There are times in my professional life when I find myself challenged by client expectations. There are all sort of ways that this can happen, but the one that comes up most often is an expectation that I can create a company profile from scratch with no information whatsover. Now, don't get me wrong, I am a creative writer, I create original content, and I'm quite comfortable writing fiction, but given that my clients range from engineers to shopkeepers to estate agents to bankers, I'm pretty certain that if they thought about it they would probably not simply want me to make content up for their corporate website. I try to start my working relationship with a client by getting an understanding of who they are, and what is it that their business does. In the brief period that I have with a client there is no way that I am going to understand fully all of the technical aspects of their business, but I pride myself on having at least a basic idea about most of the business types that I interact with.
I have, in the past had clients who were very reticent about discussing any aspects of their personal styles and tastes and even in a couple of case about talking about their businesses. If I don't understand what is is you do as my client, how am I going to convey what you do to your customer through the content on your shiny new website? It is only through a collaborative process of communication and shared understanding that I can do my job to the standard that firstly I, and more importantly my clients require. I make no apologies for this, but I am aperfectionist, and I set myself extraordinarily high standards in all of the content I create. It is a challenging process to create something unique for each client, and it is a challenge that I love, but a little co-operation can be very useful....
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