--- title: "How to Talk to Your Web Developer: Communication Tips for Clients" date: 2021-01-05T10:52:00-05:00 author: Sean Smith canonical_url: "https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-2/how-to-talk-to-your-web-developer/" section: Podcast --- <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-BEGIN\]\]>[Skip to main content](#main-content)![Amanda Lutz](https://website101podcast.com/uploads/hosts/_200x200_crop_center-center_none/alutz-podcast2.jpg)Guest Amanda Lutz Amanda is a full stack web developer who can discuss technical concepts with non technical people. She is also teaching the next generation of developers at Seneca College. [ ](https://twitter.com/AmandaLutzTO)[ ](https://www.linkedin.com/in/amandalutz/) Season 04 Episode 2 – Jan 05, 2021 36:37 [Show Notes](#show-notes) ## How to Talk to Your Web Developer: Communication Tips for Clients  0:00 0:00 1.0x 0.75x1.0x1.25x1.5x2x [](//dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/website101podcast.com/uploads/mp3/season-04/02-how-to-talk-to-your-web-developer.mp3) Learn how to effectively communicate with your web developer, setting expectations and measuring success. Tips for both clients and developers on navigating the relationship. ### Show Notes - How much does a website cost? - Think about what you want from your website - How to measure success of a website - Have realistic expectations - Not all feature requests are equal - Free isn't free! - Agree on how you'll communicate throughout the project. Good communication is crucial. - What constitutes an emergency? - How to tell a developer "something's broken!" - What platforms will your website support? - "Make the logo bigger" - Provide objectives, not solutions. ## **Key Topics** - Defining success in terms of client goals and business objectives ([05:24](http://localhost:8000/#t=05m24s)) - Understanding the need for realism when discussing website features and budget ([10:04](http://localhost:8000/#t=10m04s)) - Effective communication strategies, including using a centralized platform for project management and tracking issues ([20:12](http://localhost:8000/#t=20m12s)) - Providing specific details when reporting problems, such as the URL, error message, and sequence of actions taken ([21:16](http://localhost:8000/#t=21m16s)) - Considering factors like operating system, browser, and device support during project planning ([27:32](http://localhost:8000/#t=27m32s)) Powered Transcript Accuracy of transcript is dependant on AI technology. **\[00:00\]** **Sean:** Hello, and welcome to the website 101 podcast. I'm Sean Smith your co-host and with me as always is Mike Mella. Hello, and Mike today we have a special guest Amanda Lutz. Amanda is a long-term web developer. She's also recently started teaching web development at a local college here in Toronto. Amanda, welcome to the show. **\[00:26\]** **Amanda:** Hello, how are you doing? **\[00:28\]** **Sean:** Great great. Yep. Good to have you today. We're going to be talking about how to talk to your web developer So this is not really so much about code, but how to deal with **\[00:40\]** **Amanda:** Relationships, right Amanda? Yeah, so I've been a web developer for like an independent contract freelance web developer for Over 12 years now. Is it weird to say 12 years or should it just be like 10 plus? **\[00:53\]** **Sean:** I would say 12. Okay, cool, I like that. Give yourself all the credit you deserve. That's right. **\[00:58\]** **Amanda:** Yeah, pat myself on the back. And then also the last three years now, I guess, I've also been teaching part-time at Seneca College. Awesome, how do you like the teacher? That's a very loaded question. I am not a teacher, I am a developer, and there are, but but there are parts about sharing my knowledge that I enjoy doing a lot. **\[01:24\]** **Mike:** Well, that's an interesting sort of thing to point out because in the same way that there's a difference between being a developer and being a teacher what have you, there's a difference between being a developer and not being a developer, being a client or what have you, which is what we're talking about today. There's a language that you need to sort of be able to be aware of when you're speaking with a developer, right? **\[01:45\]** **Amanda:** On a contract? Yeah, but I think that it falls more on the developer side. I mean, for example, one of the ways that I build myself out is that I am a nerd but that I am bilingual in that I can talk to clients. I can take all of these nerdy technologies and ideas and I definitely don't want to say dumb it down, but I can translate it so that the client will help be able to understand more both how it's related to their business and just stuff in general, how it's going to work. a lot of time to have that successful back and forth communication happening. It would help if the client could try to meet me halfway. And so hopefully these topics that we're going to talk about today will be good tips for your listeners. **\[02:30\]** **Sean:** Right. And I totally agree with Amanda that the bulk of the translation and issues should lie with the developer. We need to be able to translate the jargon into layman's