CertificationAnswers

During your weekly retrospective, you suggest the idea of adding a step before the initial kickoff workshop: meetings with each stakeholder individually. The agency’s owner pushes back hard, explaining that it would add a great deal of time to the engagement. Which of the following would be the BEST response?

 

• “Sure, I understand. These meetings are important and are an investment in the relationship. We can cut out the user research in the strategy stage and repurpose this time to host these meetings.”

 

• “You’re right. We are already having trouble selling GDD retainers, adding more time into the engagement will likely make it harder for us to grow our program.”

 

• “We could still have each person talk about their vision of the website, however, we can do it as a group and invite their CEO. This will ensure the CEO can include her ideas.”

 

• “These meetings would be an investment in the long-term success of this client. This will help us establish better relationships, tailor the process, and create more aligned ideas.”

 

 

Imagine you are a strategist at a Growth-Driven Design agency. Throughout the past few months, you have noticed new clients getting frustrated during the strategy stage because your team has continuously asked questions that clients had already reviewed with the sales team. Which of the following should your team try experimenting with to improve the client experience?

 

• Combine the strategist and sales rep roles, and have one person own the relationship from end to end.

 

• Have the strategist sit in on the last few calls in the sales process, and have the sales rep continue involvement for the first month after the engagement kicks off.

 

• Have the clients lead the topics for each meeting to ensure nothing is repeated.

 

• Only work with companies in the exact same industry to avoid the need to ask repetitive questions.

 

 

Which of the following is NOT a client service outcome your service team should achieve in the strategy stage?

 

• Build trusting relationships with the new client stakeholders.
• Develop a robust road map based on the recommendations and ideas of the client’s CEO.
• Understand the client’s vision and the world of their users.
• Educate and set expectations for the entire engagement.

 

Fill in the blank: When creating your sales pitch and proposal, it’s important to make it clear that you’re selling __________ and __________, not _____________.

 

• the process, deliverables, hours

 

• results, the GDD process, the actual deliverables

 

• value, deliverables, the process

 

• Strategy, continuous improvement, the launch pad website

 

 

True or false? Your agency’s strategist should be included in sales conversations.

 

• True – The strategist should replace the sales reps in the last few conversations and be responsible for pitching the proposal.

 

• True – The strategist will know what questions to ask and expectations to set in order to match services and properly scope the engagement.

 

• False – Involving others in the sales process adds complexity and time to the sales process.

 

• False – Pulling the strategist from their daily activities slows down progress with existing clients.

 

 

Imagine you’re talking to a prospect during the goals and planning call. You’ve introduced the concepts and high-level GDD process. The prospect seems to be in agreement and is excited about getting started with the launch pad website. As the conversation progresses, they bring up more and more pages and ideas for the new site, making you a bit nervous. Which of the following is the best way to gain a better understanding of the scope of the launch pad they are thinking about?

 

• First, expand the conversation to also include traditional web design. Second, if the prospect continues to give ideas, sell them a traditional build instead.

 

• Assign the prospect homework to review each page on their current website and score each page on an impact scale of 1-10.

 

• Pull up the prospect’s top three competitors, and walk through each site while the prospect explains what they like and don’t like.

 

• First, send some additional launch pad education and training. Second, assign them homework to send three to five examples of what they envision the launch pad website will look like at launch.