Life tips from web studio owners: how to increase profitability and reduce risks. Part 1
Each web-studio has its own techniques and "chips" when working with the customer, which allows it to minimize the risks in developing an Internet project and reduce costs at each stage of work. By the nature of my activity in Yumisoft, I often communicate with the owners of web studios, and now I finally got around to share some interesting recipes heard in informal conversations. I hope they will be useful to you :)
I must say that these techniques are not universal for everyone - some are suitable only for companies working with large customers, with high budgets and individual projects. Some techniques will be relevant only for companies, the development of sites in which stands on the stream (or you want to achieve this). In any case, you yourself decide whether this or that practice is feasible in your company and whether it will be useful for you.
Experience of a regional partner who wished to remain anonymous:
Free-lance.ru is often perceived by web-studios as a competitor leading customers. In a private conversation, I heard such a practical refutation of this opinion.
The company created an account on Free-lance.ru, filled out its portfolio, asked customers to leave ratings and reviews, and began periodically looking at published orders and responding to tenders.
Result: +1 million rubles. to the annual turnover at a total cost of this activity 50 thousand rubles. (time to maintain the account and the user profile payment on the site).
Scope of application: this practice is suitable for those who work on average or below the average price segment (30-80 thousand rubles for the development of the site). At the same time, for a regional company, this makes it possible to reach metropolitan customers and work on a portfolio.
It is possible to minimize the risks for the company at the stage of concluding an agreement. In addition, some of the points stipulated in the contract, allow not only to secure "if anything happens", but also to optimize the processes of work with the customer at the remaining stages, and thus speed up the time and reduce costs.
Practitioners from the Internet agency TRINET became the basis for this section.
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A separate annex to the contract of type is drawn up:
If such an application is signed, it means that the developer is not obliged to accept any corrections from other persons or after the work is taken responsible. In practice, most often the very existence of such an item in the contract substantially disciplines the customer, at least psychologically. But this does not exclude the possibility that the studio can make concessions - as long as it seems expedient.
The Customer undertakes to provide all the data necessary for the implementation of the steps specified in Schedule N, no later than 5 (five) working days after the completion date of the works specified in Appendix N, preceding the data transfer stage.
Subject to the Customer’s failure to comply with the terms of item a. of this Agreement, the start date of the subsequent stages of work can be transferred by the Contractor, but not more than 20 working days after the provision of the necessary materials.
How does it work in practice? The developer completes his work to the maximum possible completion without the customer’s materials, after which he “freezes” the project. At the same time, when the customer provides the necessary materials, the developer is not obliged to abandon current projects and redistribute the workload of employees, or to keep free resources all this time. The developer describes in the contract the period during which he will be able to proceed to the next stage of work and avoid the workmanship.
These obligations in the contract in no way infringe the interests of the customer. If the customer is interested in an online project, he will provide everything on time without such obligations. If you are not interested and tend to delay the process, then this allows the studio to reduce its risk.
The Agreement may be terminated unilaterally. At the same time, the party initiating the termination of the Agreement shall be obliged to notify the other party at least 30 days prior to the termination of the Agreement.
This means that in case the contract for some reason ceases to be of interest to you in the form in which it is present, you can terminate it at any time. At the same time, no one interferes, after the termination of this contract, to conclude a new one with new conditions (for example, a new price) or add. agreement to the current contract with the price change.
The customer usually very easily agrees with such a clause, since he projects it primarily on himself. On the other hand, if the customer is not satisfied with the work, the presence or absence of such an item will not be able to affect the improvement of the situation.
After completion of each stage of work, the Contractor shall provide the Customer with an act of transfer and acceptance of work, which the Customer approves within 5 (five) working days from the date of its receipt or gives a reasoned refusal to accept work. If it is impossible to provide a reasoned refusal to accept work, within 5 (five) working days from the date of submission of the act of transfer and acceptance of work by the Customer, the work is considered accepted.
Formally, this means that the developer must send an act to the customer by registered letter and if he does not receive a registered letter with a reasoned refusal within 5 days from the date of receipt, then the works are considered accepted. I think it is quite understandable that it is even easier to organize such a process than a larger company is a customer. Such actions will not lead to an improvement in relations in the event of a conflict, but they are quite appropriate if there is a risk of undesirable court proceedings.
How to reduce the internal risks of unprofitability of the future project. Alexey Samoilov , Head of the Kinetics Internet Agency:
“The payment scheme for web-studio employees, if we consider it from an economic point of view, is often not beneficial for the business owner. So, the sales manager sold the site. However, this cannot be considered as a sale. The act of selling has not yet taken place, because the goods are not shipped.
