021 – The importance of a solid brief with Matt Lasky

00:00.00
peteeveritt
Hello and welcome to this episode of the wp seo show today I’m not joined by my co-host Jeff um, largely because he didn’t want to get out of bed. It’s what it’s 11 a m here in the u case. It’s about 3 am m in California and I’m sorry Matt he didn’t want to get out of bed to talk to you so um, ah so it.

00:16.77
Matt Lasky
Here enough I can understand.

00:21.45
peteeveritt
Ah I am joined though by a friend of mine who’s been a client who’s ah we’ve I’m trying to think when we when we first met actually I’m guessing it must have been through the covid years is sounding about right was a few years ago and

00:32.40
Matt Lasky
Yeah, yeah, as a few years ago for sure.

00:38.70
peteeveritt
But former well former client still current client but somebody that’s certainly become a friend. Mr. Matthew Laski welcome to the show.

00:46.51
Matt Lasky
Hello Pete. Thank you very much thanks for ah, having me This is actually my first podcast. So yeah, a little bit nervous but hopefully it will go off.

00:58.57
peteeveritt
It’ll be absolutely fine. We’ll ah will we’ll be gentle and we’ll we’ll sort of ease into it and it’ll be good. Matt’s Matt’s here because he’s written a book and we’re gonna get onto that in a few minutes but Matt before we before we do sort of venture into the themes around the book. Um.

01:03.99
Matt Lasky
Okay.

01:15.29
peteeveritt
Do you want to sort of introduce yourself a little bit give a little bit about your background and tell the boys and girls at home a little bit about who you are and what you do.

01:22.62
Matt Lasky
Sure, no problem. So yeah I’m going to show my age a little bit here but I’ve been working in the web industry. Um one way or another for around the last twenty years or so um and I’ve owned my own agency. Um. I’ve worked in digital agencies in London I’ve managed teams and departments I’ve worked from a junior designer all up to sort of creative director head of design ahead of design and marketing. So um, been through lots of lots of tests learned lots of lessons along the way. And I’ve worked for some really kind of small boutique interesting companies and also some huge giants right? So I’ve worked with voafphon bbc hards u afaf some huge corporates all the way down to some really small agencies. Um and yet lots of lessons. Learn and um when I was first starting out. There wasn’t that much material to help you along the way, especially literature you know and that’s what kind of got me thinking about writing something to help others on that journey.

02:36.39
peteeveritt
Yeah, and it’s it’s funny isn’t it because yeah, you’re dead right? There isn’t There isn’t like a sort of um, sort of put publication. Nobody really talks too much about. Okay, so this is how you work in an agency. This is this is what the job roles are these are the these are the sort of um.

02:54.40
peteeveritt
Processes by which you need to you know you? you need to learn or you could be efficient, etc, etc. Instead. It’s it’s very much you learn your craft and then all of a sudden you chucked in an office with a whole lot of people. You certainly were twenty years ago and tooked in an office with a whole load of people and these people are kind of expected to get projects that come in the door successfully finished and out the door at the other end and and you know with it goes the invoicing and and oh look we all still have a job next month and so it you’re dead right? It is it is kind of ah a process that.

03:16.62
Matt Lasky
Moon.

03:25.89
peteeveritt
Hasn’t been documented too much about the actual process of working for an agency and I’m I’m guessing that largely comes from the fact that a lot of agencies literally start with just a single person and you know they they do grow from there and you kind of just crack on with the with the work So have you seen.

03:33.93
Matt Lasky
Last one.

03:44.34
peteeveritt
Because I know you now operate your own. Um your own thing So have you seen a difference in kind of working up through the agency sizes and then then coming back to being on your own. How’s how’s that kind of transition gone for you.

03:58.12
Matt Lasky
Yeah, so um I think that um going through agencies I’ve noticed that communication is key really? um I think that.

04:13.26
Matt Lasky
What I’ve noticed over the years so I guess just talking in in general here and you might find this with your kind of more seo point as well as that you don’t have to be the most talented person out there. But if you’re good at communicating and communicating your ideas and communicating what you want to achieve. That can go a long way because I’ve worked with some of the most talented designers out there. Um and some good copywriters and Seo teams as well. But sometimes they find it really hard to communicate why they’ve done what they’ve done. Um and when a client.

04:33.61
peteeveritt
Um.

04:48.55
Matt Lasky
Or Even someone internally starts to interrogate their work. They can really kind of flounder and and get a bit flustered and almost and and get upset as well as why is someone disrespected my work. Why are they interrogating what I’ve done and why aren’t they just. Doing exactly what I’ve said without asking me any awkward questions about it and um and I think you you learn that through the hard way. Um, and if you aren’t receptive to getting negative feedback and criticism.