terms that are easy to understand. **\[02:45\]** **Mike:** Right. Right. So Amanda, so let's say a client comes to you and says, hey, I want a website, but that's about all they say. How would you, what would you do? Like how would you prompt them to sort of be more clear about what they're trying to get out of you as a developer? **\[03:04\]** **Sean:** Yeah. Your neighbor meets you at a cocktail party. Oh, you do websites. I'm trying to set up a new business for my during COVID while I'm laid off. What do I do? **\[03:16\]** **Amanda:** Yeah, so that's, that I hate that question. How much does a website cost? Because I always, my default response is always, well, how much does a car cost? **\[03:25\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's mine too. **\[03:27\]** **Amanda:** Do you want four-door? Do you want two-door? Do you want electric? Do you want gas? Do you want self-driving? Do you want a truck? Do you want an SUV? Do you want sporty? Do you want a little smart to go? Like there's so many different options and it's the same with a website. Do you want a brochure site that's maybe just a couple static pages? Do you want an e-commerce site? Do you want something that's going to talk to your Facebook page? Do you want something that's gonna have likes and shares to different social platforms? Like the more you want it to do, that's obviously gonna affect the cost. Do you want like a custom design? Do you want a pre-purchased template? do you want, like, everything determines the price. And so to have somebody walk up and say, how much does a website cost, like, well? **\[04:19\]** **Sean:** Yeah, I totally with Amanda. We did talk about, we had an episode about how much does a website cost a long time ago. And then, like, Mike, I also use the car analogy. Yep. Cars, houses, like, are you buying a condo? Are you buying like a 18 bedroom mansion? Like, there are all houses. Exactly. **\[04:45\]** **Mike:** And it's not that I assume that we all agree here that it's not that we expect the client to have all of these decisions made when they first arrive, right? It's more like, these are the discussions you need to have with the web developer and be ready to have them, right? Absolutely, yeah. **\[05:01\]** **Sean:** It's about setting expectations. So Amanda, somebody you're into the process about getting in towards building the site and what kind of information do you feel like a client should have to tell you that they know that the site is successful or how they're going to measure that what kind of analytics do they need? **\[05:24\]** **Amanda:** I think analytics, quote unquote, analytics is a bit of a tricky term because you say that in a developer, a technical person is automatically going to think, Google analytics and page tracking and things like that, whereas a client isn't necessarily going to know how many page hits would be considered successful. So again, you need to talk to them in terms that make sense to them. Are they going to consider a successful website? We want to, we want to have a contact form. And so I would love it if we could generate so many callbacks to their new customers, so many callbacks a month. They could consider that a successful website. They want an e-commerce site. And oh, we want to be able to sell this many dollars a month. That would be a successful website. Oh, we just want to, and maybe it is about hits. Maybe it is about social sharing. We're a new brand. we just want to get out there, we want to have more people know about us. So that in their mind would be what they would measure a successful website on. So I think when you start talking about how they would define success, you can start working together to figure out the best way to get there. **\[06:37\]** **Sean:** So it's kind of, it depends on the client and the type of business that they're running, how you measure that success. **\[06:43\]** **Amanda:** Absolutely, yeah. Like there's no cut or dry, yes or no. This is your formula for a successful website. That just doesn't exist. **\[06:54\]** **Mike:** Whenever I discuss success measurements with clients at the early stage, I say, you know, what would you, what needs to happen for you to consider this a success? And the first thing they always say, and sometimes the only thing is, I want more people visiting my website. And that's great. And like you said, maybe that is sort of ultimately a goal, but you probably should put some thought into why, why would a whole bunch of people visiting your site convert to now your business is doing better? Would it actually make the sales? Would people be talking about it? Would they be tweeting about it if that's important to you? So just dig into it a little deeper. **\[07:32\]** **Amanda:** Absolutely. I made a little self-plug here. When the COVID shutdown first started, I made a website where you could go and it shows you a bingo card so that as you're walking around your neighborhood, you can play bingo with your kids. I have a five-year-old good god, anything to keep them occupied. And then with Halloween that just happened, I made like a sort of a special Halloween page, you know, so instead of just finding