Hi Guys,

It is not that I disagree with the original post. I think I am questioning the terminology and expectations.

I have come across this very phenomena when chatting to my very own IT team (yup, they are mine, on loan, one calls me MOTHER) and I am trying to find the reasoning behind our different expectations.

They are very SYSTEMS and TASK driven individuals and they often steer me away from some form of BLING that I want, with the comment, "if you want DESIGNERS go and hire them!"

I personally had to do some serious analysis and research to understand what I wanted, because I thought I did want a DESIGNER, but in fact I found that I actually wanted PROGRAMMERS (PHP to be exact and I now have automated invoicing and all kinds of amazing back end stuff, leaving me free to interact on this forum I love these guys!).

I still need really great inhouse marketing/SEO contractors, now that I have functionality and capacity to cope with volume and I (who know dangerously little) was able to put the "layout" (design) together.

But it took a mindshift from ME (the client) I had to speak in a language the IT team understood. I also needed to know EXACTLY what I wanted, because they worked to spec (I now believe this was in fact a conspiracy to get me educated, so they didn't have to deal with my ongoing moronic requests!)

In my efforts to educate myself as a client I found:
1. steinergraphics - who I thought were great at design and have a very exclusive type client base.
2. a few sites that are on the web purely to provide backup for technical teams (downloads, specs etc) There is no DESIGN (pretty) as such, no marketing, no SEO, pure programming, logical layout and functionality - who I saw as programmers
3. A myriad of sites telling you that having a website that the SE can't find doesn't bring you sales, mostly coming from and aimed at medium and small business.

In essence, to get a website that really WORKED for me, I had to think beyond sales and shopfront to functionality and sustainability, it took a lot of blood, sweat and tears realising that I had to make myself understood in foreign language, but I had insider assistance. If I didn't have it, I may have ended up either firing a DESIGNER halfway or settling for a half-baked job. I suspect that this is one of the challenges of the IT industry as well as their clients?

As to the exclusivity - I personally think ( no proof, just conjecture) that when you move in those circles you seek approval from others who you perceive to be in those circles too. Therefore I would suggest that your store needs to be widely known amongst the elite

And keeping with the store analogy, maybe this will help as to how I see it.

The brick and mortar shop lease and rental = client + web hosting company (setup and hosting)
The architect/builder/ shop fitter = client + graphics designer
The staff = client + programmer
The continual flow of customers = client + SEO/marketing guy.

In each case it may be necessary to replace the client with a project manager!