05:23.12
Matt Lasky
And reflecting on that then it’s very hard to develop and progress and I think some people can just can just stay in that Pigeon holele and they’re fine as ah as a person as long as no one’s critiquing them or or trying to um, you know or challenging what they’ve done. And and they kind of fall down there and I think um, a lot of lessons I’ve learned along the way is that when you do get critiqued or criticized. You need to be able to be tough and take that and then and develop that further and try and understand why have you done what you’ve done and what’s the reasoning. And even if someone doesn’t like your work whether it’s writing or whether it’s a photo you’ve chosen or whether it’s um, you know graphic design but as long as you can articulate why you’ve done what you’ve done and it was to the brief then you can have a mature conversation about why it’s right. And ah maybe you need to work around that of.

06:20.12
peteeveritt
You’ve raised some very good points there and there’s 2 things I’d like to pick up from that 1 is one is that particularly when you come to design a lot of design is subjective isn’t it I mean you know you can design something that’s perfectly.

06:30.29
Matt Lasky
The.

06:36.19
peteeveritt
Perfectly sound but because I don’t like purple I’m not going to like it and it’s it’s entirely subject that there’s an element of it That’s entirely subjective So you’re right? You do need to you do need to be able to think through and rationalize some of the things that you’re doing not just because it looks pretty but because it because it’s actually there to serve a purpose. Um.

06:38.86
Matt Lasky
Yeah.

06:55.51
peteeveritt
Ah, so so that’s the first thing you do need to be able to to sort of take a bit of criticism but also be prepared to to sort of stunt your guns a little bit and and and explain why you’ve done certain things but the other thing which I don’t see a lot of people doing all the time is um is kicking back to the client occasionally.

07:13.80
Matt Lasky
You coming.

07:14.80
peteeveritt
And not not to say oh well I’m right and you’re wrong, kind of thing but where having a website or building websites is often related to either either having your car service seems to be 1 of the metaphors that’s used quite a lot or building houses and. They seem to be the the 2 examples you often get when when you talk about building building websites or designing websites and in neither neither metaphor would you go to a mechanic or a builder and tell him how to build something you might say what you like what you don’t like where you want the walls you know, maybe maybe more with the builder than the mechanic.

07:31.20
Matt Lasky
Um.

07:35.58
Matt Lasky
The truth.

07:50.87
peteeveritt
But you’d you’d never go back to him and say oh well I would lay the bricks this way or I would use x y ed bolt in the car or XYEd oil in the engine. You’d leave that to the the profession of the mechanic and it it’s kind of got to be the same with with design agencies as well. Where.

08:00.79
Matt Lasky
Um, and.

08:10.11
peteeveritt
We’re so wrapped up in pleasing the client in always in all ways saying yes to the client because we want them to be happy and pay the bill that actually we’ve got to remember that every project should be a collaboration. They’ve come to work with us as the web professional So you’re allowed to have an opinion.

08:15.91
Matt Lasky
The.

08:25.79
Matt Lasky
Um, here year.

08:29.40
peteeveritt
Um, and it’s how you go about ah about articulating that. That’s really the the key part to that.

08:33.13
Matt Lasky
Yeah, and I think they’re expecting you to have an opinion and you will lose I think they will respect you less if you don’t have opinion on something and you don’t so not necessarily have to stand your grounds but give the opinion on why you are the authority right? because. As you said they’ve hired you for a reason they’re doing a business that does x and all you do all day is you’re consumed with the web and the Seo and the marketing and design and graphics. Whatever it is. You’re consumed in that world and you live and breathe it and they don’t so it’s very valid. For us to say well hang on a sec if you want to achieve this within three months if we go down that road you’re pushing us to. We don’t think you’re going to achieve it because of this because this photography looks really dated. You know I’m sorry but it does um but you know maybe we need to work on your brand or. These pages that you want to create that are funnel pages. This is what was done maybe ten years ago right and the new thing to do now is is this because mobile is what we’re trying to achieve. So I think there’s definitely um, definitely a time and a place to challenge the client. And I think a step before that is just understanding what does what does the client want to achieve and do they and do they really know what they want to achieve um and there’s a really good book by um Steve Harrison

10:04.44
Matt Lasky
Who’s a creative director. He were the ogrevi and some massive brand agencies and he says that maybe I guess to a third of the of the briefing process should be about just trying to understand and research what the client wants. Just to really get your head into it. Um, and then define it right? And once you’ve developed that and you agree yet if the client changes their mind they kind he says it’s like going to a restaurant and a client has ordered steak.

10:40.85
peteeveritt
Good choice.

10:41.32
Matt Lasky
And when the state comes out the client. Yeah well the client looks at him goes. Oh Do you know? what? I’m looking at this steak but I don’t fancy it now I want chicken and if if the um if the client says that to the waiter, the waiter will say well you can have chicken But. You’re going to have to pay for that steak and there’s going to be a delay right on your order and you’re not going to get it at the same time as we promised and it’s kind of like that in design where if a client says they want something and we do it to that specification and then when they receive it. They go well. Looking at it. But I don’t want this now and they’ve changed their mind so you need to be able to discuss that with the client and say well look. You know the client is always right? But we have agreed to do this that was over here and you’ve changed your mind and we’ve got this briefing document that says this is what we were trying to achieve. Fine for us to change that. But there’s gonna be a delay and we’ll need some more budget and we’re gonna have to rethink how we do this stuff. So um, yeah I think there is a time to challenge the client and also to really try and get under the skin of what they actually want which is which is not ways as easy as it sounds.

