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I’ve been tracking trends and looking deeper into the scenarios that make my company the most money.  That’s why I wrote my previous articles regarding retainers, web cams and other such things that we do that keep our clients close to our sides.

So today I get this new customer’s mobile website built and launched.  Immediately, I get an email that is copied to my client and me from their previous web developer pointing out “problems” with my mobile design (never do this… it only makes you look like a douchebag).

First, I used a free WordPress template…  He pointed that out.  Next, the site didn’t look right on an iPhone… he pointed that out.  And lastly, he said he had the client’s best interest and put, for good measure, a link to the free WordPress template that I used in the email.

What he failed to realize is that I wasn’t done with the site.  I still had tons of plugins to install and lots of coding and design to finish.

The site was launched on a .mobi domain and the client wanted an alternative site to  send their visitors to if they were on a smart phone.  Simple enough.

So after he copies me and my client on this “Ryan Kovach is exposed” email, I wrote him back, copied my client and asked him this question:  If you are so good and had their best interest in mind “why does his site, that he designed for them, look like a Somoan Mountain Yak blew piss all over my computer screen and why does it have an Alexa ranking of 10,129,458?

Needless to say I didn’t get a response from him.

But what I did get was priceless.  The client called, agreed that he was a total gonad and then wanted to know what an Alexa ranking was.  I spent the next 30 minutes explaining Alexa, bookmarking sites, plugins, what a CMS is, what Google Analytics can tell a person, and on and on it went…

We laughed, we talked, we bonded and I educated an otherwise very technically limited person as to how lots of stuff works.

What I got out of it was a client who views me as a knowledgeable professional.  I am now trusted.  I am now valuable to her organization and so on.

Keep in mind this client paid very good money for me to set up a free WordPress template and turn it into a great mobile website.  But she wasn’t phased by that.  She admitted that she has no clue how to do any of that stuff and therefore whether it was a free template or not, she got what she wanted.  She also ended up learning something out of the whole ordeal.

I learned something too.  Clients want to be educated.  They want you to include them in the process. They actually get giddy when you tell them techy stuff that they didn’t already know.

Don’t ever let a chance to educate your clients go to waste.  Spend time with them.  Teach them.  They’ll never fully do what you do.  But they will appreciate what you do more once they see what all goes into the process.

FYI:  Now that the site is finished and after our ordeal today, the client, NOT ME, suggested that we work out some sort of retainer agreement so that she could have me by her side as needed.  SCORE!

Here is the site I built using the free WP template:  http://www.pompeo.mobi

Take a look at it on your browser, then on your iPhone or Blackberry or whatever smart phone you use.

The plugin I used to make it mobile ready is WPtouch. I like that plugin and all of my clients wanting a mobile site love it too. I hope this article helps you slow down, explain your services, educate your clients and land more business. Until next time!

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I’ll be speaking at the CMS Expo this May 3rd – 5th (I speak the 4th and 5th). It’s in Evanston, IL, basically, Chicago.

I’ll be doing two sessions, one Tuesday, on Wednesday. One of them will be on advanced theme building. We’ll start with a mockup of a site we want to build (something modern and cool looking) and build it into a finished theme. The other will be “Tricking out WordPress”, where we will hop around some different techniques for doing cool things with WordPress. Probably stuff like advanced custom field usage, pulling in external content, and AJAX.

If you aren’t into the WordPress thing, remember this is a “CMS Expo” so WordPress isn’t the only kid on the block. There will be tracks for Drupal and Joomla as well, and all kinds of interesting stuff going on. For all three days it’s $779.00. Pretty pricey, so if you need to start greasing up your boss, you better get started now. You can register here.

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Google’s premiere developer event is coming up in just a couple of months, and we’ve got two passes to give away.

Google I/O takes place on May 19 and 20 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. It’s the company’s largest developer event, with hundreds of sessions and demos of all the latest Google tech. Plus, there are the big keynotes like the launch of Wave, the first major public demo of Android and the HTML5 coming-out party where everyone in the room got a free Android phone.

If you live in or near San Francisco, or if you have the means to get here, you can win one of the two passes we’re giving away. Each one is worth $500! Here’s the deal:

• Submit a link to something cool you’ve built using HTML5 — a web app, a canvas demo, an audio or video demo, a mobile app that uses geolocation. It has to be your own work, and it has to be somewhere on the public web.
• Or, submit a link to a Google Chrome extension you’ve built. Tell us what it does and why it’s awesome.
• Or, tell us how you would explain what a “web app” is to your grandmother. Let’s assume your grandmother is a nontechnical web user — you can’t use the word “application” or any acronyms, just plain English. (Yes, your submission has to be in English).

To participate, leave a comment on this post, send a tweet to @webmonkey, or send an e-mail to webmonkey@wired.com. Whatever you do, make sure your contact information is easily accessible. A valid e-mail address or URL is a must if you want to collect your prize.

Keep in mind, Google I/O is in San Francisco, and we’re only giving away a ticket to get you in — we’re not paying for flights or hotels, though we will pass along some free Webmonkey swag at the conference. And, OK, we’ll buy you a taco if you ask nice. Also, your ticket is nontransferable.

We’ll pick two winners in a few days, so enter early and don’t miss out.

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I wanted to share something with the Woork Up community about doing pro bono work (as you probably know: “Pro Bono is a phrase derived from Latin meaning for the public good. The term is generally used to describe professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment as a public service” – from Wikipedia).

Over the past 24 months, our firm has accepted 3 large pro bono assignments. These assignments were non-profit associations that had been hit hard in the recession. Their budgets were at zero for design, marketing or advertising, yet they still had ambitions, dreams and hopes of continuing with their work as non-profits. These difficult times proved especially hard for them in the realm of digital media because they needed complicated websites that managed their members, had good SEO parameters, managed calendars of events and usually a member and vendor directory of some sort and so on.

To a web firm, these can be grueling and time-consuming when you have paying customers of your own that you must tend to.

Our firm decided to take on 3 of these types of assignments in the last 2 years and we are very glad we did.

For one, the experience gives us more practice to do what we do.  It also gives us a sense of pride helping organizations who do good deeds, but can’t afford big agency pricing.  And lastly, it brings in a ton of business if done right!

Because the non-profit is so thankful to you for what you’ve done, they are very willing to share you name, send out newsletters, put your banner on their site, offer incentives and push your brand to their many members.

In 2009 alone, our small firm benefited from pro bono work to the tune of about $108,000.  The previous year, it was in the realm of about $200,000.

We estimated that the pro bono work, if billed out accordingly, would have cost the non-profits roughly about $60K total ($20K a piece) for all 3 associations. That makes our pro bono work a net gain of about $238,000 over 24 months.

So if you are looking for a way to break into a whole slew of businesses, start contacting non-profit associations who may be suffering right now. The work will be hard up front, but the payoff down the road can be huge.

And even if the payoff isn’t huge, if the non-profit is something you believe in, then you did a good deed!

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