Common myths about B2B website projects: debunked

The 93digital philosophy of partners, not clients, runs through all our work as we aim to foster transparent, honest relationships driven by mutual respect. 

On a B2B website project with 93digital, your dedicated project manager is going to be your main point of contact through the lifecycle of your project. With that in mind, we want to address some of the myths and misconceptions about what we can do and how we can help to get your project off the ground and empower your digital marketing team. 

The Myth: Timelines are solid and never changing

The Reality: Timelines are only ever indicative

One of the most common questions you come across as a B2B project manager working on a website design and development project is, when will our new website be launched? 

These questions also often come when you’re right at the beginning of the process. I get it, we’re working to create a more flexible and powerful website for you and you’re excited to get started!  However, rushing forward to a (sometimes arbitrary!) deadline does a disservice to the process we’re undertaking and your commitment to your new website. 

Please remember that the estimated times provided to complete things at the start of a project are exactly that, an estimate. 

As we go through our delivery process there are countless opportunities for things to be unearthed, maybe a new website segment you’ve been neglecting, or some internal hierarchy to be considered.  Marching relentlessly on through these hurdles can mean that your new website could be under-serving both your users and your marketing team.  Ensuring time to properly explore these areas and questions, to provide company wide consolidated feedback and fully approve and consider documentation means that timelines are liable to change. 

We do things properly and thoroughly, and we want you to end up with the best website possible.  So, because of that we will never be able to give you an absolutely solid, unchanging delivery date. 

What we will do is talk to you.  If that milestone for launch is absolutely necessary, we will work through your options and provide support. We’ll look to see how things can be managed, or what elements can wait until the next stage. 

We will update you and your timelines regularly should they change, and we will be honest about what is achievable and what we need from you in order to reach those goals. 

To paraphrase Gandalf the Grey, projects are never late, nor are they early. They arrive precisely when they mean to. 

The Myth: Your agency has all the answers

The Truth: No one knows your business better than you

Listen, we’d love to have the solution for every business off the top of our heads. Or to be able to understand every single business offering, and matrices of solutions in a minute.

One of the most common issues we come across in our B2B website development projects is a lack of clarity on service offerings from our clients.  If you can’t explain your services, there’s no way we can!

With the best will in the world, and we truly do want to help, we can’t tell you how to organise your products and service offerings. We can’t restructure what it is you provide in it’s essential elements.

What we can (and will always) do is centre the user experience, question the hierarchy, suggest groupings and provide an objective outlook.

The Myth: Anyone can manage a project client side

The Truth: Managing the project as a client requires commitment and confidence

We’ve got a solid team of dedicated Project Managers so we’re starting from a pretty strong foundation. But that’s only half of the bargain. We request that a primary point of contact is provided client side at the outset of every project (ideally one of who will be in position for the project’s entireity!).

Our experience truly shows that not everyone can provide that primary stakeholder role. The most common issue we come across in our client/partner relationships are Primary contacts who:

• Have too much else on their plates – Managing a project takes serious time. If you’re considering a digital transformation project then that process deserves the respect of a primary stakeholder who has the time and resources to ensure its success and who is as invested as we are in it.
• Doesn’t have enough authority – Similarly, having a robust and strong voice within the company is key.  Website build projects can often have a myriad of stakeholders and a hierarchy of company politics to play with. As your web agency, we will aim to equip you with the information to make the best user-centric decisions. But, it’s not up to us to face up these internal battles.  Take a look at Alex’s blog for more tips on how to avoid and manage those back seat drivers

The Myth: The Solution you talk about in the pitch stage is exactly what you’ll end up with

The Truth: The end result will be a reflection of what you truly need

The new business stage of a project is super exciting.  There’s blue-sky thinking, and solution driven creativity.  Our team has the vision and the skills to help build the website marketing machine of your dreams so anything is possible!

But, our job is also to assess what solutions you really need – not enable the creation of a Frankenstein’s monster of a website full of features and functionality built in “just in case”.  We’re aiming for efficient, common-sense, user-centric design and development practices to furnish you with all the tools to reach your goals.

The Myth: It’s the client Vs. the agency

The Truth: We want you to succeed

This is an easy one – we’re working as a team. If we have to be strong and clear about deliverables and scope it’s because we’ve got the interests of your new site at heart.  

Truly, we want your new website to be launched as quickly as you and to be as good as possible.

To put it in really simple terms, there’s no benefit to us in having a site overstay its welcome or be delayed, as until your site’s done and built we can’t move on to the next exciting project down the line!

At the end of the day, all we’re really trying to do is to design and build the best websites possible, fitted out to provide the best results and enable our clients to fulfill their online ambitions.