Getting your hands dirty: Why your new website strategy needs a strip down in the workshop

This article was first published in The Skinny, Plump's content hub.

Has this ever happened to you?: You’re 100% sure you want a piece of work doing, you identify the perfect person to do it and you sit down excitedly to brief them.

They ask a couple of searching questions and you’re suddenly looking at everything in a new light. Fresh ideas emerge, alternative solutions zoom to the fore and old certainties are challenged.

Or maybe you’ve been on the other side of the table: You’ve picked up a thrilling project, your client calls you in for a briefing meeting and suddenly their objectives change. Do you crack on with what you think they need and risk getting it badly wrong? Or do you let the job slip through your fingers, while you wait for them to resolve their dilemma?

Unravelling the challenge

On our comfy sofas in the Plump studio, this happens a lot. Clients come to us with a problem or a project because we take an analytical, results-based approach to what we do. 

But while the destination may be clear, the map showing how to get there can look like a labyrinth. Clients proposing an expensive, bespoke solution might find there’s a simpler, more cost-effective way of reaching that goal. Priorities shift, objectives crystallize and all the while, you’re looking for confidence that you’re spending your budget on the smart way forward.

Roll your sleeves up

We’ve all worked on jobs where teams invest lots of time, energy - and cash - only to discover later that we were answering the wrong questions in the first place.

And that’s why we like to workshop projects. Over the past four years, we’ve honed the techniques and strategies to draw the best results out of a session (although it always starts by putting the kettle on).

Some clients don’t exactly jump for joy when we propose a workshop. Yet once we’ve persuaded them to do it, they invariably find it the most valuable, refreshing and innovative part of the process.

Yes, there’s a fee. But the benefits are enormous - here are the three biggest:

1. We can all set to work on the wider project, confident you’re not spending your money on features or tactics that just won’t work.
2. You’re happy your investment is working hard towards your stated business aims.
3. You’re in complete control of how your money is being spent.

In fact, we survey all our clients at the end of every workshop, asking 15 questions to assess how valuable they’ve found it. Overwhelmingly the feedback has been extremely positive, scoring a healthy 4.84 / 5.

Getting to know you

Embarking on a new business relationship is much like a new personal relationship: there’s a spell of getting to know each other, unearthing quirks and discovering great things about the other person.

Most clients use the workshop as an opportunity for their stakeholders to spend time as a team working on big strategic decisions - brilliant for morale, team-building and getting people to buy in to the project.

When you’re on your fourth cup of tea in a Plump workshop, sleeves rolled up and knee-deep in ideas and Post-it notes, you’ve pretty much broken the ice - and that’s great for a profitable and exciting working relationship.

It’s in those knotty, soul-searching sessions that your expertise and our know-how spark together in new and creative ways that wouldn’t have been possible working in isolation.

What’s the bottom line?

Summing up, Plump workshops allow us to:

• Explore and define your objectives so we can come up with borderline genius ideas and tactics to meet them (no assumptions or second-guessing)
• Open up important discussions that lets us get to grips with what you really need - but also to understand your audience or customer, your product or service and how your business thrives
• Establish important brand values that need to be brought to life on the website
• Get down to the nitty-gritty of targets and success metrics. That way we’ll all know what success looks like, how to measure it and whether your planned investment is going to give you the return you’re hoping for
• Challenge your assumptions about what you need - making sure we get you the best return on your investment
• Create a prioritised wish-list you can use to cherry pick where and how you want to spend your money
• Achieve your approval of the finished product first time, every time, without costly revisions, long delays and awkward conversations
• Co-create amazing ideas that add real value to the process.

Sounds pretty good? Don’t just take my word for it.

“I really enjoyed the workshop; it clarified our thinking and solved some of the big issues we’d struggled with.”

– Andy Pearce, On track Learning