general neighborhood crap, it would be like Halloween themed neighborhood crap. And for like two or three days, I would put it on Facebook groups and I would put it on, you know, whenever anyone asked or your kids going out for Halloween, I mean, I'd be like, hey, here's an alternative. I shared it with my friends. I told them to share it with their friends. Like minimal, minimal putting it out there. Like I just pasted it anytime, anyone said anything about Halloween. I'm looking at the Google Analytics of it. I think there were like 300 users that day. **\[08:33\]** **Sean:** Wow, nice. On the 31st. **\[08:36\]** **Amanda:** Like on the 31st, that's awesome. However, like that, if I were a business owner, I don't think that that should be a successful metrics. Like, I don't think that that should be enough. So I mean, just getting the hits is not enough. Mike, you're absolutely right. How are the hits gonna equate to helping your business be successful? **\[08:56\]** **Sean:** So yeah, it's more about goal conversion. So are you getting contact form submissions or people signing up for your newsletter? Are they buying your widget or whatever you have on sale? **\[09:09\]** **Mike:** Yeah, so it goes back to, you know, just because they're visiting your site, I mean, can you reach out to those people individually speak to them and try to sell something to them after or get something from them, donations, what have you. Yeah, just arriving at your site and then vanishing may not be a really good version of what success means, but it could be. Yeah. It could be, but I mean like I said, **\[09:31\]** **Amanda:** if you were trying to do some like personal branding thing, then maybe page hits is enough, but for **\[09:37\]** **Mike:** the typical business, probably not. So this brings us to, sorry, do you want to say some Sean? **\[09:42\]** **Sean:** No, I was just going to do the same transition to business goals. **\[09:46\]** **Mike:** Great, great minds, right? Yeah, so this brings us to the next question is that when you're defining what is successful for your website down the road or what you want, what features you want, talk about a little bit about realism and being realistic in terms of what you're asking **\[10:04\]** **Amanda:** from your web developer. Um, I think, I see, because I think even that's loaded. I think that, and it's hard because when you're working as a developer, when I'm working with a design agency, they are like sort of mitigating and handling all of, all of that information that's coming from the client. They've already walked the client through what's going to happen. Whereas when I'm working directly with the client, I feel that they oftentimes have, I don't want to say lowered expectations, but oftentimes it's like, they're just happy to have a site. They're just, you know, people are clicking on it awesome. Oh, somebody filled in the form, great. Oh, people signed up for the newsletter, great. So I think that, yeah, I mean, be realistic. That's, and that's fine. I also find that sometimes they like have such weird, crazy over-the-top grandiose ideas that they just don't understand, you know, why? I want my website to be able to put this little audio file on all of my visitors' computers. And it's like, well, you can't do that. Oh, but why not? And it's like, OK, well, because you can't. Because then you're a virus. **\[11:20\]** **Mike:** Yeah. **\[11:20\]** **Sean:** Yeah. Do you have any other examples of this kind of request that on the surface seems like a good idea? But it really isn't? No, no, I have an example right now I can give. **\[11:36\]** **Mike:** Oh, okay. So it's not really so much as like, you know, this is unrealistic in the sense that it's impossible or a terrible idea. But I find that very often what clients are unable to sort of parse is what the varied amount of work is involved in building various features. So they may think that, oh, I want you to add this image to this page, which we all in this call would say that's seconds of work and it's fine, it's no trouble at all, but they might think sometimes I want you to add this thing that lets people subscribe to notifications and they'd get a notification every time I do this and that. And they see those two things as just as much work as each other, whereas we would say, well, wait now, one of those takes a lot more time and effort and therefore budget, so there may not be equal in that sense. That's often what I encounter. **\[12:30\]** **Sean:** Yeah, I think that would be kind of like asking your mechanic to do stuff on your car. To me, I have no idea what it's worth or how long it's going to take is like, just make my car work. Yeah. Stop that clunking sound that I hear on the highway. **\[12:46\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's a good analogy. Because yeah, he might or she might be able to tell you, well, it's more than just coming in here for 20 minutes and I get it done. I have to take off all the wheels and do all this first. **\[12:58\]** **Amanda:** Yeah. Yeah, I would absolutely like to get back to the cost of things in just a minute. But, so Sean, before when you asked about if I had any examples