I draw an analogy: I came to the base and gave money to the cashier for a bag of flour. Sellers have not sold it to me yet - after all, I go to the other end of the base to the warehouse, and only there the storekeeper ships the goods to me. If I like it, I sign the invoice, put the bag on my shoulders, and go home. Now the sale took place. But if suddenly I was already out of stock in the quality of the flour, the storekeeper was rude to me, or I just realized that I did not need flour (the situation is typical of the Web, by the way), then I can easily go back to the cashier and take the money.
I go back to the cashier to take the money, but imagine that the base is very long and I go on it for a very long time - for example, a month. The first number comes, and the cashier takes his percentage from the cash register for the flour sold to me. On the 2nd of the day I reach the cashier and collect money for goods that I did not purchase. The cashier received his bonus, I - back my money. The business owner remained in the red.
For web studios, this situation is extremely typical. Of course, in more complex and veiled options (for example, paid a bag of flour, and took a bag of heroin). Avoiding this is not difficult if you do the same as in other areas of trade - the percentage of sales is always charged after the goods are shipped, i.e. in our case, after signing the certificate of completion of work at each stage. Therefore, even if we have “million” new sales on our account, we should not pay a percentage of sales until this money actually becomes ours.
Ideally, all employees should work according to this scheme. In practice, this is difficult and now in fact only the owners are at risk. But such a scheme, if not applicable to all employees, then exactly applicable to managers. Of course, depending on the particular company, it should be modified. ”
In the second part I will talk about recipes at the stages of development and approval of design, implementation of CMS and programming, as well as the delivery of the project. In general, to be continued :).
UPD: here is the second part
I must say that these techniques are not universal for everyone - some are suitable only for companies working with large customers, with high budgets and individual projects. Some techniques will be relevant only for companies, the development of sites in which stands on the stream (or you want to achieve this). In any case, you yourself decide whether this or that practice is feasible in your company and whether it will be useful for you.
1. Customer search
Experience of a regional partner who wished to remain anonymous:
Free-lance.ru is often perceived by web-studios as a competitor leading customers. In a private conversation, I heard such a practical refutation of this opinion.
The company created an account on Free-lance.ru, filled out its portfolio, asked customers to leave ratings and reviews, and began periodically looking at published orders and responding to tenders.
Result: +1 million rubles. to the annual turnover at a total cost of this activity 50 thousand rubles. (time to maintain the account and the user profile payment on the site).
Scope of application: this practice is suitable for those who work on average or below the average price segment (30-80 thousand rubles for the development of the site). At the same time, for a regional company, this makes it possible to reach metropolitan customers and work on a portfolio.
2. Conclusion of an agreement
It is possible to minimize the risks for the company at the stage of concluding an agreement. In addition, some of the points stipulated in the contract, allow not only to secure "if anything happens", but also to optimize the processes of work with the customer at the remaining stages, and thus speed up the time and reduce costs.
Practitioners from the Internet agency TRINET became the basis for this section.
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2.1. The difficulty of negotiation
Delay on the part of the customer often occurs due to long internal approvals and the absence of responsible persons, whose decision is the last resort. As a rule, the role of such a person can be the CEO of a company. But often he does not participate in the process until everything is ready, and after that he begins to make his own adjustments. Obviously, this increases the time and scope of work. To avoid this, you can use the contract.A separate annex to the contract of type is drawn up:
| Annex N to the contract NN List of persons responsible for the development of the project by the Customer | |
| 1. Approval of designs for all sections of the project | |
| Last name and. contact phone: (XXX) XXX-XX-XX contact e-mail: mail@mail.ru | (signature) |
| 2. Approval of the Terms of Reference | |
| Last name and. contact phone: (XXX) XXX-XX-XX contact e-mail: mail@mail.ru | (signature) |
| 3. Acceptance of the full scope of work, at the Contractor | |
| Last name and. contact phone: (XXX) XXX-XX-XX contact e-mail: mail@mail.ru | (signature) |
If such an application is signed, it means that the developer is not obliged to accept any corrections from other persons or after the work is taken responsible. In practice, most often the very existence of such an item in the contract substantially disciplines the customer, at least psychologically. But this does not exclude the possibility that the studio can make concessions - as long as it seems expedient.
2.2. Failure to provide the necessary materials
It is a typical customer situation. It leads again to delaying the delivery of the project. The following clauses of the agreement allow minimizing costs when such a situation occurs:The Customer undertakes to provide all the data necessary for the implementation of the steps specified in Schedule N, no later than 5 (five) working days after the completion date of the works specified in Appendix N, preceding the data transfer stage.
