Selection and planning of the web studio team at the start

Hello. If you are reading this material, then you have already read the previous ones. Two weeks ago we set the task to build a profitable web studio in the segment of low-cost sites and in 3 years to achieve a good profit. We set a goal and worked through a typical business plan . I think most readers have already read it. Thanks to everyone who sent their comments and observations. Today let's talk about the selection team ...

Before proceeding to the stated topic of the article, I allow myself a small digression associated with negative income in the business plan in the first year of work. Yes, to earn, you need to invest money. Do not start this business if you do not have at least half the amount of the one you need to invest. If you do not have a reserve of money, you will not be able to follow a pledged strategy, and this is very bad. The first year you have to accumulate a customer base, a satisfied customer base. You will work in the minus, but this is normal. But clearly maintain a strategy that will soon allow to change the situation on the contrary.
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Planning a start team

This is an important stage. Dedicated to this much of the material. At the start you need two people. Client Manager and Project Manager. Separation needs to be done immediately. Otherwise, the process of implementing a business plan will be delayed, and you will start to lose interest. A team of two people must work at least 3-4 months. It will be a cool, but difficult time.

Customer Service Manager (Sales Manager)

Necessarily with the experience of selling projects for the development of sites and a sense of beauty. Very desirable technical or financial education, age from 27 years. Choose this person, focusing on working with him for at least three years. It is this time that you will build a sales system and a customer relationship system. Accordingly, this person will play a key role. In three years, almost any adequate manager will be put in his place. We need technical education in order to think in terms of business processes as part of an integrated systems approach, which we will describe in all subsequent articles. If you understand what I am talking about, then you can quickly find such a person. If not, here are a few criteria that will help you more likely to make the right choice.

• Motivational type "Instrumental"
• Behavior in the conflict "compromise"
• Professional motivation "High"
• Emotional burnout "Low"
• Communicative abilities "High level"
• Organizational skills “High level”
• IQ level of 100

Tasks:

- Attracting customers;
- Processing of incoming applications, advising clients;
- Support of transactions in CRM until the prepayment;
- Preparation of controls, contracts and invoicing;
- Analysis of sales funnels;

A responsibility:

- sales according to the business plan (to ensure the arrival of money)
- clients match your strategy (do not take everything in a row)

Project Manager

Technical education is very welcome, because need a focus on the result, not the process. The ability to clearly talk on the phone, write letters and literate texts on the site, work with CMS, work with images in graphic editors, know HTML, basic SEO principles. In short, you need a webmaster manager station wagon with experience in web development.

• Motivational type: Professional (PR)
• Behavior in conflict: Cooperation,
• Professional motivation "High"
• Emotional burnout "Low"
• Communication skills "Medium"
• Organizational skills "Medium"
• IQ level of 90

The first few months, all that a project manager needs to do is quickly and efficiently configure websites for a client using standard CMS tools, without additional programming and layout. Yes, you will need to take ready-made solutions, sample solutions and be able to quickly and professionally customize them. If you need additional work on programming, design or layout - engage freelancers or CMS developers. But it is better if these additional works will not be the first time. 90% of client tasks can be solved with a basic set of CMS functionality.

Tasks

- Regular means of the management system to fulfill what they promised to the client in the contract;
- Communication with the client throughout the project;
- Accounting of working hours for projects;

A responsibility

- meeting deadlines within budget
- Satisfied customer (received good feedback from customer)

Here is a team you need to work 3-4 months. Work out a high-quality bundle of “sales - launch a website in a minimal configuration,” without being distracted by individual technical improvements. If you get distracted, move away from consistently building the system, solving unforeseen problems instead. I do not exclude that at the start you may have a designer and programmer (if finances allow). To be able to quickly build communications with a freelancer or a developer on a remote site, at first it is more important than solving unnecessary problems of team building and motivation.

Further growth of the team

Next, the team will grow approximately in the following sequence. The designer comes and is responsible for the appearance of the sites within the limits of the templates of ready-made solutions. A coder comes later to the team who is able to typeset content and change the information output templates on the site. This will give you flexibility in working with clients and relieve the manager a little. At this moment he will already have 5 (!) New sites per month coming to work. Next, we take the programmer to solve non-standard clients wanting (calculators, catalog modifications, non-standard imports / exports, etc.). This will allow you to work, increase the average amount of the check and not abandon a number of projects.

The next stage begins sequentially scaling the development team and project managers. With the growth of the team, I recommend adding separately the relevant lines to the business plan as you work, so that you have more accurate cost figures.

For an approximate calculation of the number of people needed to meet consumer demand, you can use the sign, which I will post later. Drive into it the standards for projects, the projected number of sales and see how much you need what kind of people.

But before putting a sign, it is necessary to analyze in more detail the principle of the formation of products and the calculation of their profitability. We will do this in the next article.

As part of this material, download the team work record plate . We need it to keep statistics on employees. The first time is an additional burden on you, but later, when there are a lot of employees and you need to implement a system of growth, gradation, motivation, it will become important.

How to find out exactly what employees are motivated at the moment, I will sign an unscheduled one of the upcoming articles.

In conclusion, once again about expensive orders

I started with this and want to finish this material. Why the first couple can not take up expensive orders? The first is the timing. The more complex and expensive the project, the higher the likelihood of delaying the delivery deadlines of the project (especially at the beginning of the journey). Delaying the terms means - delayed payments. And this already increases the risk of losing time and not getting a satisfied customer. Accordingly, you deviate from our strategy and risk to overwhelm the whole project :) That is why we start with a small team and ready-made standard website solutions that can be quickly made and launched.

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Vasily Churanov and WebCanape team