The Discovery Process: There’s Method to the Madness, Episode 148

Episode Transcript

Carrie: Hey Jordon, welcome to the show. It is fantastic to have you on today. How are you doing?

Jordon: I’m great, Carrie. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Carrie: Yeah. I, uh, I, I get a little bit of a personal award, achievement award for actually getting you onto the show, so, uh, thanks for finally saying yes.

Jordon: (laughs), thank you. Persistence pays off, right?

Carrie: (laughs), absolutely. So, today I want to chat with you about the process of discovery and the role that it plays in a, uh, development project. And I guess we could just start by asking, how would you define discovery?

Jordon: So, I define discovery as the process of determining, say, the needs of your client or project and the requirements or assets that are determined from that, that process. So, what is the client or the user or the audience looking to achieve, and what parts, pieces, assets, technology, or say, budget do we need to accomplish those goals?

Carrie: So, Jordon, how would you, how would you say that that is different from like a project scoping process?

Jordon: Well, I think they go, they do rely on one another. So, in order to define the proper scope of a project, it takes the process of discovery to figure out the needs of the project and the requirements for that project. Uh, from that, you can determine, let’s say, how long it’s going to take, what type of contractors, or say, vendors you might need. Do you need copywriters? How many developers would you need, uh, given those parameters? Um, what is the, what is the budget requirement? How long is it going to take? All of those things are part of what you figure out during your discovery process, and that end result is what we can call the project scope.

Carrie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that makes sense. Uh, so I do want to dig into the nitty gritty with you on the process, but uh, before we go there, could you just walk through what all it entails, from … Okay, so somebody contacts you, or somehow you’ve gotten in contact with a potential client, and they say, “Hey Jordon, I need you to do X.” Take it from there.

Jordon: Okay. Great. So, yeah, once a client comes your way, via, say, your website or referral, you need to start to kind of figure out, and a lot of times coach them into getting you the information you need to do your part or your job. Sometimes it goes a little further than just, say, a technical requirement. Um, but the first thing I do is an initial phone consultation, um, and that goes one of two ways, depending on if it’s a new site or an existing site. You know, if they have an existing site and content, you have to take that into consideration. You know, what are you migrating? What’s going well? What’s not going well? Or, or they may be a completely new business or new idea, and you need to give them some guidance in what type of site or content would be effective for their goals. Um, the goals specifically being, what are they trying to communicate, and to what audience, and, and what is the outcome of that?

The one thing I like to understand, because all site projects can be quite different is, what do they see as a, either a successful visit to their site, or a successful conversion on their site. You know, that may not always be something that the user purchases. You know, that might apply in an e-commerce situation, but in a … When you’re marketing other products or services, or you’re just trying to build commut-, community or an audience, it might just be building a list, you know, acquiring their contact information for your mailing list, um, getting them to share your content on social media. Um, so it’s, it’s good to define what they’re looking to get out of their website investment.

Carrie: Do you find that most people know the answers to your questions off the bat, or is it like, “Oh, I hadn’t really thought about what a successful conversion, or what a conversion looks like on my website?”

Jordon: (laughs), that is a typical response to a lot of those questions. So, as I said, it is kind of the process of inquiring and, say, coaching, kind of leading them into the thought patterns or process of thinking more about their site. After that first consultation, um, there might be a followup phone call. Some people are a little more on point, and they know a lot of these answers, so it’s kind of the [task 00:04:47] to then, typically for a larger product, provide them with a, a longer questionnaire that has a lot more detail in it. And I think you can typically tell in that first conversation whether or not this client can get through that questionnaire on their own with a few questions, or if it’s more walking them through each question. You know, I typically provide each question and then a description or an example of what I’m looking for.

Carrie: Okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

Jordon: So, there is some guiding that … You know, there’s a little … It, it can vary between hand holding and just a little bit of guidance.

Carrie: So, how long is that initial phone call?