11:53.76
peteeveritt
So ah, we we were having this discussion in the pre-chat before the before the show. There are very much 2 types of people that listen to this show some are but design agencies digital agencies I’d say that’s that’s more than half of the listenership of the show from the feedback that we get.

11:58.13
Matt Lasky
Um.

12:09.74
peteeveritt
But then we also have a group of people that do have wordpress websites and are trying to do Seo on them hence they’re listening to the wp seo show and and they they don’t necessarily sit within the sort of agency land. But the reason I’m mentioning this right now is just to sort of say if you’re in that second group don’t. Tune out now because actually it’s some of the stuff we’re talking about is just really good practice for you to understand if you are trying to do something with your website and um it it works it obviously helps agencies with their workflow. Absolutely, but if if you are taking on your own website and you’re trying to. Ah, you know help it ranking Google for particular keywords or develop a new section to it or you know, whatever it might be understanding what you’re trying to achieve and having that as the kind of line in the sand is really the key first step and. Know this is where this is where we can segue very nicely into your book because your book is called how to write a web design brief if I’m not mistaken. Um, how to take a web design brief almost I knew I was going to stuff it up and.

13:10.90
Matt Lasky
How to or close how to take a web design brief and very close.

13:21.78
peteeveritt
In fairness Matt was if you’re watching this on Youtube Matt was holding a copy of the book right next to the camera before we recorded and I made him put it behind the plants. So it was always there which means I couldn’t now read the title and how to take a web design brief and.

13:27.50
Matt Lasky
This southern.

13:38.28
Matt Lasky
The best.

13:38.78
peteeveritt
I know from the the work we’ve done with you around the book that having ah understanding that achievement process is one of the if not the first key key point that you make isn’t it.

13:52.62
Matt Lasky
Yeah, exactly that and um, yeah, if we think about I guess some of your listeners that as you said they may not be having an agency. They may just have their own website and they’re doing seo and and wordpress with it.

14:08.85
Matt Lasky
We do a lot of or in the book. There’s some competitor analysis right? So we have this quadrant when we’re doing our research part before we even meet the client like where where do we think they are on this quadrant of um of. I guess web design or how we do it just just where the quality of their website is and you can have these different areas of the quadrant so you could have aspirational versus achievable and you can have luxury versus approachable and that’s sort of ah different different axes than the x and the y. And then you can plot where you think you are on that axis against your competitors and you can kind of see where your competitors are as well and maybe one of your objectives is to is to be like the most premium brand out there. And you can kind of competitor analyze and see how other people do that and what have you? Um, so there’s quite a lot of work that goes into the research phase in terms of um, competitor analysis understanding your brand. You know what do people say about you when you’re not in the room. Is a famous quote from Jeff Besos is you know how do people think about your brand. How do you want to be perceived is for instance, if you have that kind of Seo and that wordpress is all your imagery related to each other does. It have a familiar vibe to it so that when someone sees seizure.

15:37.10
Matt Lasky
Blog or your article or your product that you’ve got does it always look consistent with each other so they always have that feeling to it so that as soon as you see it. You know it’s part of your um of your family. Um, and then we send out a design questionnaire. Ah I recommend to send out always send out a design questionmare to to the client or whether it’s internal or external that has a long list of um questions around how you want to be perceived your kind of brand. What’s the what’s the 5 things that someone should think about you. Within the nanosecond they look on your website right? Is it approachability is it luxury is it modern, whatever those things are how does that? Um, yeah, how should that come across on the website. Um, so I think maybe that would be an interesting activity to do on your own website. So if you’re on your own website. Maybe you should do your own questionnaire which is what I’ve done myself for ah for my own websites I’m working with people you know, fill out the questionnaire yourself find out, go quite deep into what you’re trying to achieve and what your brand is and how you want to be perceived. What are your values and then make sure. They can resonate throughout the website.

16:54.52
peteeveritt
Yeah, absolutely and you know what? regardless of whether you’re an agency or non-agents are listening to that. It’s worth doing it for your own website. Um because it gets it. It shows you the challenges that you’re going to face in in ah answering some of these questions. So if you were if you are then an agency that’s helping a client through this process in the future.

17:11.43
Matt Lasky
Are.

17:12.58
peteeveritt
You’ve been through it yourself. You can understand some of the things that are going to be going through the client’s head as you’re presenting them with this information and oh with these questions and I can I can honestly you know I can remember times where we’ve been I’ve been sat in briefing meetings and clients have sat across the table and said well. Why the heck do you want to know that and it’s you know?? Ah yeah, this is a collaboration This is ah we need to at the end of the day I think it’s very it’s very easy for agencies to get caught up in trying to please the client. It’s very.

