which I know you’re going to do, it’s gonna make them look like they chose a great company, they’re gonna look like a little hero, a mini hero for like, man, you guys found artillery or K design, and boom, they nailed it.
And then tell them you’re excited to show them their new whatever. So I’m like, I’m today, I’m excited to show you your new website. Like, boom. Like it’s a fact, right? It’s a, it’s not a potential, it’s a, it’s not a, maybe it’s not a draft one. Like, just, just say what it is. Yeah. And let them know you love it.
Have the yes. , I already said of it this. Yeah. Have the items showing ready to go. Then don’t show them the new deliverable right away. Build some suspense. So if I was, if I was doing the home mockup, I’d be like, Hey Kelly, today I’m showing you your new website, the Home Mockup. Super excited to show you that.
But first I kind of wanna show you where we’ve been. Here’s that wire frame that we worked up. I love that. The strategy and always point back to strategy, always strategy questionnaire. [00:17:00] I was gonna ask do you go back through their goals and be like, like even as you’re presenting, be like, this hits this goal.
This is why we did it like this. Like I assume you bring in their strategy questionnaire to your presentation. Yeah. They’re not written down, but i’ll say, Hey, you said you wanted this to, you know, whatever the main call to action is.
And the example on break into web that you can get is, it’s a new website for a realty company. And their big call to action was find out what my home is worth. And then that was kind of the opening whatever. And so obviously we highlighted that in the menu. And then it’s all also in the hero section on the first page.
It’s a, we can sell your home for three point a half percent, that three point a half is massive, and then find out what my home is worth. And so then in that example, I would say, you know, in the wire frame, here we have this. Big area dedicated just folks driving them to this, find out what my home is worth.
I think that’s great. And we’re also hitting that home in the menu here. It’s a highlighted CTA, but don’t do like a real, I call it the website real estate tour, where you’re [00:18:00] like, so up here on the left is the logo on the right, is the navigation. Like they can see that I try to only highlight things that directly impact the, the strategic items They’ve talked about if they want more email newsletters, here’s the email newsletter thing we put right here.
Higher up on the page trying to hit that as well. You know, so I, I bring those in a little bit. Yeah. Okay, cool. Any other notes as far as the actual presentation goes? ’cause I have some questions after that. Yes. I put here the worst thing you can do is send them the item.
Thoughts, question mark or let me know what you think. And I put, keep in mind, you’re the expert. They’re looking to you for the answer. You need to tell them what to think. You’re the one with the experience on how best to build a website. So the biggest mistake, especially with a committee, the biggest thing you can do is like try to get feedback from everyone and then you’re gonna end up with some mediocre [00:19:00] committee driven solution that isn’t.
Okay. Cool. Can we get into the feedback? ’cause I feel like this is where mine goes off the rail rails. Well, I go, I go, I still ask for feedback, but in a more subtle way. So I’ll say like, I’m excited to hear back from you. I love it. I’m excited to move to the development phase.
Or , i’ll do this a lot. Whether it’s a style tile or, a mockup now on, well, on purpose, I, I use stock photos, high quality stock photos. Yes. Usually from Unsplash and it’s to show them what their website could be if they also could be provided high quality stock photos.
Yes. If I find that, or professional or better yet, professional photos that custom very rarely happen. Or custom. Yeah. Or, or custom photos. I feel like if you use photos, they give you, number one, they’re not gonna look as great and number two, they’re gonna get hung up on that person doesn’t work church anymore.
That person doesn. Yeah. And , then you’ll be tempted to kind of play to the presenter and put some photos of them in there or the person your approval. Along those same lines, I assume you’re using like loam [00:20:00] ipsum or some sort of standard, like generic paragraph so that they’re not getting hung up on headlines and content as well.
Yeah. Correct. Even if I have copy from a copywriter, I’ll put in the headlines, but the, the, the guts, I’m just gonna leave it, lorem ipsum, and so, I already know for the style tile and the home mockup, they’re gonna have edits the photos. ’cause they’re not their photos.
Right. And so what I’ll say is, hey, if you’re like 80 to 90% down with this I 89 80 or 90 89, whatever, whatever. If it’s 89, if it’s the style tile, I say 80% or more. Um, if it’s the mockup, I want it to be more precise. So I’ll say 90% or more. So let’s say it’s the mockup. Hey, if you’re 90% more down with this mockup or vibe, and we’re just looking at replacing, some images here and there, let’s go ahead and approve this.
