Heads up! To view this whole video, sign in with your Courses Plus account or enroll in your free 7-day trial. Sign In Enroll

Preview

Start a free Courses trial
to watch this video

Sign up for Treehouse

What Doesn't Work

4:32 with Paul Boag

Paul dispels some preconceptions about how marketing works by discussing various strategies, including cold calling and networking events.

[Paul Boag] So let's look at the issue of marketing and promotion. 0:00
I want to start by doing something slightly strange. 0:04
I want to look at what doesn't work, 0:06
because I think there are a lot of misconceptions and preconceptions 0:09
surrounding how to market your work. 0:13
Let's look at some things that don't work well. 0:16
In my experience cold calling, advertising, 0:19
bidding sites, and networking events don't work very well. 0:24
Now you might be thinking, "Well they work for me," 0:29
and I'm not saying they never work. 0:31
I'm just saying that I don't think they're the most effective way of working. 0:33
So why don't these things work? 0:39
Let's apply some of the principles of user centric design 0:42
by putting ourselves in the place of our potential prospect—our potential client. 0:46
First of all let's look at cold calling. 0:53
The problem with cold calling—by picking up the phone and just ringing someone 0:56
you want to work with—is that you have to call them at exactly the right time. 0:59
They have to have a project that they want to work on there and then in order 1:04
for your call to actually be useful. Now think about it for a minute. 1:10
What are the chances of that actually happening, 1:14
because if you're not calling them at exactly the right time 1:18
all you're going to do is just annoy them, 1:21
and they're certainly not going to want to work with you in the future if that's the case. 1:24
Then there's advertising, isn't there? 1:28
The problem here is that there's just too much choice. 1:31
There are too many people out there clamoring for attention, 1:35
going, "Look at me! Look at me! Hire me!" 1:38
The trouble is that you'll find that advertising gets really expensive, 1:42
and you're just going to be one voice amongst a million clamoring for attention, 1:47
and the problem is as well from a user centric point of view 1:52
is that for most clients buying a web site— 1:56
paying for a web design agency to come in and build them a web site 1:59
is an important purchase and it's too important a purchase 2:02
just to kind of go along to Google and click on the first ad. 2:06
It's something that needs some kind of recommendation behind it. 2:11
Then there are those bidding sites, aren't there? You've seen them. 2:15
You go along to something like Elance 2:19
and you enter in your details and you ask web designers to pitch, 2:22
but my problem with those is it's all about price. 2:28
They're the only things that define whether or not you win the work, 2:31
so it all becomes a race to the button, 2:34
and your profit margins will just evaporate into the air. 2:36
Finally, there are those networking events. 2:42
My problem with networking events—a lot of people really like them 2:46
and enjoy them, and they are great fun. 2:49
It's great to meet other people working in different industries and sectors, 2:51
but my problem with them is that everybody is selling and nobody is buying. 2:55
You'll go along to these events hoping that someone will buy your service, 3:00
but if everyone is selling then how are you going to win any business through it? 3:04
So the big one is about hiring a salesperson. 3:10
Should you hire a salesperson to do all of this stuff for you? 3:14
Well that's a tricky question, and I have to say 3:18
I don't think hiring a salesperson is the answer. 3:22
After all, how do you motivate them? 3:25
Do you put them on commission?—but commission on what? 3:28
Is that commission on sales or commission on the profit that you make on the project? 3:32
If it's sales, then they're just going to promise the earth, aren't they? 3:38
"Oh yes, we can do all of these really complicated technical things 3:41
on your web site for 50 pence" because they want to win the project 3:45
so that they get their commission on that project. 3:49
They don't care that you're not going to make profit on it. 3:52
If however you provide them with commission based on profit margins, 3:55
well that's a bit unfair on them, because your profit is so dependent 4:00
on things outside of their control. It's not their fault if the client is badly managed. 4:04
It's not their fault if you get stuck on a particular technical problem. 4:09
So it's very hard to motivate an external salesperson. 4:14
So what is our conclusion from all of this? 4:20
Well, basically, traditional sales and marketing approaches just don't work 4:23
when it comes to promoting your web design business. 4:28

You need to sign up for Treehouse in order to download course files.

Sign up