17:32.16
Matt Lasky
Food me. So Thank you.

17:48.75
peteeveritt
It’s very easy for the client to get caught up in what they want what they like what they dislike and actually neither of those are really the target audience of a website because the the target audience of the website is your client’s customers. Um, so.

18:04.19
Matt Lasky
Yeah, um.

18:05.11
peteeveritt
It’s really them that we’re trying to communicate with and and and you know as you say then put this brand in front of them that that pulls on the heartstrings or communicates in the way. However, you want to phrase it that attracts the right customers and that’s that’s another thing that I think is really important when you’re doing these. These briefs is to not only understand what it is. You’re trying to achieve but also trying to understand things you’re not trying to achieve you know if if um with Seo clients I often say to people you know it’s quite easy to get 100000 people to look at a website but trying to get 1000 people that want to buy what you’re trying to sell.

18:39.59
Matt Lasky
Um, put anyone.

18:42.63
Matt Lasky
The.

18:43.25
peteeveritt
The time they need. It is a very different challenge and it’s kind of the same with branding you like we were talking about with opinions. You want people to have an opinion of your brand because those people that it doesn’t resonate with aren’t probably aren’t the right customers for you anyway.

18:47.60
Matt Lasky
Me in.

18:58.32
Matt Lasky
Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s a really good point because in the book We talk about? um, there’s a tension on a website right? There’s a tension between. What you want to achieve as the owner of the website whether you’re the client or the the agency working for the client to produce something and then there’s what the actual user wants from the website right? So as a user I might I might just be in my research phase.

19:15.58
peteeveritt
Okay.

19:26.28
Matt Lasky
So I’m just looking around multiple websites and I want to research whatever it is a pair of new trainers right? So and I’m one of these people that will probably research for like a month before I purchase something so I might go on 6 different websites and I’m just researching. Okay now. As an agency or ah, an owner of the website. You just want me to purchase it or you just want me to if I don’t purchase it to fill in a form right to fill in a form so that I sign up and I get 10% off my first order. But as the tension there is that I don’t want to do any of that because I am still in my research phase I just want to understand what’s the fit like what color options have I got is it. The best value. Are you the best company for me to buy this from so I don’t want to do any of the stuff that you’re trying to get me to do and there’s a tension there. And if you don’t think about the end user as you said, if you don’t think about the target audience then there is a gap missing and trying to understand you can see heat maps and you can look at conversion rates but without actually speaking to the users and maybe doing some surveys and doing some user testing. Then you will miss out on those kind of golden nuggets of information of what does a researcher want in that phase. How can we help this person and maybe we should change our language. Maybe we should have some other things that help them in in that area. So yeah I think there’s definitely.

20:53.37
Matt Lasky
Um, things within the book that talk about you know how to think about your users do some audience Personas What is that that understanding that tension between what. Website is trying to achieve and what the user is trying to achieve is actually key to improving those conversion rates and and getting what you need out of it.

21:13.11
peteeveritt
Absolutely and you know for for those clients that are ah for those agencies that are trying to build meaningful relationships with clients because let’s face it if if you are an agency a meaningful relationship with a client goes way Beyond a.

21:25.75
Matt Lasky
What.

21:30.69
peteeveritt
Yeah, just a website project. Um I don’t mean that to belittle I use the word just I don’t mean that’s to belittle website projects in any way but you know ah a client can be way more valuable to your business as an agency than just the website itself and but you know we’ve built hundreds of.

21:38.29
Matt Lasky
Before.

21:49.39
peteeveritt
Good looking websites but the clients that we work with more regularly that have that that life value beyond the website are the ones that where we haven’t just created a nice looking website but we’ve actually done something we’ve created something that has made a difference to their business.

21:57.93
Matt Lasky
Man.

22:05.89
Matt Lasky
Um, yeah, are.

22:07.85
peteeveritt
And it’s it’s delivering for them in a in a better way and guess what when it delivers for them in a better way and they have more money to spend and they want to then improve it. Guess who they come to the guy that’s given them the leg up in the first place to deliver the thing in the better way. So it the whilst it may seem like such a.

22:16.10
Matt Lasky
Me. Um, yeah.

22:27.73
peteeveritt
Small overlooked part of a web design process and I get it. You know we all have our talents. We all have our things that we enjoy designers ultimately want to design. They don’t want to go through the admin of taking Briefs and and all this kind of stuff. Um, but if you get that bit nailed if you get that bit right.

22:31.88
Matt Lasky
If.

22:45.91
peteeveritt
It transforms the way that your client relationships are going to work over a period of time.

