Work Work Play
Talent is never enough
Q:When is being naturally talented a hindrance rather than an asset?
A: When you are afraid of rejection.
I know five incredibly talented brilliant people. They come up with the sort of ideas that you wish you’d come up with first. They are insightful, creative, inquisitive and you’ll probably never ever hear of them.
Even though they have the kind of talent that “less talented” people wish they had, they also have a soul crushing fear of rejection. What the “less talented” lack in talent, they make up for in determination. They (the less talented) have already learned at some point or another to adapt, because they recognize their strengths lie in the connections they make with people.
The “less talented” know that, if given the choice, most people don’t want the perfect you’re holding out for. They want the “good” that you can do. Instead of the perfect dream, most clients are willing to “settle” for tangible results.
My friends are always in complete agreement with me when I tell them that it’s not that other people are better than them, but rather that “less talented” people have talent at one thing they do not: handling rejection.
When you’re paralyzed by the fear of trying because you see “less qualified” people in positions that you wish that you could get, it is safe to assume that they are at least better than you at one thing, trying to get the job. (This doesn’t go for “they underpriced me into the poorhouse” type of competition.)
When you work in competitive creative industries or any industry at all, it probably helps to try. Even if you don’t have the connections, try to make them. In trying to learn to make them, you’ll learn something even more valuable, how not to make them. Even if you think you’ll never use that skill, try to at least learn it. In life, you are not given the answers and then expected to pass the test. That’s school. In life you are given the test, first.
Every day is a pop quiz. And every day you can pass or fail simply on the sheer willingness to try.
Losing Friends, Gaining Perspective
Here’s an honest snapshot of someone I loved warts and all.
Charity died Jan. 26, 2010. She was 32 years old. Charity was a radical. She believed very strongly in animal and women’s rights and racial and economic justice. She was firmly anti-capitalist and anti-corporatist. But, she loved the show Charmed, for which we teased her mercilessly.
She was hopeful and pessimistic. A natural born cynic, but an optimist at heart. She wished that things were for the best, knew they would turn out worse, but hoped for a way to change it once she got the outcome. She was curious and was always willing to learn more about any cause.
Even when I found myself agreeing with her, it was always more pragmatist and less idealist. I’d have to walk her back to what I considered, “the reality of where we are now,” not living in what we wished could be. Charity was an idealist. I realize now, that’s not a bug. It was a feature.
Charity provided us with something aspirational. We did not let ourselves think of the world that she envisioned because it never existed and we didn’t have a template for how it could. We needed to stay firmly grounded in our realities so that our souls were not crushed by the disappointment of daring to dream.
I found the short documentary Lemonade on Hulu. When I watched it, I got that achey, “I wish that I had made this feeling.” Eric Proulx does a fine job, but I definitely wish this film had been made earlier.
There are times in every creative’s life when they spend way too much time working, thinking about work, talking about work, wishing for work and wondering if they’ll ever work again. Work and money dominate what seems like every waking thought.
Lemonade is about creative executives who were laid off. And like the title suggests, when life hands you lemons… Well, they make lemonade. There are several inspiring stories of being able to find not only who you are, but what you love again. And how to utilize those skills, once you realize that it’s really over.
Last year, I was pretty sure that I was done with marketing and design. I went through many of the thought processes in the film. You definitely wonder who you are and what that means without your job which has defined you.
I wish that it was longer and that it focused on a more diverse group of people, but it felt good to know that we weren’t alone.
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 4
4 and 5 are so closely tied together: actively misleading customers to turn a profit and forsaking a good user experience because you’ve misunderstood the usefulness of a certain technology.
We usually get these problems because of the incorrect assumption that more traffic correlates to more sales. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t.
You’ve likely read about the power of good SEO to build more web traffic, been curious about how to get ranked first on Google, or just wanted to be seen. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s certainly good for you to not ignore web standards, well written content, and backlinks.
However, there are certain businesses that this tactic will work really well for. And when I say tactic, I don’t mean just any SEO, I mean sloppy haphazard gray hat SEO techniques that are commonly used by small and mid-sized businesses to reach the front page of Google at all costs. But, on the whole it takes a lot more than just getting found first to create a sale.
Even if that weren’t true, this only works well with certain products, and is dependent on a lot of different variables. Think about shopping online, the same way that people shop offline. When customers are looking for the best version of a product and price is not a matter, they may just be looking for a convincing presentation.
When you call a bunch of different stores and then decide to visit them, you’re doing exactly what people do on the web when shopping. It’s a lot easier to comparison shop online too, because it doesn’t actually involve going anywhere. Unless you feel absolutely comfortable with what you’ve seen at the first store (and even when you do), you’re still going to comparison shop.
Let’s say we have 10 potential customers. And there are 10 different local companies to choose from. For every 1 person that chooses the first store they’ve settled on, there are at least 8 more that continue the search. And there will be at least 1 of those that pays above market value for the same product at the 4th place they check.