of things that seemed unrealistic in the beginning and then they could be worked out, the reason I laughed is because usually when I hear unrealistic things, it is because they are just batshit crazy and are completely unrealistic all the time. Like, there was like one time a client was, They had like a print background, so they wanted their website to, they wanted all of the content to be like in three columns that would always break at the same place. And this was like a decade ago. And it was like, okay, but that's not how web pages work. They just couldn't grasp the differences. **\[13:50\]** **Sean:** They just, they couldn't get it. **\[13:51\]** **Amanda:** Like we want the image to be right here and the content needs to break like this around it. And it's like, well, then you need an image to go on there. And then you have zero SEO. And they're both bad options. So I think a lot of times, I think unfortunately, a lot of times you always hear the horror stories of these clients who have it in their head that they know how it's gonna work. They know how it should be, that they know whatever because their nephew plays with Photoshop. or their neighbor was talking about some app that could do a thing. So why can't my website do that? And it's like they're just, they're very different, very not at all the same media. And it's so often I don't want to resort to. I am the professional, you have to take my word for it. But so often that's what it comes down to. **\[14:48\]** **Sean:** Yeah. I personally haven't had a situation where I had a client asked me for something that was just like impossible. I've had situations where they asked for something and had no clue what the budget for it was gonna be. And those are two different things. Like it may totally be feasible, but if you have a budget of $500 for something that's gonna cost $25,000, you know, it's not gonna be anything you could do at all. **\[15:19\]** **Amanda:** And I find that that happens a lot with clients who come in and are like, I want a WordPress site, WordPress is free. This project is not gonna cost anything at all. And it's like, okay, two of those three statements that you just said are factual. Yes, WordPress is free. Yes, you have heard of it. This, like, you're paying for my time, you're paying for my experience, you're paying for, like, and so it's not gonna be a free project. I have had clients, and of course, Maybe you guys should do another podcast about, hey, developers, these are the trigger words, the trigger phrases to avoid, when the client says it, when the client says it, run, and one of them is absolutely, oh, it's WordPress, it shouldn't take that long. I don't understand, so it's like I always, I have like this just template almost of an email that I just send to the clients when they say that and it's like, listen, development environment, installing, setting everything up, everything is secure, entering your content, if that's what you want me to do, getting your approval, emails back and forth, the three times a week that you call me to ask if I got the email that you just sent, when everything is finally approved, after I've had to hunt you down for three weeks to get approval, moving everything to the live site, that's where the cost is. I don't care if WordPress is free. **\[16:47\]** **Sean:** I'd like to comment on one thing that you said there, getting a phone call to confirm that you received the email you just sent. That definitely fits into how to talk to your developer as bad advocate. If you sent an email and then you call in less than 24 hours to confirm you received it, then you're micromanaging and over communicating, unless it's an emergency. Yes. And by emergency, I don't mean emergency to me. It's an emergency. It needs to be a business emergency. Like your site is down. Your forms aren't working. You've got an event and something's broken. Yeah. That's an emergency. You want to change it from blue to like navy. That is not an emergency. **\[17:39\]** **Amanda:** It is not. And I don't necessarily consider that good etiquette for talking to a developer. I just consider that good etiquette. You're not going to send an email to your mom or to your kid and then call four hours later and be like, did you get it? Did you get it? What do you think? What do you think? It's not just when you're talking to your developer. It's like people in the business world, people who work in an office. You shouldn't be doing that either. **\[18:04\]** **Sean:** Yeah, look here. I sent you an email. I sent you a tweet about the email and SMS about the email and a Facebook message about the email. Why haven't you responded to me at that point? I'm purposely not responding because you didn't send it to me on LinkedIn. That's where I do all my communication. **\[18:22\]** **Amanda:** Oh, right. Sometimes I'm predictive. I don't know if I'm replying at that point. **\[18:28\]** **Mike:** Hi, hope you're enjoying this episode. We're always looking for topic suggestions, so if there's anything you'd like us to discuss on the show, please let us know. **\[18:37\]** **Sean:** We're also looking for guests. If you have a guest that you think would be