’cause we can do that in development phase. So I like, awesome., I want them to approve it and, and I want them correct. And they know that I, [00:21:00] that’s what I want. Right. I said, that is the purpose of the presentation. I said, don’t say, check it out and think about it for a few days.
Yeah. I said, try to encourage quick action. Their gut reaction, overthinking and overanalyzing is the enemy. Yes. ‘ That’s the kind of stuff we’re trying to avoid with John’s method here because it’s so direct and it’s an actual process to follow as opposed to this kind of ambiguity, which happens a lot with projects like this where you do just send a link and say, lemme know what you think.
That’s just the worst, even though that’s obvious and that’s natural. But we’re trying to talk you out of that because, of all these reasons. Okay, I have questions. And , if you end up. Becoming a student and break into web and watching the full training, you’ll see that in this client, their accent colors were blue and yellow.
So these stock photos that I found for them, for their style tile, have a, you know, now you could change it with ai, you could change someone’s shirt, color, whatever. But it’s all kind of calling back to those colors. Colors. And all the photos have the same vibe. There’s like filters, [00:22:00] not like, yeah, yeah, like filter type type stuff.
Yeah. And so giving them that out, like if I’m presenting the style tile, I’ll say, Hey, if this is 80% there or more, and you’re down with this vibe, let’s approve it. Because in the home mockup, that’s where we can get more granular. Okay. So I give ’em a little bit of like, you know, and then in the home mockup, I say, Hey, if it’s just minor image swaps or texting, we can do that in the development phase.
I feel like that if they did have , an edit that they wanted, they could say, oh, okay. We can take care of that later. Right. And then if it’s not that important of one, they’ll just forget about it. You know what I’m saying? That’s true, that’s true. Okay. My questions. Yeah, I do you give them a cheat sheet of , exactly what kind of feedback you want? Like, Hey, look at this, this, and this, and provide feedback on it , or how do you request feedback? Well, for me, for my stuff, it’s just in Base camp. They can just reply in base camp. Oh, gotcha. And that, and then there’s like an approval button there too. Yeah. Right? Yep. Yes.
I can already tell where [00:23:00] I’m going off the rails all over the place. I usually give two different homepages, but I do it on purpose and they both kind of have the same vibe. But I will include different sections. Well, and again, that’s because I don’t do a wire frame, so that’s kind of my way of getting by that, I guess.
So I’m, mm-hmm. I’m kind of combining everything into my one presentation. But I, in that case, I do need feedback on which sections they prefer. Do they want to have a team carousel on the homepage? Do they want to just have, the team photo? Do they want blog posts or would they rather have these, reviews, whatever.
And so I have that kind of, as part of my feedback process. I also have to say, do you like this font? But that’s because I haven’t done a style tile yet, so that makes sense. I am also saying, like, colors too.
Colors, colors as well, because I’ll bring in if it, if the logo only has one color, I’m gonna bring in some secondary colors and make sure, that’s part of that, feedback process as well. So they have a lot more to digest on my one presentation as opposed to your three. So I am now [00:24:00] seeing, I am overwhelming them, and that’s part of the problem.
The other thing I do, and I think you’re gonna, you’re gonna yell at me hard, is I also send a link to those, homepages. And you have no link, do you? No. Mm-hmm. You just have the video. So if they don’t look at your video, they have no other way of seeing the actual. Well, no, they get a graphic.
Yep. A graphic. A So it’s just an image. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Not a live. That’s, I think that’s what I need to do is send not a live thing. Yeah. Because when I send a link, even if it’s at the bottom of my message, I know all they’re doing is going straight to that link and clicking. They are skipping my video entirely because the feedback that I’m getting is, I like the second one.
I’m like, I asked you for all of these things and you didn’t respond to any of them. Because they want you to decide whether or not they should have a team carousel or whatever. I know, I know, but I feel like they do want, they do still want some [00:25:00] options, maybe, but I feel like, like dealing with a toddler, you have to give them the two options so that they feel like they have some sort of control over their life.
They have, I don’t control because that’s, they can fire you. , They have control. They, they, they’ve picked you. I guess they’ve, they, they’ve already done the two thing. We got KDE design or artillery. We’re gonna go with KDE design. They’ve already picked you, you know, , they’ve been to your website.
They’re like, we want her to make the hard decisions for us. That way when things go wrong, we can blame her. We can, you know, that’s true. Anyway, that’s what I would say to that. No, , I guess I’m, this is opening my eyes as to why, I’ve , you could always try just sending one.