Jordon: It’s usually 30 minutes to an hour. I try to keep it focused in the first call to about an hour. One thing that you’re figuring out during that call as well is whether or not you are a good fit. So, sometimes part of the discovery process is, are we best suited to work together, or should I be referring you to someone more specialized, someone who works in a specific market or niche, possibly. Or sometimes you determine, this needs to be an agency, uh, not just an individual or two or three people, say, a developer, a designer, and a, you know, maybe a content strategist working together. They might need a larger team. A big item I like to go over is, what content do you have, what content do you need, and how will that be created. So, with that question, sometimes people need a lot of writing and a lot of sales copywriting, but they don’t necessarily have that scale, or they don’t have the time to do it. So, at that point, we need to determine what’s the best fit for a, a copywriter.

Carrie: Yeah. And I, (laughs), found that a lot of people, uh, completely underestimate the amount of time it will take them to produce content. I underestimate the amount of time it’ll take me to do it.

Jordon: (laughs), yeah. I’m with you there. Sometimes you sit down to write a blog post, and a couple days later, you say, “How did that happen?” But it’s just, it’s just how it works.

Carrie: So, how do you keep … Cause, you know, 30 minutes or an hour of your time on the phone, that’s valuable time, and I assume that that’s not something that you’re being paid to do.

Jordon: That initial consultation is usually provided, uh, free of charge. Uh-

Carrie: Okay.

Jordon: When it goes beyond that, there are consulting or discovery fees and packages that I do sell. And that’s kind of another level of maybe client filtering. It, it depends on the type of client you’re working with. And I will say, as you revise your discovery process, it doesn’t instantly bring you more clients. (Laughter), you’ll probably convert less clients. But you’re working towards acquiring the clients that you’re best fit to work with. And I think in the long run, that saves on time. Uh, you begin working with people who value your offerings, your services, your input, and your expertise.

And that can be something you work into your initial [inaudible 00:07:58] forms, possibly. You know, you ask a few questions maybe about budget or a few goals. Um, so I think you can, you can work some automation in there to reduce it, and then as you go along, you just, you, you kind of get the sense of, am I on the, am I on this call with the, the right fit. Uh, you, you know, you’re, you’re gonna learn that in the first few minutes. Um, and then rather than that turning into multiple calls, which then just starts to eat away at your, at your valuable time, um, you’ll know whether or not the second call is, is worth pursuing.

Carrie: Okay. And you have some sort of filter between them contacting you and you saying, “Let’s hop on the phone.” So, in other words, a filter to kick out the tire kickers, (laughs), if you will.

Jordon: Yeah, and I think a, one of the, like the one field in your contact form, um, is, you know, having that budget drop down. Um, you know, give them some prescribed ranges, you know, and set that … You know, that’s gonna … Or even a pricing page where you’re, you kind of group things into, say, a customized theme package, where you’re, you know, you’re using, say, maybe a Genesis Child Theme, and you’re customizing it and you’re adding their brand to it, but it’s not a custom theme. You know, and that’s sometimes a great fit for clients. You know, it’s when they’re trying to fit their budget to the project. That can be a good solution. Um, you know, they don’t need that completely unique look. They don’t have to look … You know, they don’t have to set themselves apart from everyone else in the industry. They’re just getting started. They have a smaller budget that works.

You know, you could have a page where it says, “This type of package is suited for these people, these type of projects, you know, these goals, and it starts at this amount.” And then another one where, say, that’s completely custom solution, you know, and it’s completely unique design, and it’s a custom theme. Um, more service integrations. Um, you know, we’re thinking of every detail. And then that’s more of, you describe the project to me, and then we can tell you what type of budget timeline you’ll need. Um, so it’s kind of approaching the solution from, from two different, from two different paths that way. And then having the, obviously, the price range there would be much higher, but it begins to, to educate the client on like what, what budget range they’re looking at.

Um, you know, so even if you don’t present that on your website, kind of create some scenarios and figure out your minimum project fee, and typically, you know, how high you go on a project. You know, we don’t all work on six figure projects, so you don’t need to include that in your, in your contact form, because that might confuse clients. Let them choose that range, and I think that initially just gives you an idea of, of just what type, type of investment they’re looking at and how realistic they might be in their project vision, because that budget obviously needs to match up with the description they’ve given you.

