[thelist] Bookstore Presentation

Russ russ at unrealisticexpectations.com
Mon Nov 25 04:01:01 CST 2002


Sounds like you've found a good "in"--and that's a great thing these
days.

> This rebuild, in my rough estimation, will run minimum $10K
> and most probably a lot more and so my presentation needs to
> convey (read convince them of) the idea that such an
> expenditure is warranted.

See if you can convince them to choose an internal "team" that would
come up with ways to generate goals and/or track ROI for the site;
remind them that they're the experts and that you truly are an
implementor (although, it sounds like you're doing the hard-sell).

> He has advised me to:
>
> - Bring hardcopies of sites I have built
> - Bring hardcopies of other ecommerce (esp. bookstore) sites
> with aspects we might also want to incorporate into our new site
> - Bring specific estimates for times and costs for all phases
> of the rebuild and maintenance

I'd offer that you're too early on the estimates; if you make estimates
and then they shift and decide that they want more functionality, etc.
you've already planted a monetary seed.  You could, however, provide
them with a range for phase 1 (research, comp design, etc.) and let them
know exactly what the includes and what they could expect to undertake
in the fortcoming phases.

> My questions to evolters are:
>
> 1 Any further advice as to this presentation?  I am far from
> 'corporate' myself, although I studied theatre in University
> so I can certainly impersonate a corporate type.  Some
> specific ideas as to the content however, might be helpful. :)

1)  Try to keep your presentation short and to the point--in fact, if
you can keep it less than 10 slides, that's great.  Ultimately, you want
to get to "No" as quickly as possible, in order to waste the least
amount of time (take a look at that before you tar and feather me; what
I mean is that if they're going to say no, try and get it out of the way
quickly so you're not throwing good money and time after bad).

> 2 Any suggestions as to a full-featured shopping cart/e-store
> package we could install?  They currently have a product from
> make-a-store.com, but I don't know what product it is (for
> political reasons I can't look inside the site just yet) and
> it looks fairly unimpressive.  We need something customizable
> and feature-rich.

2) I've had very limited exposure to this, but it seems pretty
straight-forward:  http://www.profcs.com

Best,

Russ

Russ Unger
Managing Partner
blueChrome design, LLC
www.bluechromedesign.com
312.593.4260 :office
877.433.8427 :pager
312.873.4033 :fax




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