22:51.33
Matt Lasky
Yeah, exactly. Um and there’s lessons in there of which I just wish I’d have learned when I first started out in terms of being prepared like being prepared and how to talk to. To clients and people internally as well because um, one of the hardest lessons was just when I when I had a client presentation and um I thought I could wing it and I’m sure there’s lots of people out there that have done this where I’ll just wing it. You know I know my stuff I’ve been doing it a while. And it looks pretty good. What I’ve done so I’m sure it would be fine and the client will be happy. Um, and I went to this meeting with myself and a project manager and it was for a law firm. Um, and I was quite young. And I just thought well the designs will stand up for themselves and this could be anything right? It could be your seo staff and whatever it stands up for itself to sctiny and I’m sure it would be fine and we went to this law firm ah in the city of London and it was the largest boardroom you ever seen in your life. It was. Huge it was massive very intimidating and there was this huge um horse shoe shapeped desk I’ll never forget it where myself and the project manager sat on one side and then we had a team of about 7 lawyers on the other side and you felt like you’re on trial and.

24:21.61
Matt Lasky
I Just got nervous I Just got really nervous and I was looking down at my notes and it didn’t have any didn’t have any notes like the cardinal sin of going to a flight meeting is not having any notes and we had some printouts of some web Stuff. We had a projector that was showing it on the big screen as Well. And I got up to talk and I just had nothing to say and it really struck me that I hadn’t done my preparation properly I haven’t got what I needed to discuss with the client I didn’t even have a brief of what we were trying to achieve so. Project Manager was so embarrassed for me that he pulled me down and then he took over the meeting and I just had this dry mouth this sweating palpitations and that was the day that I decided to never let anything that bad happen again. So from that day I think this is true in a lot of industries that your worst Moment. You never ever want that to happen again right? So you do anything to avoid that So you’ll work twice as Hard. You’ll do twice as much research, you’ll read twice as many things but it took me another lesson that when you are presenting to a client or when you’re talking to a client this is.

25:19.11
peteeveritt
Um, yeah.

25:37.35
Matt Lasky
Ah, big opportunity to show your credentials and your authority in what you’re talking about right? So and I don’t mean credentials is in your degrees and whatever you’ve got. It’s just your knowledge of what you’re talking about. So. You need the client to believe in you and to trust what you’re saying and to feel comfortable that you’re the person that’s going to lead them over this next eighteen month project right? So for Seo you could be on. Ah, it’s not worth doing a two month for a three month you want to get them on an eighteen month contract and you want to make sure that they have enough. Um, time for you to deliver to the kpis that they want if your first meeting is flustered. You’re unprepared. You don’t understand really what the brief is that client’s going to be second -guessing you from then on right? So it’s really important to be prepared. From from the get-go and to have to give them the impression that they’re really happy. They’ve made the right choice to work with you and they’re confident in the decisions that you’re you’re making on their behalf and and that collaboration and there’s going to be bumps in the road right? There’s going to be months where your seo goes down or it’s not as good as it was. And they’ll be much more forgiving of that if they trust your judgment and they trust the way that you’re communicating you know and if you struggle to communicate then I think that that will cause a lot of headaches for you further down that road.

27:02.16
peteeveritt
You You’re dead right? You know I I was thinking of a couple of a couple of things while you were saying that we’ve all had we’ve all had nightmare meetings like that. Um I I remember the first I used to work at a large E Commerce agency. Um I mentioned this before on the show and.

27:06.57
Matt Lasky
Are.

27:19.91
peteeveritt
We had this. Um there was about 30 of us that worked in this agency and every every so often I think it was about twice a year. We used to have these team days and we had this guy come in about on one of these team days to coach us all on efficient time management and he was very much about time blocking. Ah, basically that that was the the crux of his the crux of his training with us So We I took him at his word and the thought right? Well you know he he was about time blocking but then also grouping together tasks of a similar um similar Nature. So I had.

27:46.34
Matt Lasky
Now.

27:58.33
peteeveritt
I was head of department and I had the 12 most valuable digital marketing accounts. They all sat under my management and ah then I had staff under me that had other accounts and so I decided that it would make best use of my time to try and get all my client meetings in the same week. And I managed to get 11 of 12 to meet me in a single working week and I basically spent the entire week in the boardroom ah blocked blocked the whole thing out. Nobody else could have a meeting annoyed the hell out of everybody else because they they all had to go somewhere else to to if they wanted to see a client and by the end of the week

28:26.13
Matt Lasky
Um, me.

28:37.32
peteeveritt
I’d I couldn’t talk I had a sore throat. Um I was you know I was physically drained I was absolutely shattered and I couldn’t remember because I had.

28:43.22
Matt Lasky
Here are and.

28:50.49
peteeveritt
Literally meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting I’d make some very sketchy notes about what we were what we talked about what the the action points were but I hadn’t then kind of offloaded that into the project management system I hadn’t delegated anything I hadn’t formed them into proper proper ah tasks for the month you know, workable actions for the month so

29:04.85
Matt Lasky
Um, then.

29:09.38
peteeveritt
Ah, got to the end of the week had to go back in on the following Monday and try and make sense of 11 meetings worth of notes and it was all because I hadn’t I hadn’t put the I’d taken this guy too literally on his word and I hadn’t put the process in place. Before and after a meeting and that that was really where it dawned on me about this whole, but they’re coming to me as the professional type thing I need to be I need to be on my game for these meetings and that means I need some prep time beforehand I should never go into a meeting cold and I need some time after it.