Carrie: Gotcha. So, you’re getting, you’re getting some of those details before you ever get on a call to sort of gauge whether or not you could even be a good fit at that point.

Jordon: Correct. Yeah, and I think your, what you present on your website and your contact form, uh, your inquiry form, can definitely filter out some of the clients that you’re gonna speak to and it’s just not a fit.

Carrie: So, let’s talk … So, it sounds like, for lack of maybe a better word, I’m gonna call it mini discovery, and this is that first phone call that you’re having, where it’s just sort of, “Hey, what are you looking for? What are, you know, what do you expect the outcomes of this project to be,” sort of that really high level stuff. Let’s get into that more extended discovery, um, you know, that would eventually help you write your project scope and contract, etc. What’s the process that you’re using there?

Jordon: During that call, that’s, uh … Like I was describing before, I usually see that there’s mainly two groups of clients. There’s that, they have a budget and you need to craft a solution that fits that, that budget. I mean, everyone has budgets, but let’s say a limited budget there.

Carrie: Sure.

Jordon: Um, and then there are other clients that are like, “These are our needs. Uh, we need to know how much this is going to cost and how long it’s, it’s going to take.” So, I think that’s, initially, just try to establish that with the client. Um, and you, you end up in the initial difficult conversation of, what is your budget. And nobody … You know, clients typically don’t wanna reveal that. I think there’s, uh, there’s kind of this feeling that if they say something too high, you’re just going to say yes and then, (laughter), [inaudible 00:12:40] more money, (laughs). So, I mean, have you been in that scenario once or twice?

Carrie: Oh, ab-, yes. As both a, uh, both a customer and a, someone offering services.

Jordon: Yeah. And I think what we typically see from clients it that, when they have a list of features, their budgets are usually less than what they need to be. Um, so I’ve, over the years, I’ve phrased that in some many different ways, and what I’ve found that has worked better for me, initially is to go over all the budgets, and you know, and go over what your, first what your expected revenue the first year after launch would look like, what’s your realistic anticipated revenue. Also, you know, what type of market budget are you looking at the first year, because we all know you can put a huge website up there, a fantastic website, but if you don’t do anything with it and you don’t market it, people are not going to get to it, usually. You need some sort of marketing plan, and that requires time and/or money.

The other thing is, you know, what’s their budget for creating content, uh, because you, you do need to create pieces of content to, uh, to build your, you know, build your site and improve your [SCO 00:13:52], uh, build more inbound links, etc. Uh, look like a thought leader, and uh, just have a more active site. And some of those responses are, you know, that they don’t have that budget or they’re doing it themselves, but just realistically, you start to see what type of team are they assembling, you know, what type of resources are they, are they looking to invest.

And then, also one of those questions would be, is going to be the big question of what is your website and design budget. And I think when you group them altogether and try to get an understanding of the bigger picture, it actually becomes a little bit more comfortable for the client to start discussing the budget, cause it’s not all about like, what I’m going to charge you or what a developer’s gonna charge you or designer’s gonna charge. It’s, it’s trying to understand like, what percentage of your total budget do you have set aside to invest in your website.

Carrie: That makes, that makes sense. So, it sounds like a lot of the discovery then … I mean, first you’re just discovering about the budget, but uh, is then discovering solutions that are appropriate to their budget.

Jordon: Correct. Yeah, and, and to go back to one of your earlier questions of, you know, do you provide this free of charge, you know, obviously this, this can take up a lot of your, a lot of your time. Um, I think initially getting to that difficult question of like, you know, in a ballpark figure, you know, what, what are we working with. Cause then you’re going onto more of the details and discovery next, and you don’t wanna over design something and come back and realize that’s out of budget, that’s twice the budget, you know, that it’s just, what you’ve proposed isn’t even in the realm of their financial possibility.

