A Web Designer’s Guide to Consultations
Before you send a proposal to a prospective client, a consultation is an excellent way to kick off the relationship. It’s also an important first step in project management. A consultation allows you and the client to get to know each other, define the project's parameters, and decide if both sides want to move forward.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into why it’s important to have an in-depth consultation with a prospective client, how your business can benefit from consultations, and what you can do to ensure each is successful.
What are consultations and why are they important?
A consultation helps you understand the client’s needs and determine if you can provide a solution. It’s an essential step to:
Meet the client
Understand client expectations
Scope the project
Educate the client on your background and process
Determine the budget
Ensure the project is a good fit for you
Ensure that you’re a good fit for the project
Why is a consultation an important first step? Think of it as laying the foundation for the rest of your partnership. You’ll learn key information about your client’s business—and, moreover, you’ll build trust between you and your client as collaborators.
Often, a client has fears, doubts, or concerns before beginning a new project. A consultation gives you the opportunity to speak with confidence, build a relationship, and alleviate any concerns.
Key project indicators
Having a detailed consultation before you agree to take on a new project gives you intel on key project indicators.
Scope: As you gain an understanding of your client’s business and their website development needs, you’ll be able to determine the scope of the job.
Budget: Once you have an idea about the project’s scope, discuss the budget. Your ability to talk about project cost—too often a taboo subject—will increase your ability to assess expectations properly. The best time to go over budget and negotiate is before the project actually begins.
If the project is a good fit: Only some projects that come your way will be a “perfect” fit. Your discoveries from the consultation will give you clarity as to whether you want to take a job or decline it. Your time and effort are valuable, so use the consultation as a way to assess if the project is a good fit for you.
If you are a good fit: Be honest about whether you’re the right fit for the project. The key here is having the humility to recognize when someone else is better suited for the job. For instance, the prospect may benefit from a more junior developer who charges less or a more senior developer who can build in extra complexity.
Benefits of adding consultations to your business model
For too many designers and developers, consultations are an afterthought when they should be a consistent business practice. Consultations are integral to your business model because they position you and your business for long-term success.
Some advantages include:
Generating more business
Closing more deals
Bidding on (and getting) higher-priced projects
Selling your services
Showcasing your personality
Demonstrating your work ethic
What’s more, you don’t have to meet in person! Online meetings are a great way to meet your prospective clients and straightforward to manage.
Pro tip: Use Squarespace Scheduling to automate the booking process and manage your calendar.
How to grow your business with consultations
In my experience, clients don’t really want design or code. They want a business solution that helps drive up revenue so they can have the freedom to enjoy life, family, friends, and interests beyond work.
Consultations give you the perfect opportunity to learn about your client’s goals, needs, and fears as they grow their business. Then you get to be a part of more than just designing and building a website as you help them bring their goals to life.
If you go into every consultation with this mindset, you’ll see two immediate benefits. First, you can connect with other business owners to help them solve their pain points with valuable solutions. Second, you directly show how your services can bring your client greater joy, freedom, and peace of mind.
A successful consultation can make your business more valuable as you become a go-to solution for helping business owners identify and achieve their goals.
Paid vs. free consultations
When it comes to offering free or paid consultations, there are pros and cons to each approach.
As a general guideline, you can do the following:
Offer a free consultation when your goal is to land a project. If you are just starting out, free consultations ensure nothing gets in the way of you winning more clients.
Offer a paid consultation when your goal is to provide the client with a strategy and action plan on the call. Moreover, you can offer paid consultations when you are in high demand so that you can filter and focus your time on more serious prospects.
Sign up for the Circle newsletter to learn more about growing your web design business on Squarespace.
Establish your value
When it comes to the consultation, establishing your value without giving your expertise away for free is an art. The secret to doing this is simple yet often overlooked.
Ask more questions. Whoever asks more questions is in control of the conversation. Questions identify the core business problem, which leads to the next step.
Pinpoint the problem. You express your value by being able to recognize the problem better than your client. This leads to the same outcome almost every time—they’ll trust you with the solution.
Don’t get lost in the weeds. Website design includes hundreds of small details. During your consultation, don’t get into them unless the project hinges on it. Keep the conversation high-level and focus on finding your prospect’s main problem and going over how you’ll fix it.
Pro tip: Repeat the solution to the client with the same words they used to describe the problem. For example, if the problem is that their current website doesn’t flow, use those exact words to describe the solution like this: “We’ll ensure the website flows.”
Consultation best practices
Now that you have a good understanding of what a consultation can do for you and your prospective clients, let’s get into some best practices.
Scalability
Make your consultations scalable for your business model by creating an intake form clients can fill out before the consultation and booking a call. You can use these forms as an initial scoping exercise to determine what type of consultation your prospect can benefit from.
Squarespace Scheduling is a great tool for setting up an intake form, controlling your availability, and automating booking consultations. Scheduling also eliminates back-and-forth emails and can save you time to focus on the projects themselves.
Questions to ask
You’ll also want to create a list of questions to ask each prospect during the consultation. Their responses will tell you what you need to know about their project.
Depending on your business, your questions may include the following:
What is your business?
What is your main goal?
How many pages do you want for your website?
Why are you interested in Squarespace?
When is your timeline for the project?
What is your budget?
Add any questions to the list that would be relevant to your workflow.
Pro tip: Don’t automatically assume you know the client's needs based on past projects or experiences. Keep asking questions until you get the level of clarity you need.
Communication tactics
There are two key communication tactics to implement with your prospective clients.
First, use clarity as your guiding force. If the prospect knows what they want, has a budget you’re comfortable with, and has realistic expectations, these are good indicators they’re ready to move forward. Alternatively, if the scope feels vague, the goal seems unclear, and the budget isn’t there, the prospect may have to do more planning before beginning the engagement.
Second, keep good standing with the client by never leaving them guessing about what’s happening and what comes next. Before and after every stage of the process, communicate (via email or text) about expectations.
Your communication is just as important as the service you provide. It avoids the confusion of filling any gaps in communication with the wrong information.
Want more?
Join Squarespace Circle, the program for professional creatives and designers on Squarespace. After building or contributing to three sites, you’ll gain access to exclusive member-only events, webinars, and a global network of Squarespace pros to help you build your business.