29:32.53
Matt Lasky
Gonna cancel.

29:38.48
Matt Lasky
Um, yeah.

29:44.36
peteeveritt
In order to in order to process what we’ve just spoken about while it’s fresh in my head So I can delegate stuff so I can write stuff down so that I know what the tasks are so I can come back to it. You know you’re very much a case of kind of uploading the information before the meeting and downloading it after the meeting so that you can you can put it to bed and and.

29:47.93
Matt Lasky
Doing nothing.

30:02.70
peteeveritt
Come back to it when you’re actually doing your your task work and it was look I’m it’s now at least eight years later because I left there eight years ago and I’m still talking about it I can still remember it so we’ve all had those that it really does and you you have to you have to learn.

30:03.50
Matt Lasky
Yeah.

30:14.30
Matt Lasky
It haunted. Yeah.

30:22.45
peteeveritt
To take these things Seriously, you are a you are the professional they are coming to you. You need time to get on your game. You need to whether that’s whether that’s you know, even things like.

30:23.59
Matt Lasky
Um, yeah me.

30:38.20
peteeveritt
The hour before a meeting what you’re going to do is you’re going to stop all of the project work an hour before a call you’re going to take a 15 minute comfort break or whatever to to you know distance yourself from work. You’ve done before you’re then going to have half an hour’s worth of prep time and then you’re going to I don’t know what you. Chill out or they might arrive early or whatever you got a buffer at the other end whilst that that might be all you do. But if if you take nothing else from this call apart from this and go by Matt’s book then review it in a month’s time with all the client meetings you’ve had and.

30:54.86
Matt Lasky
Um, me.

31:12.30
peteeveritt
See how your performance has improved over the course of the next the next few weeks and it will feel weird. The first time you do it. But you know what you you will have far more productive meetings. You’ll therefore produce far more productive products off the back of those meetings and likewise at the other end make sure you don’t have another meeting.

31:16.59
Matt Lasky
A.

31:32.19
peteeveritt
Scheduled immediately have ah have a period have a process to download that stuff be it pre-made forms that you’ve that you’ve made or you know project management templates or whatever it Whatever it’s going to be that works for you. It really can be a complete game changer but those those meetings in particular.

31:33.19
Matt Lasky
Um, yeah.

31:51.31
peteeveritt
Ah, bit like Briefs are often just taken so much for granted, it’s untrue.

31:54.37
Matt Lasky
Yeah, and I think there is that energy sapping right? because in the book I talk about there’s when you ask a question.. There’s multiple things that you have to handle as you’re managing that meeting so you ask a question. Have to and it sounds ridiculous. But you have to listen to the answer but whilst you’re listening to the answer you need to think well is there a follow-up. Question have I or have I just had a really good idea that I literally my brain can’t stop thinking about so you need to have a way to.

32:14.40
peteeveritt
Yep.

32:30.50
Matt Lasky
Down that idea whilst also keep listening to the client as they’re talking because you don’t want to stop their flow and then you know while you’re on question 10 your mind starts to wander and there’s other things going on you think about the next meeting that you’ve got so you really have to be present and concentrate in that meeting. Um. And when you’re having those creative ideas. So if the client’s you know I need to create this new sales page and you’re like oh I’ve got 8 different ideas I can do that and you’re already in your mind building that page up already thinking how it’s going to be done but the client’s still talking so you’ve got to really have a way to let the client talk still think of those ideas. Think of the follow up questions then review which questions coming next. Is it going to feel like a natural lead on to the next question are we going off on a tangent. Do. We need to bring the meeting back to the original question and how am I going to loop all of that whilst also thinking about. You know what am I having for dinner. There’s all these other things that are going on that you have to really be present and try and concentrate for that half an hour or an hour because you might only get that once a month with that client. So I think there’s just sort of little tips in the book. Just how to try and be present. And navigate your way around and 1 may just be to ask the client to pause while you’ve make notes and you’re just having this really creative thought in your mind and you just really want to go down a bit of a rabbit hole with that whilst and and just pause the client from talking and then go back to them and maybe say you’ve got that idea or I’ll follow it back up with you at a later date.

34:02.20
Matt Lasky
But yeah I think Also I’ve noticed for me especially is that when I have these meetings I do get drained really quickly. Um, and I think a lot of us in our Industry. We chose this industry maybe because we don’t have to speak to people that often because maybe we’re a bit more introverted than extroverted right? so. When we do talk and have these presentations they can drain us quite a lot. So um, you know we have to like you said you have to recover you got to debrief and delegate and think about who these things have got to go to So yeah, having a good space in between meetings is a very good idea and being prepared. Is a very good idea as well.

34:41.13
peteeveritt
So just just there’s 1 other thing I want to I wanted to talk to you about and this kind of loops back to some of the themes of the book as well about having having a ah good brief. Um, because the the brief ultimately becomes the thing that you can refer back to.

