My website upgrade is perched high and dry on a rock. I contacted a new, highly recommended, incredibly successful developer, at least according to his website, to see if he could ease it off the rock without undue damage and send it once again into the swift current of progress.

This developer made and broke three successive promises before I even received a proposal. Web developers are notorious for being late. Breaking your own deadlines so early in the game is a deadly mistake.

The proposal contained nothing but standard, mostly irrelevant content except for two introductory paragraphs indicating that the content was mostly standard and a slight reduction from their standard flat fee. This proposal, which added no value and could have been created in less than an hour from our initial phone call, was the equivalent of screaming WE ARE THINKING ONLY ABOUT OURSELVES! It did nothing to suggest he understood or cared anything about what was important to me.

This developer:

• Did not listen
• Assumed I didn’t know what I wanted
• Assumed I didn’t know what I needed
• Assumed he knew better or
• All of the above

Regardless of which is true, he lost. Whether he is driven by stupidity, cluelessness, or arrogance doesn’t matter to me. To win my business, you must demonstrate that you have my best interests at heart. Trying to sell me a jaguar when I asked about a bicycle pump just doesn’t cut it.

The absolute number one priority of any business has to be improving the customer’s condition. Period.