Carrie: Yeah. Cause then you’ve wasted your time and their time.

Jordon: Exactly. I think that’s the big thing … Remember, the big thing about figuring out the budget is saving time for both of, both parties, yourself and the client.

Carrie: Let’s talk about the technical aspects of discovery. So, you’re a developer. Let’s say that this is a technical, it’s a website project, so there’s gonna be some sort of development involved. The client says, “Hey Jordon, I need a shopping cart.” What would be some of the questions that you would ask to figure out … So, in your mind, you’re thinking, “Okay, they want a shopping cart,” and that’s in your, your sales mind, but in your developer mind, you’re thinking, “Okay, we’ve got all these different options for how we can execute and integration with payment gateway … So, you’re trying to figure out bridging the gap between what they’re saying they’re wanting and what you think that you would execute as a solution. Uh, what’s your process look like there?

Jordon: That … And, and this is a great, great scenario, because you’re describing something that comes up in discovery all the time, is, it’s what the client tells you isn’t necessarily, (laughs), what they need or what’s appropriate or what’s even, say, good for them. And I think that, in this scenario, it is typical, you know, typical thought pattern to be like, “Yes, I wanna sell stuff on the Internet.” Who doesn’t? You know, it’s-

Carrie: (laughs).

Jordon: That’s why we have, that’s why we’re on the Internet. It makes us money. Um, it, one of the big reasons, uh, there are many reasons, but in … I, I did have a project recently, and it was, uh, this was an author, and they had a new book out, and they wanted to sell the book. And I was one of a few proposals that they were reviewing, and in those proposals, everyone’s proposals, we had some sort of cart so that you could add that book to the cart and check out and pay this person money, because that’s part of how they make a living and survive, by selling their books. The question I had about the book, and again, these, these budget things get personal, so you do need to build a rapport and, you know, build a relationship with your client early on. Um, they need to have a, a certain level of trust, because my question was …

I knew that this book was not self published. They had a publisher, and publishers do a lot of work, and they take a cut. We started a basic little spreadsheet, and we said, “Okay, what’s, what’s your net on a book sale?” And then, we compared that to selling it through the cart, where, in this instance, there was a cost of, cost of goods sold. You know, the, the publisher had, basically we’ll sell the books to you at a certain price. So, of your retail price, you know, you have, you have a cost involved with that. But then you add in the credit card processing fees. Uh, you added in the postage, which, um, also needs to have tracking, to make things easier. So, the postage is a little bit more impacting. And then of course, you have time in packaging that and sending it out, and you have, uh, bookkeeping expenses, whether you have a bookkeeper or you do that yourself, it’s all your, all your time. So, that bottom line … And it wasn’t the type of volume where we could’ve just offloaded this to a fulfillment company.

Carrie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jordon: So, again, look at it in perspective and say, “Are you selling hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of books?” It’s, you know, in a certain situation then, it triggers a thought to figure out what fulfillment services we might wanna use, where you’re not shipping it yourself, someone’s shipping it on your behalf, but with volume that, that fee makes up for it. Um, that wasn’t one of these scenarios. So, what we did, what we finally figured out is there were making a lot less money by selling it on their website.

Carrie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jordon: Aside from the initial one time cost of adding the cart and configuring that and connecting to payment gateways, etc., and you know, the little bit of maintenance, extra monthly maintenance that a shop put on your website as well. Uh, so what we figured out is that we just need to link to the book on Amazon, uh, that that was more profitable. And then also, by adding the Amazon affiliate link, they were seeing additional percentages on other purchases, not just their book, but books that that shopper put in their cart from other authors, from a television they bought or a lawnmower or what have you, it’s, you know, it started adding, um, this kind of [inaudible 00:20:30] revenue, uh, using these affiliate links.

And then we took the budget from not having to build a cart … And I should say, this was, this was the, uh, factor that, um, won me the proposal, er, the contract over the other vendors, um, because they hadn’t gone through and asked all these questions. Um, so I instantly had the better solution and built more of a trust because I was trying to understand their business and trying to increase the return on the investment or their profit, which people always seem to like, having more profit, (laughs).