34:56.19
Matt Lasky
Physical.

34:58.90
peteeveritt
Time and time again throughout the life cycle of the project. Um, so the the thing that I wanted to mention was one of my favorite memories of being in like ah being an employee in an agency is.

35:07.69
Matt Lasky
10

35:16.94
peteeveritt
We used to have this creative breakout space in ah in the agencies I worked in and basically whenever ah a big project came in a project that that kind of warranted a a different creative approach. You know so something that was something that was going to be a little a little special. Let’s say we’d.

35:36.85
peteeveritt
We’d literally. We’d take the phone off the hook with get a number of people together. Maybe even all of us I do remember literally the whole agency spending like an hour together in these in these breakout spaces and we’d say right? This is the challenge. This is the brief. This is what we’re going to do and for the next sixty minutes no idea is a bad idea. So we’ll just just whatever you know I was a developer at the time. So I I didn’t really have a lot to do with design but actually for me being able to break out of my day-to-day routine and get involved in something and and pitch some ideas in and just my different way of thinking about it to somebody else’s.

35:57.15
Matt Lasky
Um.

36:16.45
peteeveritt
Even if even if what I came up with wasn’t the finished idea what I said might trigger somebody else to think of something and and then you know well so how does that fit into the brief. Oh well. Yeah that that might be a ah good idea and after like 30 or 45 minutes we’d end up with these. We used to use flip charts all the time and stick the bits of paper up around the wall.

36:33.59
Matt Lasky
Um, no.

36:35.36
peteeveritt
And eventually a designer would go away and they’d have all of this stuff to go through but it only works the reason I’m mentioning all of that is it only works if somebody can say pull these different people together and say right? This is the brief. This is what we’re trying to achieve for this client. You’ve never heard of them before I had a meeting with them yesterday.

36:50.45
Matt Lasky
Um.

36:55.32
peteeveritt
This is what we’re trying to achieve how can we approach this and um so there’s it’s the importance of the brief but it’s It’s also the sometimes you need to break up the Monotony of what you’re doing. It’s you know work can become like a treadmill and.

36:57.20
Matt Lasky
And.

37:12.36
Matt Lasky
Um.

37:13.23
peteeveritt
That doesn’t keep that’s not good for anybody. It doesn’t keep ideas fresh. It doesn’t keep productivity up it. Ah, it gets your mental health down. You know your mood your mood deflates and actually having space to break out.

37:20.83
Matt Lasky
I Mean yeah.

37:27.00
peteeveritt
And if you’re working on your own that might mean you know what I’m going to get go away from ah my office and I’m going to go and sit and work in a coffee shop for a morning because I I need to focus on this leave the phone at home. So that you’re not going to be distracted. Whatever it might be but find those pockets of space for the creativity to happen.

37:32.12
Matt Lasky
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

37:44.94
peteeveritt
But having that brief allows that creativity to be grounded So you know it’s productive work.

37:51.30
Matt Lasky
Yeah, exactly it’s a really good point and I’m working with an agency called uicc digital. Um, and I’m like a lead ui designer there as well and we have this whole department called Uic Labs

38:05.27
Matt Lasky
And it’s just dedicated to saying. Okay,, there’s this problem anyone in the company is invited and let’s just have this crazy brainstorm and try and get everyone from different walks of life from different countries from anywhere and say let’s. Let’s just discuss it and you can see the excitement is like palpable people are really eager to get an idea across as ah, someone’s going to listen to me Finally I can I can speak my mind in this safe place like no idea’s a bad idea and they might have been sitting on this idea for years right and they just want to bring it out because they never have the confidence to or whatever. And it’s kind of cathartic for them to just bring this idea out and if we love the idea like you said you can run with it and the designer can go off and create what they need to but without the objective or the challenge or the problem that you’re trying to Solve. It’s just. Hot air and ideas right? If There’s an actual problem that we’ve got to solve then I think that’s when you can be most creative because the problem may have been looked at by the client or by yourself just in this very particular way. But when you get other people to look at this problem. Um, from different books of life and different experiences then they’ll come up with all these ideas that you never thought of and yeah, so I think that is um, just doing those brainstorms is is a really good idea.

39:27.48
peteeveritt
So I think I think we’re we’re coming to a good place to kind of wrap this episode up. There are certain things that I was going to ask that I haven’t asked but actually I’m not going to ask them so is things like you know, let let let’s talk through some of the key parts of a web design brief. But actually you know what. 2 things. Firstly, it’s in your book. So I don’t want you to yeah, don’t want need to be giving your book away and secondly you do have a website. Don’t you that’s set up about this and there’s a whole load of resources and blogs and articles and stuff on there that that take some of the concepts of the book and make them ah a little more. Um.

39:46.90
Matt Lasky
And.

40:01.23
peteeveritt
Real world I suppose ah the other ways of looking at it that you didn’t actually get into print.

