There are a world of digital solutions out there to help you sell more online. Preparing a project brief will help you and your team.
From e-commerce platforms to the shiniest new social media thing, Point of Sale tools and custom dashboards to keep your sales team active and accountable. And a lot of them rely on your ability to communicate what you need and want for your business.
So how do you a) get the best advice to choose the right tool or b) give the right information to get the right thing built for your business?
We work with clients on these types of questions every day.
Far from just offering marketing advice, we make sure we really understand our partner’s goals and aspirations and design the best digital solution to fit them: whether that’s hunting out the best platform, building something to fit, or structuring internal communications campaigns to get the whole team on board.
Three steps to preparing a project brief
Step 1. Let your supplier understand your business
Don’t just prepare a project brief based on the one problem you’re trying to solve.
Often, one solution can have multiple benefits — which means there is also a risk of adverse impacts.
If your solutions provider knows what is going on across your whole business — mainly what your key business goals are, in a quantifiable and time limited way — they can better assess not just the problem at hand, but the broader context and come up with a solution that truly fits your business.
Step 2. Write out your project brief
And draw it if you have to.
Having a written project brief (that may evolve over time) gives you a document to come back to throughout the process, to check in with and make sure everyone is still tracking toward the same goals.
In many ways, when we partner with a new client the Digital Strategy that we create becomes the written brief. This shared document keeps us accountable to that initial vision – and we can keep them accountable to it as well.
We know exactly what we need to deliver, but sometimes you (whether vendor or client) can get carried away with the fun bells and whistles, which brings me to…
Step 3. Focus on the need, not the want when you prepare a project brief
Never were the words of the Rolling Stones more apt: You can’t always get what you want, but you might just get what you need.
Sometimes – especially when dreaming up a new thing – we know exactly what we want.
I saw one just like it, you think. Build me that, but with my logo, I hear you say.
Trust me when I say that you will get the best results for your business when you view the transaction as a partnership.
And a partnership implies a certain level of trust. And give-and-take on both sides.
Trust that the partner you have chosen know what they’re doing, but, throughout the process be sure to ask them WHY. If something isn’t what you want, you might just find, by asking WHY, that it’s exactly what you need.
