What to Prepare Before the Call
Almost every website project stalls in the same place, and it is not a technical problem. It is week three, waiting for the client's words and photographs.
That wait is expensive for both sides. It extends your project by weeks, it costs the developer scheduled time they cannot fill, and it is priced into quotes whether or not it is itemised. An hour of preparation before the first call is the cheapest thing you can do to shorten the build and reduce the number. For projects where estimates need to be checked against real effort, time tracking software gives a structured way to record time.
None of this needs to be polished. Rough and honest beats polished and late.
Before anything else: one sentence
What is this site supposed to do?
Bring in enquiries. Let people buy without emailing me. Look credible enough to be taken seriously by a certain kind of client. Stop the same five questions arriving by phone.
Write the sentence down. If you cannot, that is the most useful thing to discover now rather than at the design review, because no designer can answer it for you and a site without an answer looks fine and does nothing in particular. For an independent reference beyond this site, Trello is a useful place to compare approaches.
The list
Who buys from you. Not a marketing persona — a description of an actual recent customer, how they found you, and what they were worried about before they committed.
What you sell, and roughly what it costs. Even if you do not intend to publish prices, your designer needs to know the shape.
Three sites you like and three you do not, with a sentence each about why. (What actually belongs on a homepage is worth reading before you pick them.) The why matters far more than the list. "I like how simple this is" and "I like this colour" lead to entirely different projects.
Your existing material. Logo files if you have them, in whatever format. Photographs. Anything printed. Text from an old site or a brochure.
What you already have online. Social profiles, a marketplace shop, a listing, an old site. Whoever builds this needs to know what it connects to and what it replaces.
Your deadline, and what is behind it. "Before the season starts" is a real constraint. "As soon as possible" is not information.
A rough budget range. People hate this question and it is the fastest way to a useful conversation — it lets someone tell you honestly whether a builder, a freelancer or an agency fits, instead of guessing.
Who has to approve things. If a partner or a business associate will have opinions, say so now.
The two things that actually delay projects
Everything above takes an hour. These two take longer, and they are what to start on today.
Words. Someone has to write what your services are, who you are, and why anyone should choose you. If that someone is you, start now — it takes longer than you think and it is the single most common cause of a stalled build. If it is not going to be you, say so on the first call so it is quoted rather than assumed.
Photographs. Of your work, your premises, your products, and you. This is the highest-return investment in the whole project and the one most often skipped. Good work photographed badly looks like bad work. No design rescues weak images, and for anything visual the photographs matter more than the site does.
If your budget is tight, spend it here before spending it on custom design.
What you do not need
A finished plan of every page. That is the designer's job and you are paying for the judgement — though knowing roughly how many you need helps the first conversation.
A logo. Plenty of sites launch with well-set type instead, and it looks deliberate.
All your text finished. A draft of the important pages is enough to start.
Technical opinions. Which platform, which host, whether you need a particular feature. If you have preferences, say them; if you do not, that is entirely normal.
How to use it on the call
Send the list beforehand rather than reading it out. The call is then about decisions instead of collection, which is a better use of both hours.
And notice how they respond to it. Someone who reads it and asks about your customers before talking about design is building you a tool. That is the signal worth watching for.
The short version
- Almost every project stalls waiting for the client's words and photographs, and that wait is priced in
- Start with one sentence: what is this site supposed to do
- Bring an actual recent customer, what you sell, three sites you like with reasons, your existing material, your deadline and a budget range
- Start writing your words today — it takes longer than anyone expects
- Photographs are the highest-return spend in the project; good work photographed badly looks like bad work
- You do not need a page plan, a logo, finished text, or technical opinions