Interview with Design Practitioner

Meeting with Phil Hatfield, Pivotel Web Solutions 2/9/08

Following things discussed in the meeting:

• Type of clients he has and work he does. Phil deals with IT support and telecommunications and web design
• He started business doing web sites and IT support free for friends and relatives, then partnered up with someone who knocked on doors selling the business. This was very successful for them initially and has since developed as they now rent an office on High Street in Brighouse
• Phil used to build his websites from templates. He no longer does this, however he does use them as a base to present to clients to win business. He commented that templates are sometimes very effective in prospecting as the customer will tweak what they want, so the finished product does look significantly different. This way he can still offer a unique website - unlike template designs
• With a sound knowledge in PHP and Java programming languages, he is able to build eCommerce websites and forums
• He mentioned that he had wanted me to work for him as their admin assistant covering the phones and doing all the graphic design work. This was until he discovered I'd set up on my own
• He asked how things were going with my business, so I told him about my recent decision to go it alone. He was impressed with the name Refreshing Web Design!
  
• We discussed pricing. He said I'm slightly cheaper than him purely because I don't charge VAT at the moment. He doesn't mind some competition in fact sometimes it can be very healthy. He suggested that we help each other out in the future. He was happy to pass on business if he was too busy for a commission, or ask me to do the work and pay me whilst keeping the client on his books. Likewise I will ask for his help when needing a more complex website involving scripting. There may not be anything initially but hopefully when both businesses grow there will be
• Lastly we discussed the type of clients we both target. I said I want to aim my business towards small businesses who are lost with all the jargon and complexity of web design companies out there. Conversely, Phil is targeting larger companies with marketing departments able to give him all the information he needs easily. He became frustrated with smaller companies who struggled to get content and images together. I can understand this, however I still feel compelled to be a straight forward and refreshing company to deal with