How do you decide on the quality of those stores? It depends any one of these things can effect your decision: general atmosphere and layout, word of mouth from a trusted source, impulse buy, sales people, etc. If the first store AAA Widgets rubs you the wrong way, their number 1 listing in the phone book or on Google means very little. Maybe you just like Zed’s Zoolicious Widgets, better. .
Sometimes people make the leap that more traffic equals more potential customers. But, the question we should be asking is, ‘What does it matter if 1 million customers visit Bob’s Widgets? And 1,000 customers buy it, if 810 customers return the product because it’s not exactly what they thought it was.’
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 3
The ‘Everyone is me’ approach:
This approach relies on one thing: You don’t need to tell anyone about your company because everyone already knows what it is you do.
When everyone is you, you leave out key components that can help potential customers make decisions about your company. It’s an extension of the blank website. It stems from the idea that because someone found your company, they were obviously looking for your company.
Every piece of information you put out about your company should be a carefully crafted letter. I want to read an introduction, body and conclusion. There should never be an assumption on your part that customers ever know all the benefits, products, or features of any products you carry.
Think about the last time you visited the website for a company or read the brochure thought to yourself, “So it does what again?”, “What time do they open?” or “I wonder if it does this..” The company left out some of the dots that could have helped you connect the product to its benefits.
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with-Part 2
Customer traps:
The blank website filled with nothing useful except for possibly the physical address of the business and very cliché stock photography.
Someone told you that you just needed to get on the web. They forgot to tell you the other part about websites serving specific purposes. Many brochure websites do absolutely nothing to put the client or give you enough credibility to assuage fears of buying from you.
These pages tell us (your customers) about your company. They tell us how your company operates, what its track record is, your philosophy, etc. It is a narrative for your company. This is one of the few chances you get to show your business as it is and even translate for the user what they should be thinking of your business.
The ‘About’ page should actually have something about you or the humans in your company. It should not be another page of sales pitches. If I’m looking for any information on you, chances are I want to find valuable information on you. For every customer that buys your dummy information replete with jargon, there are 5 others who will look at your competitors.
Becoming a company you'd like to shop with
In an effort to be everything to everyone and to profit we can sometimes do things that can harm our businesses. This is especially true on the web because it’s a newer medium.
Your bottom line is positively affected when you create good user experiences.
For some reason we understand these things suck when we experience them, but we sometimes inflict them on our customers anyway.
1.The haphazard sales pitch: I just want a customer which means I have to appeal to everyone.
The alternative: Instead of trying to reach just anybody, aim to reach somebody.
I used to have a client that had about a 55%-75% click-through rate on email campaigns. His Campaign Monitor stats are what email marketers dream about.
His secret: He wasn’t afraid to scale down.
He avoided the problem where companies entirely miss any audience, because they cast their nets so wide.
Getting the best out of your designer
On many of the bids I see placed on freelance sites, the most affordable and the most qualified are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. This is another reason, I think we find seriously great designers forgoing these sites and meeting clients the more traditional way.
I think most of the established companies with show stopping design, even if they were quoting low would never be chosen for these jobs.
Why?
Because there’s a level of mediocrity that exists on these sites that makes even an average design site look out of place.
A company should not be able to say before understanding all specifications that they can build a site for you. However, companies and individual freelances alike do say just that.
Andy Rutledge outlines really well what should happen in the first design interview. Instead of talking about design and how to accomplish these things through design, we (designers) should be talking about:
- how the website fits into your business plan
- what you hope to accomplish
- your goals and your aims.
Yeah... but what about when they skip the sign-page..
Of the projects that I’ve worked on recently (and in the past), I’m amazed at how much people are willing to spend on “superficial” design, but forget about the little they spend on “functional” design. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, but rarely do people get both.
Generally, when I’m called in, I’m called in for ideas. This is a big part of our job. Clients bounce ideas off of us:
- “Would this be possible?
- “Why would we do it this way”
- “Take a look at this and tell me what you think?”
- “How can I increase sign ups?”
When I was asked my opinion on an auction project (in October 2007), I was very surprised that while over 40% of the site was forms, there had been no importance placed on actually designing forms for accessibility or ease of use. The same thing happened on an auction project I looked over in December 2008.
If the most important elements of your sites require form usage you have to, or at least have your developer/interfacer/grandma look at this article and pdf by Luke W about Best Practices and Web Form Design. At the blog UX Matters (UX stands for user experience), Matteo Penzo talks about (and bases his test around Luke’s presentation) results of unstyled, raw data as it relates to form performance.
Staying Grounded: Writing for the web
There are no secrets for good or adequate writing on the web. However, there are definitely tips that can improve your writing. One of the problems that people get into on the web is trying to make their product/organization/service “sound” professional. That attitude often yields awkward sentences like this one:
We facilitate discussions on issues of import to us all including impending legislation on our common values.
There are many problems with this sentence, but one that sticks out is the phrase “of import to us all”. Always remember your audience when writing. Try to keep in mind that not everyone is a native English speaker.
