with Paul Boag of "Headscape" & "boagworld.com"

Workshop Outline

Being a great designer or developer is only half the battle. You also need to be able to promote and sell your services, unfortunately there is little advice online about how to do this effectively.

The first part of this workshop will examine ways to promote your services, discuss effective approaches when responding to client briefs and improve your presentational skills for that crucial pitch.

Who should attend?

This workshop is aimed at web freelancers, web design and development agencies and anyone involved in generating new business and maintaining and developing existing client relationships.

What Will You Learn?

Registration & Coffee: 8:15 - 9:00am

Shameless self promotions

• What does not work?
• The benefits of specialising
• How to specialise
• Selecting your target audience
• Reaching your target audience
• Demonstrating your expertise
• How to make the most of social sites

The perfect proposal

• How to price a project
• What to include in a proposal
• Should you provide speculative design?
• When to walk away

Coffee Break: 10:30 - 10:45

The pitch

• Who should attend?
• What makes a client want to hire you?
• How to generate confidence
• Engaging with clients?
• Learning how to engage
• Making the most of your time slot
• Dealing with difficult characters

Sales through relationships

• Why repeat business matters
• How to foster repeat business

Dealing with difficult people

• The techie
• The hard man MD
• The price negotiator

Lunch is provided: 12:30 - 14:00

The importance of establishing a good working relationship

• Where it goes wrong
• The benefits of getting it right

Changing the client/designer relationship

• How to become the expert
• The importance of positivity

How to communicate better

• Speaking the clients language
• How much does the client need to know?
• Methods of keeping the client informed

Running the perfect kick-off meeting

• Controlling the agenda
• Educating the client
• Defining roles
• Explaining the process

Doing your research

• Business objectives and success criteria
• Target audiences and personas
• Competitive analysis

Coffee Break: 15:30 - 15:45

Dealing with design

• The importance of a design methodology
• The tools of design development
• Understanding the clients perspectives
• Developing a site persona

Presenting work

• When to present
• Methods of presenting
• Who to present to
• Techniques for presenting

Managing feedback

• Dealing with politics
• Tackling committees

Dealing with difficult people

• The existing client
• The no clue client
• The micro manager
• The marketeer

Q & A: 17:00 - 17:30

Social: 18:00 - till late

What You'll Walk Away With

The Legendary Carson Workshops Survival Kit

Each attendee will receive this amazing kit, which is chock full of useful tips and resources. We'll also be placing valuable tools on the disc as well!

Best Practice Advice

There will also be a section covering best practice plus a full set of presentation slides from the day

Practical Knowledge

We're not going to bore you with theory. You will receive practical training that focuses on information that you can immediately incorporate into your business.

Who's Presenting?

Paul Boag is Creative Director at Headscape Ltd Headscape Ltd.

Paul Boag has been working on the web since 1993. He is a user experience consultant for Headscape Ltd, a web design agency that he founded back in 2002. Paul also produces and hosts the longest running and popular web design podcast at boagworld.com.

Headscape has also recently launched their first web app Get SignOff, a mechanism for presenting your site designs, managing feedback and organising multiple versions of a design. Paul regularly speaks at conferences and is author of the Website Owners Manual.

The Venue - RIBA London

Carson Workshops take place home of the Royal Institute of British Architects located at 66 Portland Place London. Centrally located it's only a ten minute walk from Oxford Circus or Great Portland Street Underground stations and is considered an Art Deco landmark in the heart of the West End, offers every kind of venue in a single, spectacular building. This workshop will take place in the Lasdun Room.

Find out more about RIBA: http://www.architecture.com/RIBAVenues/RIBAVenues.aspx