great for a podcast, please let us know. If there's a guest that you would love to come back, let us know. You can do that by visiting website 101podcast.com slash contact. **\[18:54\]** **Mike:** Okay, so let's move on a little bit to once after we've started the developer and the client have started a bit of a relationship and now the projects underway, let's talk a little bit about what kind of communication issues can come up in while the project is actually going and what kind of things you need to be aware of. So for example, any project that you build is probably going to have problems, errors, maybe just regular change requests, what's the best way for a client to reach out to you as a web developer and say something's wrong? **\[19:32\]** **Amanda:** Yeah, well something that probably should be decided at the beginning of the project is how you are going to communicate those types of issues. Whether it's going to be an email, whether it's going to be in some project management, tracking some task list type thing. There's so many so many sites out there. I know we were talking about some of them before we were started courting. Just whatever is whatever you've decided that you're going to use for the project, keep using that. You know, like I don't I there's nothing worse than having like messages here and messages there and trying to consolidate them and and where do I reply and how do I keep track of everything needs to be centralized **\[20:12\]** **Mike:** centralized for communication, single source of truth, I think they call it in our industry. **\[20:18\]** **Amanda:** Love it. Yeah, but I also find that the messages that frustrates me the most from the clients at that point are this isn't working, period. Okay, I got an error message, period. And then sometimes there's like a screenshot but because they took a screenshot on like their giant monitor and then attached it like not even an attachment in an email they embedded it in an email so it's like the I'm trying to like read the URL that the development URL on a screen that's like 300 pixels wide it's it's you can't see if you have any issues with your site when you share that with your developer it's I don't want to say it's better to give too much information because you don't want to like drown them in details, but the URL, the error message that came up **\[21:16\]** **Sean:** and then how you got there, you know. I would also add what you expected to see versus what you did see. **\[21:23\]** **Amanda:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely. **\[21:25\]** **Sean:** I expected behavior versus what happened. **\[21:28\]** **Amanda:** Yeah, but I think for sure like having the URL is probably like the biggest helper And for some whatever reason so many clients just don't think of including it. **\[21:41\]** **Sean:** I am constantly reminding clients, okay, you posted in Trello, that's one of these project management boards that we're talking about. You posted in Trello, you posted a screenshot, you said it's broken or it doesn't work. Your site is massive. You sent me a partial screenshot, there's no URL, I have no idea where it is. include a link so that it helps me, it helps me work faster so I can solve your problem faster and save you money because time is money. Yeah. So there's one site that I'm working on. There's **\[22:16\]** **Amanda:** like three different user roles. So it's like, who are you logged in as? As you were filling this in, what data were you entering that maybe could have triggered the error? It's things like that. Like, I'm not saying that you need to be like, oh, I clicked on this in the side menu and then I clicked clicked on this and then I got up and made a sandwich and then I came back and I clicked over here. It's like, we don't need like, I don't need like a play by play of everything that happened from like 12 o' 1 a.m. that like caused this air. However, if it's one of those things where it's like, oh, I clicked, I clicked on this link and then I clicked on this check box and then everything went weird. It's like, that's the sequence that I need to know about. **\[22:58\]** **Mike:** Yeah, I would say giving the URL the actual address to the page is good advice generally even aside from problems, like even when I've had clients come to me and say, you know, can you update whatever on this and they give it sort of the page title and I'm like, okay, where's that page again? And they go, well, you click on that and then you've got a scroll down and then when you see that little thing there, you click, instead of just copy the actual address and put it in an email right there. **\[23:25\]** **Amanda:** Go to this page and then go to this call to action and then click on this link and it's I was like, no, just the URL, please. **\[23:31\]** **Sean:** Yeah, it's good advice. Yeah. Actually, I think I might write a blog post about that because that is, I hadn't considered how much that happens to me, and now clearly it happens to you guys as well. **\[23:44\]** **Amanda:** And I would also want to say that when we're talking about some of these errors that you need to, errors or issues or however delicately you want