Tag Archives: Talking with Clients

How We Can Create Fun, Exciting and Customized Websites for Any Business

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Lacey Welborn
Lacey and her brother Zeb Welborn founded Welborn Media. She has designed and launched websites, several projects, marketing materials, a podcast, a book and more. Her passions include her family, her friends, creating things and helping businesses grow.
Latest posts by Lacey Welborn (see all)

I recently got the opportunity to design the landing page for a magazine website. While working out the details of the assignment my client told me, “I just want to see what you put together without a ton of input from me. I want you to go ahead and design what you think would work best and we can go from there.”

This is a good news/bad news situation. The good news is I have complete freedom. The bad news is that without the back and forth and asking, do you want this or that? it’s hard to figure out what the client really wants.

We already run the Twitter account for this business. She was very happy with the Twitter background I created for their Twitter profile page and she wanted to see what I could do for her new website.

After doing some research I had some good ideas for this webpage but was having difficulty fitting ideas together. Then my client sent me a message, sort of an outline of their plans for this new website. It had a list of the different sections they wanted on their website, the type of content they wanted on their page, but nothing about what they wanted for a design.  However, at the end of the document there was a section titled Brand Personality with a list: Friendly, Fun Creative, Inspiring, Imaginative, Informational, Educational, Savvy, Good Clean Fun, Social.

I wrote this list down. After reading the words a couple of times I knew how I was going to design the site. I knew how it would look. I knew this because I now knew how the site should feel.

After spending a few days developing the design I submitted a first draft mock-up to my client. They had some minor changes for me, but overall they loved it. They really liked the overall layout I set up. They loved how I integrated social media. They loved the feel the design achieved, saying that it was friendly and warm and still clean and organized.

I got to talk to another employee, whom I’ll be working with to get the site live, and he shared with me the joy my client had for the design I put together.

Apparently, they formerly had a full-time graphic artist who’s esthetic didn’t match my client’s esthetic. It was hard for them to reach design solutions that made the client happy. After getting it right on the first attempt my client has a lot of faith in me and has hired me on to help get the site live.

It can be hard to tell what a client wants. By paying attention and putting myself in their shoes, I was able to get some good ideas. Then, with the help of a few simple words, I knew how I was going to put it all together. It’s a design that I’m proud of and that my client is stoked about.

Now it’s a mad dash to get the site up and running to stay on the schedule. It’s going to be a busy week!  Stay tuned for the finished product when the site goes live.

If you are interested in getting customized websites designed for your business, contact Lacey Welborn at (909) 973 – 9088.

Five Tips for a Killer Presentation

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Lacey Welborn
Lacey and her brother Zeb Welborn founded Welborn Media. She has designed and launched websites, several projects, marketing materials, a podcast, a book and more. Her passions include her family, her friends, creating things and helping businesses grow.
Latest posts by Lacey Welborn (see all)

Whenever we meet a potential client we prepare a presentation for them. We share facts and ideas about what Welborn Social Media can do for their business.

Our presentations have been very successful.  Get our five tips for a killer presentation

Upon the completion of our presentation, our potential clients have a basic understanding of social media, how it can benefit their business, and, often times, business owners begin to see the massive potential social media has to offer.

Slide 1 of Our Presentation

Here are some reasons why our presentations are successful:

  • We alter our slide show to suit the business we’re presenting too. This is beneficial for two reasons:  we provide a personalized approach which gives us credibility that we can take their information and use it to communicate using social media, and it gives us on opportunity to delve into the business to better understand the needs of our customers.
  • We use lots of slides. Clicking through more slides during a presentation helps develop a strong, consistent flow of information to our potential customers. Instead of having one slide with a topic and three bullet points it’s much better for the tempo of the presentation to have four slides with very large, easy-to-read font.
  • Conversation is a must.  At the beginning of each presentation we explicitly encourage clients to ask questions.  Throughout the presentation we ask a lot of questions and make sure they are understanding the material we presented to them.  The presentation is less of a presentation and more like a guided conversation . . . our slides help guide the discussion.
  • Our slide show is very cohesive. It has a set color scheme, a few font choices and consistently placed items throughout.
  • While being cohesive we also have worked to make the slides more interesting. We have a lot of charts in our presentation to visually display some of the astounding facts around social media. We realized there were too many bar graphs and they became repetitive. By thinking of more creative ways to visually display information we’ve been able to make our slide show much more interesting.

Keep Slides Interesting

Our presentation is a constant work in progress. We are always trying to improve both the design of the slides and the manner in which we share them.

We love giving our presentation to business owners. By the end they can see the potential for social media in their business. They can imagine the success it can bring. They can visualize the ways it can allow them to share their passion for what they do.  Use our five tips for a killer presentation.