An article written by Igor Abyzov and published on the Habrahabr portal about the basic rules of profitable website development. The article is written in 5 parts, we publish the second (first part).

In the previous part, we looked at the problems of everyday life. Today, let’s look at a solution to one of them.

Today’s topic is “Meeting”

Ideal meeting: the one that did not take place

No, no, of course, I am not discouraging you from direct meetings. But, understand, their number should be equal to three. Presentation, signing documents (here, of course, it depends on the contract, but …), obtaining a letter of recommendation (of course, if you do not develop a CRM, intranet … where, of course, implementation, training, etc. is required). The point is that when you come to a meeting, 70-80% of the time is spent discussing everything except the project itself. Meetings are especially useless in the initial stages, when you need 7-15 minutes of a decision-maker.

The meeting drags on for an hour, an hour and a half, or, worse, three, four. Sometimes owners or managers, unable to take responsibility or trust the developers, invite, it seemed, already at the end of the meeting, employees. “Tanya, let Fyodor the system administrator and Tanechka from the sales department come to us.” What do you think, they do not know. And everything starts all over again.

Fewer meetings, less communication, least of all that may not be relevant. In fact, neither you nor the decision-maker needs this wasted time. Let’s consider another option. A busy person who has everything scheduled by the minute, or a manager in the process of preparing a large advertising campaign or opening a new branch. He can’t give you a lot of time. As one art director told me about his leader: “… he didn’t even listen to you … he was waiting for the amount and the deadline, and design is already my problem.”

Meeting, for both parties, is the appointed time, preparation, excitement, waiting time and travel time. Add to this 70-80% about nothing at all. As a result, there were also meetings for the final approval of all layouts, after which there was a feeling that we would all start over.

Clear rules of the game

To be successful, you, like your client, need clear rules of the game. Of course, both sides will try to break them. Your task: to follow the rules as much as possible, to stand your ground. You will spend 15 minutes explaining the rules once, and in the course of your work you will save tens of hours of your time and the client’s time.

Time

Successful people count their time in hours, sometimes in minutes. And they will be very grateful if you can help save their time. There is a way out: a minimum of meetings. Discuss everything that is possible remotely. The phone partially solves this problem. But not completely. Remember one more rule: record everything.

So what do you do?

Let’s imagine that you have signed a contract. Your next task is to start designing the layout. Where do you start? Define the rules of the game. Conduct all communication remotely (I will tell you more in the next article). Use modern technology. Customers will appreciate this, and some even after you apply them in their enterprise. Because you are an IT carrier for them, you are a guide to new opportunities for them.

Use them yourself and show them to others. You need google.document, google.tables, google.presentations; use tools for online discussion: Skype, Viber, iMessenger; try on-line services that allow the client to play according to your rules.

I will tell you more about how and what to use in the next article. And I will also cover the next topic described in the previous article.

Other parts: Part1, Part 2, Part3, Part4, Part5.