to put that, If it's like a larger client office, like if in the client there's like multiple users that are helping and testing and things like that, keep in mind like what operating system are they on? Oh, this page doesn't look right on my colleague's machine. Yeah. Okay, well like what machine are they on? What browser are they using? What I had a client one time, call me a test. He was angry because he just did some like demo to his boss or his boss's boss or something like that. And er, the file upload field looks different. Er, why doesn't it look the same? Great. And it's like, so what kind of machine are you on? Oh, I'm on a Windows machine. And what kind of machine are they on? Oh, they're on a Mac. And it's like, okay, well, like that. So there are just some form fields that look different based on the operating system. Can't you make them look the same, right? And I was like, no. and he said, oh, he shouldn't matter what kind of, what kind of operate with machine I'm using it should all, and I was like, dude, if I had the skills to make everything look absolutely identical, dependent of the operating system, you would be paying me so much more. Yeah. So much more is ridiculous. **\[25:10\]** **Mike:** I had a client one time, not that long ago, reach out to me and say, hey, I built this person's website and she came back and said, one of my visitors said that this page does not, or the site is totally broken on our machine and I said, can you get the details of the person's machine and I used a tool you can get where you basically send someone to a website, they click a button and it sends me an email with all the details of their machine. So they let's go and find it and I got them to do that and this is getting a bit technical but you guys will find it funny. This person was using Windows NT and I looked at that. **\[25:47\]** **Sean:** That's Windows 2000 for those who don't remember. **\[25:50\]** **Mike:** It is before that. I looked up when it was retired by Microsoft. It was 23 years ago. The version of Fair Machine. It was a 23 year old operating system. And I was able to tell my client, look, I'm not surprised it doesn't work. I'd be surprised anything on the internet works for this person. I cannot fix it. I will not fix it for that one operating system. And she was fine with it, of course, but it was really fascinating. **\[26:15\]** **Sean:** Yeah. Many times I've had similar things where like, Well, my contact at the organization, everything's good, they're all happy with it, but apparently their boss or somebody in the C suite is using like an old computer and it doesn't look right. So they ask, well, look, we know it looks good, but can you just make it work on their computer to make them happy? And it's... **\[26:44\]** **Mike:** Yeah, that's common to me. **\[26:46\]** **Sean:** Yeah, for some reason, people in the C suite have trouble understanding that using a 23 year old computer just isn't the **\[26:56\]** **Mike:** way to go. That's why that's another thing that by the way, it's probably important to set out at the outset with your developer is what platforms are you supporting. Like because browsers go out of date, internet explorer used to be the most popular one. Now it's not even being made anymore. And some people still use it, but not many. And you need to decide which types of devices and what not are we going to support for this project. **\[27:19\]** **Sean:** And I would say that should be part of the contract that the developers or agency sends to the client. For me, my contract says the latest two versions of each of the major browser. **\[27:32\]** **Amanda:** Oh wow, you go back to A. **\[27:34\]** **Sean:** Yeah, I don't know. **\[27:35\]** **Amanda:** I don't even go that far, man. **\[27:37\]** **Sean:** No, I'm by two. It's like Chrome 17 and Chrome 16 or something like that. **\[27:41\]** **Mike:** I mean, most of them, fortunately, most browsers just auto-update, and most people have that. So you're probably going to be using the most recent version. But the odd person who's stuck in an office where they're on Windows XP, and that doesn't use Edge, and therefore they're using IE on it. **\[27:57\]** **Sean:** Yeah, once you get people onto Microsoft Edge or whatever, everything's auto-updating. The new, the only problem browser I occasionally encounter still is Safari. Yeah. It's a bit of a pain in the butt to troubleshoot for when I'm on Windows, **\[28:15\]** **Amanda:** but I mean, yeah. Well, and then also though, I mean, hopefully it's not so much an issue now, but remember, like, old mobile phones, there were, like, before you even got Chrome on them, where was there those, where was it those WAP mobile browsers? Like, those were such a mess to try **\[28:32\]** **Mike:** to develop on. And the truth is, even aside from just which ones do you want to support, like, I have a client that works with a lot of developing countries and in those countries people often have older software, older hardware. So it could be a business requirement that you are able to support those tools. **\[28:51\]** **Amanda:** Absolutely. But that's something that you discuss at the beginning of