I mean, in my, I do, I do. Sometimes brain, I do sometimes my gut reaction is like, why don’t you just send ’em the best one that you think is best. I know ’cause they usually pick the one I don’t like as much. But the, again, typically I would say nine times out of 10 they’re like, okay, we like this over here, this over here, this over here.
True. And then I get to combine it, and then that revision [00:26:00] is generally like dang close. That’s like the winner. And I kind of, I don’t wanna say I half-assed the designs, but I intentionally don’t make either of them like the banger because, that’s the process that has seemed to work for me because I feel like people do like to have some kind of option.
I think sending the link, that’s my number one mistake. I need to stop doing that. You gotta make a banger. You gotta send, I, I want that first thing. See, just send the banger to be like, oh my gosh, this is, ’cause I feel like , if you blow them away , with that, first look and they’re like. Wow. Then they immediately trust you on any other decision because Yeah. You, you know what I’m saying? You’re right. That’s what I was. Okay. I, I don’t know if, I don’t know if I’m right or not, but I, that’s my, that’s my gut talking.
But my takeaway from this is no matter if I start doing, I still don’t think I’m gonna start doing wire frames and style tiles, but I do see the impact. And again, when you have a team like that is a must. Well, yeah. We have to, however, I will not send links and I, but I will still send a graphic of the full mockup, [00:27:00] because sometimes it looks different on different screens anyway, and I wanna make sure they’re seeing it, how I made it on anyway.
When I wrote ’em, wrote down about multiple items, I said, give them multiple deliverable items to approve along the way. Now there’s one school of thought that say, why do you do that? You’re just creating more back and forth and you’re just having, they wanna get their money’s worth.
Yeah, that’s what I put, I said, this also makes me feel like they’re getting a lot for their money. They’re getting four to five items. But here’s the thing, when you are presenting a wire frame mm-hmm. That’s where you really can talk a ton of strategy because there’s nothing else to talk about.
Yes. There’s no colors, there’s no fonts. So that’s when you really drive and when you start with that. Then they’re like, holy cow, this experience is elevated. Why? Because they’re not just sending me a graphic right away that Chachi t could do. They’re, they’re sending me, they thought about this, they thought about whatever.
And I’m really going through and deciding, you know, and when we relate back to the building, a new custom home, it’s like, you might see that blueprint and decide, you know what? I don’t want my kitchen on the east side of the house. I want it on the west side of the [00:28:00] house. And I tell folks, when you’re in blueprint phase with your home builder, that’s doable Right after your house is built, it’s still doable, but it’s a lot.
It’s gonna cost you a lot more time and resources. And same thing. Yeah. I said, now, when your final website’s done, fortunately, we use , a builder that’s we can move things around so we can move your kitchen. But it’s nice to have it set from the beginning and it gives some weight to this wire frame now that they’re proving, which I think cuts down. Just on the overall, even though we’re sending them three items that they could give three rounds of edits on, it goes faster. These things are going one or two, maybe most of the time. One round, and then Yes. And then it’s moved on. Yes.
Okay. I like it. So you don’t necessarily send them like a list of things to look at and provide feedback on. You’re just sending them a, either a wire frame or a style tile or a Yeah. And tur mock up and you’re saying. Send me the feedback. Yeah. And dirty little secret here is, the wire frame [00:29:00] builder.
On the website, , store that we own, we have this nice little wire frame, frame drop builder. And so where you have, here’s the about category, here’s five sections to choose from. Here’s the whatever. We have that in our wire frame building app. And so Haley is just really.
Perusing drag and dropping sections all the time. And so that wire frame might take an hour to make if that and if that, but the client is thinking we’ve, custom built it. We’ve planned over this thing, we’ve, yeah.
Yep. So do you do that, do you do that? Are you using pre-made sections or are you kind of just building ’em all? No. Okay. No, I, I go straight from strategy questionnaire to, well, I do sitemap first with them. And I do, I present that, or I don’t present, but I set up what I think the site map should be and then just send them for feedback.
That usually goes well. But when you’re building the two homepage Yeah. That you’re gonna show them. Are you using Uh, no, I’m, that’s custom. That’s just, it’s [00:30:00] all from scratch me and Divi.