Subject to the Customer’s failure to comply with the terms of item a. of this Agreement, the start date of the subsequent stages of work can be transferred by the Contractor, but not more than 20 working days after the provision of the necessary materials.
How does it work in practice? The developer completes his work to the maximum possible completion without the customer’s materials, after which he “freezes” the project. At the same time, when the customer provides the necessary materials, the developer is not obliged to abandon current projects and redistribute the workload of employees, or to keep free resources all this time. The developer describes in the contract the period during which he will be able to proceed to the next stage of work and avoid the workmanship.
These obligations in the contract in no way infringe the interests of the customer. If the customer is interested in an online project, he will provide everything on time without such obligations. If you are not interested and tend to delay the process, then this allows the studio to reduce its risk.
2.3. Risks of long-term contracts
When concluding a contract for the provision of permanent or periodic services, for example, technical support of the site, the studio risks that it is obliged to provide the full scope of the described services at the price specified in the contract. If the contract is concluded for a year and the market situation has changed, then the developer is not easy to change the terms of the contract, for example, to raise the price. You can avoid this by the following paragraph:The Agreement may be terminated unilaterally. At the same time, the party initiating the termination of the Agreement shall be obliged to notify the other party at least 30 days prior to the termination of the Agreement.
This means that in case the contract for some reason ceases to be of interest to you in the form in which it is present, you can terminate it at any time. At the same time, no one interferes, after the termination of this contract, to conclude a new one with new conditions (for example, a new price) or add. agreement to the current contract with the price change.
The customer usually very easily agrees with such a clause, since he projects it primarily on himself. On the other hand, if the customer is not satisfied with the work, the presence or absence of such an item will not be able to affect the improvement of the situation.
2.4. Signing acts
This does not always happen quickly on the part of the customer. Sometimes for objective reasons, sometimes simply because of organizational issues. In this case, the developer can protect himself by including the following clause in the contract:After completion of each stage of work, the Contractor shall provide the Customer with an act of transfer and acceptance of work, which the Customer approves within 5 (five) working days from the date of its receipt or gives a reasoned refusal to accept work. If it is impossible to provide a reasoned refusal to accept work, within 5 (five) working days from the date of submission of the act of transfer and acceptance of work by the Customer, the work is considered accepted.
Formally, this means that the developer must send an act to the customer by registered letter and if he does not receive a registered letter with a reasoned refusal within 5 days from the date of receipt, then the works are considered accepted. I think it is quite understandable that it is even easier to organize such a process than a larger company is a customer. Such actions will not lead to an improvement in relations in the event of a conflict, but they are quite appropriate if there is a risk of undesirable court proceedings.
How to reduce the internal risks of unprofitability of the future project. Alexey Samoilov , Head of the Kinetics Internet Agency:
“The payment scheme for web-studio employees, if we consider it from an economic point of view, is often not beneficial for the business owner. So, the sales manager sold the site. However, this cannot be considered as a sale. The act of selling has not yet taken place, because the goods are not shipped.
I draw an analogy: I came to the base and gave money to the cashier for a bag of flour. Sellers have not sold it to me yet - after all, I go to the other end of the base to the warehouse, and only there the storekeeper ships the goods to me. If I like it, I sign the invoice, put the bag on my shoulders, and go home. Now the sale took place. But if suddenly I was already out of stock in the quality of the flour, the storekeeper was rude to me, or I just realized that I did not need flour (the situation is typical of the Web, by the way), then I can easily go back to the cashier and take the money.
I go back to the cashier to take the money, but imagine that the base is very long and I go on it for a very long time - for example, a month. The first number comes, and the cashier takes his percentage from the cash register for the flour sold to me. On the 2nd of the day I reach the cashier and collect money for goods that I did not purchase. The cashier received his bonus, I - back my money. The business owner remained in the red.
For web studios, this situation is extremely typical. Of course, in more complex and veiled options (for example, paid a bag of flour, and took a bag of heroin). Avoiding this is not difficult if you do the same as in other areas of trade - the percentage of sales is always charged after the goods are shipped, i.e. in our case, after signing the certificate of completion of work at each stage. Therefore, even if we have “million” new sales on our account, we should not pay a percentage of sales until this money actually becomes ours.
Ideally, all employees should work according to this scheme. In practice, this is difficult and now in fact only the owners are at risk. But such a scheme, if not applicable to all employees, then exactly applicable to managers. Of course, depending on the particular company, it should be modified. ”
In the second part I will talk about recipes at the stages of development and approval of design, implementation of CMS and programming, as well as the delivery of the project. In general, to be continued :).
UPD: here is the second part
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/64433/
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