A Word to Sum Up BigMike Studios
When I am first approached to do a proposal for a web site I will ask several questions about the business or organization interested in working with me to try to get an understanding of who they are. I do this, because my job is to tell their story on the web, and asking questions is the best way to find out what that story is.
Our client is always the most important team member. This isn’t (just) because they write the cheque at the end. It’s because when designing a web site, the client understands what their story is better than anyone else involved. Telling that story is the top priority for a web designer.
In the process of asking these questions, I get into a lot of interesting conversations with a lot of interesting people. Yesterday, I had just such a conversation with a client in a project kickoff meeting. I asked him, “What makes you different from your competition?”. In other words, why would someone choose his business rather than someone else. His answer was specific, concise, brief and powerful. “Passion”.
To further explain that, he said that his business is largely comprised of him personally, and the projects he takes on involve putting together teams custom selected for each one. He feels his most important role is to inspire each of his team members to be as passionate about their jobs as he is about his. He feels that his passion is what enables him to help team members take ownership of their roles, and the project as a whole. This sounded familiar to me, and I too was inspired.
I get a lot of varied responses to that question, and I think it’s probably the most important one to ask. This was one of the best answers I had ever heard. It was one word. It was a word that evokes an immediate emotional response in the person who hears it. It was a word that intrigued me to hear more, and when I did, I was eager and glad to be involved in his project.
It made me realize how important it is to know what makes your business unique. It made me want one word to describe the advantage you get with BigMike Studios. What is that word?
I got to thinking. There are two strategies that help us complete successful projects. first, we leverage our client’s knowledge to find out the story we need to tell. We ask questions like the one above to get a sense of what makes an organization unique. When we have a clear idea of what that is, We have the answers to the questions that come up later in the project. What colour should we use for an accent? The answer is, the colour that best supports the story of that organization.
The second is making sure we have a clear understanding of the bigger picture. The most important person to please when making a web site is not my client, but my client’s customer – the end user of the site. I feel another one of out strengths is our ability to step back and see a larger perspective, and to identify those points when a project starts to lose a sight of it’s users, so we can get it back on track.
The word I’ve found is “clarity”. That’s the advantage we can bring to the table.
We work with our clients to find the story behind their businesses, so that the idea behind the project is clear. We use that story to communicate with clarity, and we don’t lose sight of who needs to hear the message. We know and value the importance of clear thinking when it comes to the big picture.
Clarity doesn’t describe what we do, but rather how we do it. It is the main advantage we offer our clients. Together, we tell their story by gaining clarity on what that story is, and who we’re telling it to.