Got it. Gotcha. And again, it’s not to the nines, it’s not like decked out. I would, that’d be a lot more work. See that? That’s, I think for me, that’s the thing. That’s the difference. Hey John, Hey John. Still do your style tile, still do your wire frame, but instead of doing a mockup in Figma, why don’t you just build it in Divi?
That way if they approve it, awesome. Yeah. I just saved a big step. Well, because , to get the level of design that I want would take me too long. Yeah. And I would have to tell them, look at this on your desktop, laptop, but not your big wide screen. Like I want to control what they, I do that, how they see it.
I absolutely say that. The two things I say are, this is not optimized for mobile and or big as monitors. So please look on a normal sized screen and don’t click anywhere or you will be disappointed. Bam. Big ass monitor. Big ass monitor. Yeah. Don’t, don’t go straight to that anyway.
Okay, cool. I mean, this is interesting. I, I, I’m taking [00:31:00] a lot away from this conversation because , I’ve never understood why this works so well for you, but now I’m understanding why, because you have it broken down into to these small, digestible chunks. There’s no overwhelm, and they really just have.
A very specific concept to approve, , correct. At, at either that is correct. At any phase. , So yeah, I can see where that would be super quick. And again, I have to reiterate for a team like John has, I don’t know how you could not do it that way. The fact that I am generally the one person doing all of these things makes it a little different.
So I can, I can cheat, I can hack poorly at this point. I’m my own, own process on that. Yeah. On that note, I’m so glad I don’t have to do wire frames anymore. ’cause when I do wire frames, I overdo ’em. I start adding little drop shadows and, and I’m really carrying what fonts I’m using.
And it’s like, this is not the point. This is not the point. Yeah. There should be no drop shadows. It should, they’re just gray scale boxy things that, [00:32:00] you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Couple other questions. For example, the homepage mockup?
I guess my first question is, is, is that it, is that the last presentation or do you do presentations for interior pages at all? Or like specific functionality or anything? Anything else? , Only, if they pay for it or it’s a major feature, like a home finder or something like that.
Okay. , But you just prompted, I said I put on here worst idea ever. Let them mark up your design. Oh yeah. You know, these, tools there. Design tools, actual markup tools. Yeah. That’ll let a client go in and write. I feel like it becomes too fun for them and easy. I want it to take a little bit of effort for them to leave some feedback.
They have to write it out. Yeah. They can’t just That’s fair. Circle something and oh, I guess that was another question, is there ever a phone call conversation for that feedback after they see a presentation, or is it all just in Basecamp? No slash email. It’s just Okay. Okay. I mean, I like that , I haven’t had to hop on a phone with a client in probably five years about this, [00:33:00] but if it, if there was one where we’ve gone to three rounds and it’s just not happening, okay, sure.
Let’s, let’s hop on Zoom and try to figure this out. But no, I don’t offer that. That’s not part of it. And you know, I was thinking, about your, uh, because I, you know, in base camp when I attach the mock-up at the very bottom, the videos at the top, are they still scrolling down and just download that?
I mean, I could, in the video, I guess I could say, Hey, in the video is gonna be the download link for the file. I don’t know. I don’t know. I was just trying to think of how could you. Make sure they watch the video and then, , no, I just need to, I need to not send the links.
Period. , Oh, I see what you’re saying. Just have ’em in the video. Well, but then yeah, just like a full page screenshot as well. I have a thing that does that. Gotcha. Someone might say, well, Kelly, they’re still just gonna scroll down , and download them.
You’re right There. Go. So why even, why even have them at all? Because I don’t know. I’ll tell you what, because the quality of the video [00:34:00] doesn’t match the quality of your graphic. If you cared enough, and I don’t know if Loom has this, it might if you’re a paid member, but I know Vimeo has this, what you could do is at the end of the video, have the end of, yeah, have the end of the action, the end action be like down.
That’s too much work, man. It’s too much work. I agree. I agree. I say this, but for example, the reason this is fresh in my head right now. , I just recently sent, homepage mockups and I had two. But I had one presentation, to a client, and working , with physician clinics is tough because ultimately the docs are the clients, but there’s a team of ’em.
And do they all get together and look at stuff? Never. And are you gonna get like one unified voice of feedback? Never. And so I have the office manager that I’m working with, but of course he has to get, I mean, his bosses are the docs, and so he has to get feedback from them. And so anyway, I sent the video.
