Nomad

25 Jul 2011 by Brad

On trusting who you hire

On trusting who you hire.

Like so many of the blog post topics that spring into my head, this post is inspired from a conversation that I observed on Twitter.

A designer was upset about the way in which a client had subsequently treated a site that they had provided. This got me to thinking, doesn't the client trust that this designer is a professional?  I think this is a problem that everyone working in the web industry has faced at some point or other and while it can grate that your perfect site is being mauled I think it's wise to think through why this could be.

It could be that the client doesn't trust that you know what you are doing. That you have analysed the requirements and elegantly solved the problems. Sucks right? It might be that you (or they) didn't really understand the requirements of the project and then rather than continue making amends to it through you they've decided to cut thier losses and do it "in house". In the particular case I observed this didnt seem to be the case as it was not a freelancer but someone from a well respected and moderately large agency.

Well this might just be that the client is particularly .... irritating... perhaps they didnt really want a full design service and would've been happy with a bit of artwork and that's all (but you should've known that).  Whatever the reason for their post launch tinkering, unfortunately your name is against that work and now it's more an example of how not to code than best standards and practice. Undoubtedly you shouted about it when it launched as you were so excited, so this could potentially be damaging for your reputation. I think it's worthwhile asking for feedback in these situations, though I wouldn't recommend charging to their offices and demanding to know why they've put clip art as the background, but a calmly constructed email asking why they made certain choices and asking if you can help is likely to be better recieved.

So how do you build this trust? How do you instill in the client a sense of professionalism, not just in the way that you work but in the knowledge that you have.

Have plenty of testimonials and case studies of your work available to see. If a client see's that you have worked with a lot of people and are proven,  then they are more likely to defer to your expertise than bullishly assume that they know best - that's not to say that you shouldn't listen to them though.

Talk with the client about the work you've done before. If you have had a successful project that was similar to the clients requirements, tell them about it, talk about the goals that you needed to achieve and how you did it. Experience goes a long long way in an industry that doesn't have any qualification to measure you by. (Brad Koehler W.E.B).

If you can make the client understand that you do in fact know what you are talking about from the start then you can hopefully avoid a client recklessly making modifications to your baby.

Trusting who you hire isn't just an issue facing businesses and their clients, having previously worked at agencies and to a lesser extent contracted with larger companies, I have found that in my experience there is often (though not always) a lack of trust in contract staff and in some cases even in direct employees. Whether it be needing to get permission to access the files that you need to do your work or needing 75 different levels of sign off to actually make that 2 minute text change in the footer.

Companies, Agencies, if you are listening, trust the people you hire. You set out the requirements for the position and they met them, you picked them above the rest for the role you've given them. I know you need to protect yourselves to some extent, but don't stifle the great people you've hired, it's not good for them or for you.

We'd love to see some discussion on how you build initial trust with new clients, reply in the comments!

If you'd like to influence a future blog post you can follow me on twitter @koehlerbear or @NomadCoop

Thanks for reading