40:06.50
Matt Lasky
Yeah, yeah, exactly that and there’s some resources like you said there’s other books out there to read that I recommend. Yeah yeah, but it’s just the journey right? It’s just like you know I think reading’s great and just um.

40:12.43
peteeveritt
Mate you’re here to sell yours. Don’t mention those.

40:22.86
Matt Lasky
As much resources you can get so um, yeah, I’m hoping that this book will just help people as another resource that they can just really easily pick up. You know it could be 5 minutes on the train. It could be half an hour before bed. It’s just getting the mind working and thinking in a particular ah particular way. Um, and it should. You know it’s got an index that where you can just pick up and go to a chapter and put it down. Go oh that’s a good idea and then just use that you know it’s not meant to be a big corporate book. That’s very heavy to read. It should be quite light and and easy to go. But yeah, there’s there’s links to that.

40:57.92
peteeveritt
You you do have you do have a very good point there which is that I’ve seen a transcript of Matt’s book now I must admit I was I was very honored to see a transcript that was written before print and which I can’t say about many books but 1 of the things that I was a very. Impress with was the way I mean it does it reads very well I’m I’m not taking away from from any of that at all, but the fact that you can you can read it from cover to cover if you want to have ah if you want to get a good understanding of it but actually it does work really well as a reference book. So just having that index at the back and.

41:23.40
Matt Lasky
That’s one.

41:31.99
Matt Lasky
Man.

41:36.55
peteeveritt
You know thinking I and I need some help with this right now flicking through to the right page and you know what within within three or four minutes of reading the right few pages you’ve got you’ve got that nugget of information out the book works really well as well. So it’s how to take a web design brief. The web address is ah Webdesign brief dot com off the top of my head.

41:53.50
Matt Lasky
Yeah.

41:56.27
peteeveritt
Um, and ah, where’s where is the book. How can people get hold of the book if they want their own copy.

42:00.37
Matt Lasky
Yeah, so it’s on Amazon at the minute. Um, you can buy a paperback. We can buy it on Kindle um, and that’s the main. Yeah, the main place we’ve got it at the minute.

42:09.10
peteeveritt
Cool I gotta say I’ve I’ve I’ve never been a massively big reader and when I used to commute I used to listen to a lot of audio books because I had the time in the car but working from home. You don’t really, you don’t really get that. So I I’ve recently.

42:15.61
Matt Lasky
Um.

42:26.35
peteeveritt
Ah, since last summer last summer I actually read 2 books on holiday on the same holiday I might my wife didn’t really know what to what? what to make of it. She’s I hadn’t seen me read a book in years and then all of a sudden I literally she couldn’t ah could get my nose out of these books. Um, but I really have discovered again that the value of.

42:28.47
Matt Lasky
Well done, get.

42:39.47
Matt Lasky
Few.

42:46.00
peteeveritt
Actually owning a physical physical book. It’s not just about consuming the consuming the information. It’s the fact that it sits there on the shelf afterwards if I if I need to know something again I can go back to it and flick to the appropriate section and reread it which you’re not gonna do with an audio book.

42:51.35
Matt Lasky
And.

43:05.55
peteeveritt
Ah, so much. Um, never been a massive Kindle user and inna really know whether you do that or not on a Kindle but I I really value the um, the the actual physical item. The the tangible thing again. So.

43:07.80
Matt Lasky
Yeah.

43:13.60
Matt Lasky
Yeah I think it’s nice like said there a resource but you can make notes in it and that can trigger other ideas as well and you can kind of go back to it and you can put bookmarks in certain pages where you want to go back and just develop yourself a bit from that. So yeah, for sure I think a printed book has a. Has a really good Change. Still.

43:34.22
peteeveritt
So go and grab a copy on Amazon I’ll put a link to to it in the show notes. So obviously that’ll send you off to your own version of Amazon if you’re in a different country and and Matt before we say goodbye if somebody wants to connect with you. Um, after they bought your book obviously because.

43:47.78
Matt Lasky
No, of course.

43:49.60
peteeveritt
Um, I’m assuming everybody that listens to this will then go buy a copy before they do anything else and how what? what’s the best way for them to connect with you which which social media platforms. Are you active on that kind of stuff.

43:59.34
Matt Lasky
yeah yeah I think ah Linkedin and Instagram if we could put some links on there that would be great. Yeah, and love to hear from people for sure.

44:04.48
peteeveritt
Absolutely fantastic. Well look man. It’s been a blast ah talking to you? Um, as I say it’s now nearly four am m in the state. So Jeff will still be in bed and yeah, it’s it’s been great. Been great to have you I hope your first podcast interview. Hasn’t been terrible and and yeah, be ah, it’d be great to you know, great to see people get the hands on the resource you’ve created because it it really could be really valuable to them.

44:21.82
Matt Lasky
Fast being great is yeah I’ve really enjoyed it surprised.

44:34.39
Matt Lasky
Yeah, thank you.

44:38.14
peteeveritt
Thanks for listening all the notes I’ll be in the show notes and if I don’t see you in the show notes I will see you in the next episode.