There are two docs that are involved in the project with the office manager. And , I have really clear bullets of, let me know what you think on this, this, this, and these [00:35:00] specific things. Please tell me your answers. , And then I sent the video and then I sent the links with my, warnings of don’t look on mobile, don’t click anywhere.
And yeah, they both replied like second one. I was like, , not only did you not read anything, you didn’t watch anything. That means three things. Number one, they trust you. That’s what that means. Fine. No, it means they’re lazy. I think number two, they don’t have the time, but number one, they trust you.
They don’t care. Yeah, but here’s what I’ll, they say they care, but they, we had a recent one where the client. Came back with revisions and this button they wanted in the hero, they wanted two buttons in the hero. The first button was five words. The second button had like nine words in it. And I was like, okay.
There. And it was like, and it had all these abbreviations in there, like, get your rra a slash whatever, compliance, blah, blah, blah. And I just said, Hey, you might know what this means, but most folks don’t know what this means. You’re not the target audience of the website.
It’s your customers who don’t know anything [00:36:00] yet. , And what, what speaks to them. That looks like a big, scary button. Let’s, let’s make it friendlier and easier to say yes. Yep. Absolutely. Cool. I find it interesting that you don’t ask for specific things of feedback, but you don’t need to because you’re only showing them one thing, so I get it.
But , you don’t send them like a list of questions. You just ask for feedback. Okay. Or what? No, you don’t ask for feedback. You ask for an approval and you, I ask for an approval. Okay. As you’re showing them whatever you’re showing them, validate their goals too.
Like, I think this is a great idea. I love this strategy. Like mixing that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep. You’re just a salesman is what you are. It’s, you’re just selling. It’s what you’re doing. Highlight how easy it will be for folks to use and navigate their website. Tell them how this website’s gonna really set them apart in their industry.
Yeah, yeah. You know, stuff like that. I like I said it, we can handle this in the next phase. If you’re down with this vibe, let’s approve it. Let’s move forward, let’s approve, [00:37:00] let’s move forward. I say, a lot of times, let’s move forward because everyone wants, they wanna move forward.
I had a couple other notes , you’ve alluded to this quite a bit, but the first thing , is to frame revisions as an evolution, not like corrections.
You know, like, you don’t want their Oh, got you. Like, yeah, feedback on the design necessarily. , It’s more of a, we’re evolving this, the content and the photos as needed to progress it forward. But yeah, to frame it in a way that it’s not corrections, it’s just this kind of evolving, , piece of art that we’re gonna keep, progressing forward.
And then the other thing is,, I don’t get hung up on this, I know you don’t at this stage, , we’ve been doing this 15, 20 years. It’s impossible to offend us with any kind of feedback at this point. But to not take anything personal , that people do come back with feedback on because it’s absolutely not a personal thing.
It’s always business. It always comes down to the goal. And then , when there is feedback that you absolutely don’t agree with. This is something I always tell my clients. I think I [00:38:00] say this in half the episodes, is, , I will always provide my inputs, when there’s something strategically that you’re requesting that I don’t agree with.
But you don’t have to take, like, again, you can’t offend me if you say, no, we’re gonna, I wanna do it my way. But I will provide feedback when I believe it is important enough to push back. And that’s something that usually gets taken very well. It’s all about that open, honest, straightforward, you don’t want anyone feeling like they can’t tell you how they really feel about a project.
So I, and , i’ll hint at a couple feedback. Ideas, so if I am sharing a style tile mm-hmm. And , let’s say there was an accent color that I add or that I punched up. Sometimes I’ll punch up the colors from their, the logo because I just feel like it needs to happen.
Or maybe sometimes with a block quote text, I’ll get a little fancy. I’ll choose , some kind of an extra font. Yeah, an extra trendy font for, whether it’s a script style, or some kind of extended bold thing or whatever. Yeah.
Something that’s not part of their regular deal. [00:39:00] Right? And so I’ll say, Hey, here’s the style tile. If you’re 80% down more with this five, let me know. Of course these photos are gonna change with yours. We can handle that in development. But let me know what you think., Lemme know , how you like this punched up color.
And I really love this font for block quote. Is it a little far out for you guys? Should we just go back to this other one? Or should I just use this other one here? Or what do you think? And then I’ll send that off. And so now they don’t feel like, , ooh, I have to come up with something new to tell him.
Right. Make my logo bigger, I guess. So you’re putting in their head, I can just say, I love it John, and I love that punched up color. Yeah. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Approved. And they feel like, and they feel like they’ve, they’ve contributed. They feel like they gave something. Yeah. Yeah. Because if they’re on a committee.