the project. **\[28:55\]** **Sean:** Right. Yeah. If you have business reasons to support Internet Explorer, then you have to do it. And if your developer doesn't want to do it, then it's time to find another developer because not everybody's going to want to work with that. **\[29:10\]** **Amanda:** Yeah. Well, I think, too, that, again, depending on the goals of your website, the developer should probably have a basic understanding of what they're getting into. Mike, your client that has a lot of users from developing countries. Yes. You know, the developer hears that and it's like, okay, I'm going to have to do older versions of browsers, things like that. Or if, for example, your client is a bank, an insurance company, you know, so that you know, they've got to make sure that the grandma living up in the middle of North Northern Ontario can still do her online banking. Yeah, they may still be on IE 11. Fingers crossed, it's at least that good. So yeah, you've got to make sure that even if it doesn't, that it degrades gracefully as opposed to just a great big red X that doesn't work, but you know, the developer, I think the developer needs to have sort of an ear open for those types of hiccups from the beginning of the project. **\[30:12\]** **Mike:** Yeah, have you ever had a client say, can you make the logo bigger? **\[30:19\]** **Sean:** I did once a long time ago, but I've also had similar requests. **\[30:23\]** **Amanda:** I'm in the middle of that right now, in fact, I find that it doesn't happen so much to me because I'm not a designer. I don't usually work with a client to come up with a custom design. However, like I said, it's happening right now, and it's not even the logo, it's just like a heading in the middle of the page, and it doesn't need to be bigger. I could make it bold instead. We could put a nice border on it instead. Why are you messing with the design of the rest of the the site just to have this one heading that you think is important stand out more. **\[31:04\]** **Mike:** Yeah, so it's probably important to have conversations where like your developer might have ideas such as those you just listed to it that would help you achieve the same effect without causing whatever problems that you might get or maybe it would even achieve it even better than their solution. So, have those discussions, right? **\[31:21\]** **Amanda:** Oh, yeah, have the discussion, but also be open-minded, again, it's like I think I said before. So many clients too often come in with like either a chip on their shoulder about it is my site that's going to be done my way or they're afraid of being taken advantage of so they've like talked to other people that maybe don't have as much as experiences you do like their nephew or whatever it's like oh my nephew says and like it's unfortunate but the developers got a kind of of try to bear and grin at and try to talk them out of it. I don't wanna say talk them out of it, but like put forth all of the reasons and put forth all of the arguments about why it shouldn't be done that way. However, I did one time have an experience where the client was adamant, adamant about something that had to be done this way. And I was like, it's not right, it goes against your branding, it's the code for it is gonna be gross and clunky. This is a better solution, This is an alternate better solution. We can get kind of the same effect, but it'll work better this way. And they were like, I don't know what was going on, but like nails were dug in and holding onto this. And I was like, okay, listen, I'll do it if you're this adamant about it. And then next week, when you call me to tell me that it's not working out that you don't like it, I'm gonna charge a double for fixing it and doing it the way I'm telling you to do it now. I had a good relationship with this client. kind of get away with being melty to them like that and they were like yeah no I'm do it I'm right blah blah blah whatever and then next week when they called and said yeah it's not really working out how we thought it would and I was like yeah remember remember that call from last week when I said I was gonna charge a double yeah expect that expect that on the next invoice **\[33:16\]** **Sean:** Right. And you know, you'd think that you're hiring somebody because they're a professional with experience. And in Amanda's case, she's got 12 years as a solo. 12 plus. 12 plus years in the business. She's an educator teaching other other developers, young up and coming developers, how to build websites. You'd think that your client would at least be willing to listen to your explanation, even if they disagree with it, and they might in the end say, no, listen, I've evaluated what you said, but I want to do it my way. But it sounded to me like initially, your client was just like being really obstinate and pushing, like, I don't want to listen to you. I'm right. I know it. Why did you hire a professional? I take my car into the car center to get serviced. I'm not arguing with the mechanic. I might question him to get a better understanding of what he's going to do, and I might say that's too much money for me to do that, but I'm not going to