Advice For Dealing With Boss

Q:I'm having a heck of a time with my company which is extremely conservative, and doesn't understand the Internet, and yet they hired me to revamp their site & get the ball rolling. The problem is: They know nothing about the Web and refuse to listen to research and my experience. Basically, they don't know how much they don't know. What's worse is that our Snr Tech guy works on a 486 and asked me where Program Manager was in windows 95!!!! EEEEkkk! Anyway, I was curious to know if any other Internet Marketing professionals are experiencing the same problem.

A:I'm not an internet marketing person but I get similiar problems from clients who think they know what they want. I usually just sit down and explain that my knowledge & experience is what they are paying for, if they feel they don't need it, would they like to give me notice of termination. They usually go VERY quiet. Someone once said: "There are three things that are near impossible: 1.Climb a fence that's leaning toward you. 2.Kiss a girl leaning away from you. 3.Help someone who doesn't want to be helped." One solution may be to get the "Big Guy" on the site and start asking him/her to help you with some of your "problems." If you can get the highest in-charge person on your side, they should be able to help you to sway the rest. I am a Marketing professional, not a Web professional, but I notice something about your attitude towards clients which sparks my "marketing 101 fault" alarm. You are looking at a product from a feature viewpoint and talking about technical issues. The customer (internal or external) is interested in benefits. At least, that is what transpires from your posting (about the tech vs benefit part). Another may be to apply marketing to the task and: * Determine what the client wants in the client language * Translate benefits required into technical specs * Implement the specs into product features * Present the product to the customer showing the implemented benefits Don't offer to explain technical issues unless prompted to do so, or if they are really essential (say, if you have to explain why something cannot be made). The best way to do this is to run a "Voice of the Customer" experiment and then do a "House of Quality" design. (See Journal of Product Innovation Management, circa early 90s.) These techniques will determine what the customers want and the technological feasibility/cost at the same time.