They’re gonna feel pressure to contribute something and Right, well, Jane already said make the logo bigger. So I guess I’m gonna say, can we make it pop more? Damn it, Jane or I, I don’t, you know what I’m saying? Right. And then the other thing was I will push back , this one client we had who I just mentioned, the two big buttons, not only, oh yeah.
Not only were they too long, [00:40:00] but they had three main services. Okay? Mm-hmm. And so the first button would take you to the landing page, one service for the first service, the second button. They’re like, if they hook the second button, can it pop up open? Oh no. And then they pick two more buttons.
They pick which, and I said, Hey, i’m not a huge fan of popups. People can’t x out of ’em enough. Especially on tablet and mobile. It’s gonna be really confusing. And why don’t we just, right under this hero, we have the three. Why don’t we just go with that? , And then those are the call to actions.
And so I pushed back in the end , they added a third button. I was like, okay, they’re pretty, this one was a little more opinionated than most. Yeah. So like you said, you give where you can, but Right. But yeah, as long as you’re open and honest and straightforward , from the beginning, from the get go, you have to keep that line of communication open because you don’t want them to be afraid to give you feedback.
And at the same time, you don’t wanna be afraid to push back. Just have that open and say, Hey. You’re not gonna offend me if, if you don’t like my idea, that’s cool. But I will still [00:41:00] provide it as a professional web designer when I feel like it’s needed. So yeah, right now, for the tech startup, we’re getting our logo mark and name checked for if it’s gonna violate anyone else’s trademark, copyright stuff and whatever.
And it’s a whole deal. There’s a first initial $500 report, that they run and they come back and give me this report that’s five pages long and it’s called funnel, FUNL, there’s no other FU nls on there, but there’s a ton of the regular funnel spelling, , like ClickFunnel, there’s tons of those.
And the guy’s like, so what do you think? Should we move forward with the registration or not? And I’m just, I don’t even know what I’m looking at. And so I just email him back. I’m like, Hey.
Honestly, , I’m just gonna go with your suggestion. Yeah. He’s the lawyer. Yeah. Yeah. So, so hey, web designers, you’re the lawyer. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Not, not, not as like, in a dire way. Right. But like they want you to make the decision. They really do. Right? I think they do. And when you realize that, that will help you, I still think they want [00:42:00] a couple options.
Well, like you said, do you like my punched up color? Sure. Agree. Do you like this font? Like they, they need to have something to feel like, I did that. You know? That’s true. Especially there’s a little psychology and you don’t want them coming up with their own stuff. Don’t, you don’t want that. You don’t want you, and you don’t want them printing off the mockup and writing notes on it.
Oh my God. That I have had that happen. Oh, yes. Oh yeah. Me too. Yep. I had that happen too. And it’s not, this, this method isn’t foolproof. Every now and then you’ll see a version. Whatever. I don’t even think I have any latest ones on my computer. Oh, like a version nine or something?
No, that I haven’t, like the worst I’ve probably seen in the last three years is probably one time I had a version five, but I’d say 97%, 98% of them are under three. And , I would say over half of them are like, we love it. Let’s move forward. Yeah. Yeah.
And my rates I would say are that good as well. The only time it gets outta control [00:43:00] on revisions with, at least my process, is when it’s a freaking committee, when it’s more than one or two people on the other side. That’s really hard to wrangle and I will tell them I need my feedback from one person, but that poor one person is still, trying to make everyone happy.
So that’s the only time it gets ugly in my experience I think that is a wrap. I like it. So thanks for tuning in. Joining us today on the Web Design Empire.
Be sure to check out break into web Start or scale a self-employed web design business and lifestyle you love at Break Into Web and get that special extra training that I talked about on how to effectively present your designs, become the freelance web designer, and create the empire you’ve been dreaming of.
Alright, y’all, we’ll see you in the next one. Cheers.
Think it’s,
that’s from the new album. [00:44:00] Oh, is it? Is it inspired by Top Gun? Um, no, but I could see, I, do you know the one I’m talking about? Okay. Yes. You ever seen the music video for that one? No. I didn’t know there was music video for that. Oh my gosh. It’s, I’ve seen like danger zone. It, it’s so like. It’s so eighties and, and, uh, oh, I like it already. The best part is this is this, you know, big hair band guy shredding the guitar in an aircraft hanger on a, on a jet wing.