argue about his decision about what needs to be done. **\[34:24\]** **Mike:** Yeah. Although, you know, this, it's all just said to be clear that we're doing a lot of trash talking about past clients and telling all these war stories. But if you mentioned just now that you had a good relationship with that client and you were able to be a little bit mouthy, whatever. But just for the, for the client's listening, the people, the website owners listening. If you are working with a web developer who is not willing to, you know, compromise and have good discussion like this with you, that's probably a red flag for you. A huge red flag, yes. Yeah, don't just let your web developer sort of walk all over you. We're not saying that **\[34:56\]** **Sean:** either, but, you know, we have an episode about red flags that we're recording tomorrow, **\[35:00\]** **Mike:** right? It's, yeah, that's coming up. It's going to be pretty awesome. And when I landed to the lootage of that earlier, you're right. **\[35:05\]** **Amanda:** I kind of want to just sit in on that and then share all of my stories. **\[35:09\]** **Mike:** Maybe you can join us for that one too. **\[35:12\]** **Sean:** Anyways, I think that this has been a really great discussion. Amanda, thank you so much for coming and working our listeners find out more about you if they wanted to get in touch. **\[35:23\]** **Amanda:** So I have a website that unfortunately suffers from the shoemakers' children and my website looks awful and it is woefully out of date. However, you can find me there. The URL is amandaloops.com. I assume there'll be some bio or something about me on Sean's site, so I'll make sure to put a link there. **\[35:46\]** **Sean:** Mm-hmm, cool, awesome. Great, thank you so much for coming out. Thanks for being here. **\[35:50\]** **Amanda:** Thanks, guys, for inviting me. I had so much fun. **\[35:55\]** **Sean:** The website 101 Podcast is hosted by me, Sean Smith. You can find me on LinkedIn. My username is Caffeine Creations, or on Twitter, where my username is CaffeineCreation, C-A-F-E-I-N-E-C-R-E-E-8-I-O-N, or at my website, CaffeineCreations.ca **\[36:18\]** **Mike:** And by me, Mike Mella, you can reach me online at BeLikeWater.ca and also on Twitter and LinkedIn, where my username is Mike Mella, that's M-I-K-E-M-E-L-L-A. You Close Transcript Have a question for Sean, Mike, and Amanda? [Send us an email](/contact). [![Listen on Google Play Music](/assets/images/google_podcasts_badge@2x.png)](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWJzaXRlMTAxcG9kY2FzdC5jb20vZmVlZC5yc3M%3D)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/itunes-badge.png)](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/website-101-podcast/id1449510012)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/spotify-logo.png)](https://open.spotify.com/show/3rmSM1R9t6q1U8DmYWJRSO?si=NrYPMgDaRV6Dd56PjEaPow)### Season 04 - 1 [ 'Click Here' Hurts Your SEO and UX: Why It's Time to Change](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-1/click-here/) - 2 [ How to Talk to Your Web Developer: Communication Tips for Clients](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-2/how-to-talk-to-your-web-developer/) - 3 [ Red Flags](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-3/red-flags/) - 4 [ Content Strategy](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-4/content-strategy/) - 5 [ Accessibility](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-5/accessibility/) - 6 [ Improving Your Website Without a Redesign: Content Audit, Usability Testing & More](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-6/how-to-improve-your-website-without-doing-a-full-redesign/) - 7 [ Content Marketing](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-7/content-marketing/) - 8 [ Alternatives to Google Analytics](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-8/alternatives-to-google-analytics/) - Bonus[ Listener Survey - What Topics do you Want to Hear More of?](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-/listener-survey-what-topics-do-you-want-to-hear-more-of/) - 9 [ Website Optimization and Speed](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-9/website-optimization-and-speed/) - 10 [ Exploring WordPress Website Development with Laura Bailey](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-10/wordpress/) - 11 [ From Novice to Bootcamp Instructor](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-11/from-novice-to-bootcamp-instructor/) - 12 [ Pimp Your Typography](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-04/episode-12/pimp-your-typography/) ### All Seasons - [Season 01](https://website101podcast.com/season/01/) - [Season 02](https://website101podcast.com/season/02/) - [Season 03](https://website101podcast.com/season/03/) - [Season 04](https://website101podcast.com/season/04/) - [Season 05](https://website101podcast.com/season/05/) - [Season 06](https://website101podcast.com/season/06/) - [Season 07](https://website101podcast.com/season/07/) - [Season 08](https://website101podcast.com/season/08/) - [Season 09](https://website101podcast.com/season/09/) <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-END\]\]>