Hello from sunny Florida. My wife and I have just bought an RV here in the states and intend to live and work out here for about half of every year. We love to travel, and North America is an enormous place to explore.
One of the best things about our industry is that we can work from anywhere, so hit me up if you have any work for me or need some coaching support or help to improve your conversion rate. After all, I have to pay for our new RV!
Talking of work, I have one of those frustrating projects at the moment. You know, the ones that lack any clear focus or objectives. You feel like nobody has thought through the details, and it is little more than a vanity project.
It can prove hugely frustrating when a project lacks clear clarity, either through a lack of key performance indicators, poorly defined goals, or competing objectives.
It becomes painfully hard to make decisions about direction, and when the project inevitably fails, you often get the blame
I have learned over the years to never take on work without a clear set of well-defined goals to work towards. But, of course, that doesn’t mean I turn away work without clear goals. Like you, I rarely have the luxury to do that.
Helping Clients Define Goals
In many cases, it is just a matter of guiding the ‘client’ through creating goals because it is something they are not familiar with or do not understand the need for.
Most organizations have a company strategy, so I usually start with that. Next, I take the vague company strategy and explore with the client how the website might help achieve those goals. I then take those website objectives and turn them into measurable key performance indicators.
I try to have a handful of key performance indicators in three main areas:
- conversion,
- engagement,
- and usability metrics.
I try to have indicators in these three areas to stop the website from becoming too skewed in any one direction. For example, if you focus on conversion without considering usability or engagement, you will quickly end up with a site full of dark patterns.
It is a subject I cover a lot more in a series of articles I wrote on key performance indicators if you are interested in reading more.
That said, despite my best efforts, I will occasionally come across clients who stoically avoid setting measurable objectives for a project.
Dealing with Clients Who Refuse to Define Goals
When that happens, I take it upon myself to create my own objectives and key performance indicators based on what I know about the organization. I then send these to the client and tell them that these are the metrics I will be seeking to improve through the project.
Doing this sometimes forces the client to respond and start a conversation. But, if not, then at least I have clearly stated what I will do, so they cannot complain later when that is what I did.
I guess what I am saying is don’t let stakeholders brush you off when you ask about objectives, and don’t let them get away with poorly defined goals either.
Having a well-defined set of objectives will help you argue for good decisions in the project and avoid you becoming a scapegoat for any failings.
Well Defined Objectives Provides Job Satisfaction
However, most of all, the reason I love having well-defined key performance indicators is that they can be satisfying. It feels good to know you have generated more leads, improved the ease of use for a site, or made it more accessible.
We often feel like we don’t achieve much in our jobs, but having specific numbers you can improve over time provides some much-needed sense of achievement.
