DIY Tip #4: Borrow your customers’ eyes

• Gaurav Rastogi
• 14 Feb. 2018

Heard this horror story from a friend. I swear, it wasn’t any of my companies or a client. A friend.

His team was working on this sweet digital technology deal, and the team had done everything by the book. They had great discovery conversations, they asked the right provocative questions, made the TED-diest whiteboards. It was all perfection, and the proposal and orals were dream-like too. There’s nothing they didn’t do right.

Results week came, but the emails didn’t come through. The client didn’t respond to emails and voicemails. A week later, they heard they had lost the deal. They were flabbergasted. This friend’s relationship with his client was strong, so he drove up for a coffee meeting to find out what actually happened.

They googled my friends’ company. Instead of seeing things about Digital transformation and all the usual blog-blather, the client’s eyes rested instead on the company’s Glassdoor ratings. The ratings were bad, but the comments were lethal. Ex-employees all talked about the management, the bad projects and the low client interactions. The client concluded (rightly so, I think) that this company talks Digital pretty but ain’t so. They chose someone else.

They’re not only reading your designer proposal or your snazzy eBook. They are also seeing everything else you may not want them to see. Google yourself, stalk your company, and see what others see, and what they don’t see when they look at your company. Your company’s “whole web” presence. It’s eye opening.