Carrie: That’s fantastic. So, there’s so many great things that I like about what you just said, but the fact that you’re trying to help your clients spend their money well, uh, it’s not ultimately about making the most money that you can off of them, uh, you’re understanding their business, partnering with them, and then make, helping them make better decisions. Uh, so the budget could have been spent on the cart, but wasn’t spent. What happened with that?

Jordon: So, that budget, that part of the budget, um, kind of that e-commerce add on, uh, we were able to [inaudible 00:21:49] that for a future project, uh, which was a learning management system. They were going to be producing courses that they were going to, some, provide free, as well as some, some paid courses. So, it kind of initially funded the, the second phase of the project. So, it, it booked a, a second future engagement as well.

Carrie: That’s awesome. So, when you do a discovery for a client … Let’s say they’ve actually engaged you. So, I’m not talking about the mini discovery over the phone, but they’ve engaged your services to do this discovery. Is there a deliverable? Like are you handing them a, a PDF full of details and that sort of thing, or is this more for your internal use as you, using that to help you write a proposal?

Jordon: Uh, great question. No, there is a, a deliverable, uh, in most scenarios, um, and especially the scenarios where I might only be doing discovery, um, because you can do that as well. Uh, sometimes you’re a fit for doing the discovery for a client, but not the right fit for, for doing the actual development or design or, or build of the project. So, it should be … You should have something to present to the client and have that establish just a point of clarity and, uh, and just begin managing the expectation between, between you and the client. And in that, it usually will include kind of an overview of the project, an overview of the client or the business, um, an overview of their target audience. So, who, who are they trying to reach or attract or convert? Major components of the, of the website. And these all are kind of mapped to the questionnaire. So, the questionnaire, the answers from that, plus our experience and, uh, research, turn into these sections on that, on that deliverable.

Carrie: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Jordon: Basically this project overview that goes back to the client. And that’s more of a, did we listen, did we check everything, did we check all the boxes, here are, here are the requirements, and here are recommendations. So, it’s usually broken into parts of, of, from the project, you definitely need these parts. Uh, I’m also going to recommend these parts. And that puts you in a scenario where, if you’re still a little limited on the budget for the full project, then you can start to determine what you can do in stages or, or phases down the road. Determine the most critical requirements. There’ll be some technical [inaudible 00:24:45], especially the most important parts of the website. So, whether they need the cart or shopping experience or learning management system or subscriptions, memberships, the blog, all of those important parts.

Um, so just kind of a basic overview of sections of the site, some important features, and then, usually it includes, um, a beginning of the site map or the site architecture just to start visualizing it and making it real. Um, it could include wire frames, um, and also possibly an initial mock up, just as like a design, uh, direction based on, based on the questions and the feedback you got from the initial interview about, you know, how do they en-, envision the design of their site, or what sites, um, are they most attracted to, and what, you know, what is it about those sites that attracts their attention and makes it a good fit for their audience. And then that’s also paired with their estimate and timeline, a few FAQs, and a, a few terms and conditions, just to kind of start moving towards that scope of work and proposal or, or estimate, or an estimate or quote, however your process goes.

Carrie: I think you’ve got this process down, uh, down pat, (laughter).

Jordon: Well, I’ve done it for many years and many times in many different ways, and I’m really excited to be here today to help pass some of this on and hope that it, uh, it definitely improves other’s, other processes for discovery.

Carrie: Well, I appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience with my listeners. Uh, where can people find you online to followup, uh, with you or just see what you’re up to?

Jordon: You can hunt me down on Twitter, @jordonrupp, and that’s J-O-R-D-O-N R-U-P-P. Uh, you can also visit my website, which is jordonrupp.com. Uh, yeah, feel free to send me a tweet, pass me a question. Um, I’d be happy to get back to you.

Carrie: Fantastic. Thank you so much for your time Jordon. Talk to you soon.

Jordon: Carrie, it’s been fun. Thank you.