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Check out this feedback form from the TweetDeck website. It’s a modal pop-up box with a form and instant feature request form (using UserVoice).

How easy is it for your customers to give you feedback?

When you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Right? This is a classic mistake, one that leads to overworking and stress. After all, each time you take over on a task that you should delegate you�re just adding more work. At some point, that takes its toll and even even you can�t do it as well as you should.

So you delegate the work. But it never seems to get done like you�d expect. And that frustrates you, making you just as stressed as you would have been if you�d done the work yourself.

Here�s how you help get things done right.

1. Give good instructions

This should obvious, but people are terrible at giving directions. Some of the most successful people got that way because they are tremendous communicators. If you have a vision for how a task should be completed, force yourself to thoroughly describe it. Translate that vision from your head and into the email, memo, or sticky note so someone else can understand it.

2. Be helpful and accessible

You�ll get a much better response from people if you make yourself available for follow-up questions and feedback.

3. Lower your standards

Let�s face it � sometimes you can get by with less than perfect and forcing someone else to live up to your expectation of perfect may be unreasonable. I�m not saying you should accept poor performance, but the payoff from delegating work is that you saved yourself a lot of hassle. If it�s absolutely critical that it�s perfect, then make that a condition of the work going in.

Or just do it yourself

If it�s that important, then maybe you should do it yourself. But you have to give up something else. Tim Ferriss even outsourced his email. You can find some way of delegating a lot of the stuff you do. When you do, you�ll be free to focus on high priority items.

An observation:

Getting a project 100% right is very hard and time consuming. But getting the project 95% there is pretty quick. The next 5% percent can take a long time, though. The question for you is whether the distance between 95% and perfection is worth the investment.

Sometimes it is… but a lot of the time it isn’t.

(or How to get your clients to do what you want)

Not long ago, lawlessness ruled the land. Clients did whatever they wanted and the customer was always right. Projects often missed deadlines and the team bemoaned the dreaded “scope creep.” This was a painful time, overtime was part of life, and burnout was a weekly occurrence. Yes, there was a time when I was at the mercy of the client. But no more.

Those were the days when I was distant from the client. As a developer, I suffered the brunt of the fickle client who changed the requirements just days before launch. But as I moved on, I became the project manager and client liaison. I worked directly with the client and decided the fate of my team’s reputation. And I learned how to achieve the dream: on time, on budget, and everyone’s happy.

I’d like to share these lessons. Let’s look at a website redesign project for the Cray Z. Corporation, or CZC.  Welcome to the art of client wrangling.

Be the Authority

You have to know what you’re doing, or at least have some expertise. Many clients think they know as much or more than you do about what you do. If the client really does know more than you, you’re going to suffer through a lot of micromanagement and pain until you get yourself some credibility. But most of the time, you are the expert and they’re paying you for your expertise. Start off the project with authority by laying out your process and setting the client’s mind at ease. Show respect for the client’s time. Come to meetings with an agenda and run the meeting efficiently. Always end meetings with a restatement of the agreed-upon action items and next steps. Set dates if you can, or follow up by email.

It’s in their best interest

I always force projects to address information architecture and content planning first. This doesn’t mean they deliver the copy, fully approved, but it certainly means we know what content will be on the site before we even start thinking about design. And like many clients, CZC wants to see the pretty pictures and says they’ve got the content taken care of. Or that they’ll just plug it all in later. In this case, I’ll tell CZC that this is pretty typical, but that the content-first approach actually speeds up the project. It lets us overlap content with design: writers and editors can work on content while the designers produce the mockups. It also lets us avoid costly revisions that come from changing major parts of the content plan after the design is approved. This isn’t a choice – it’s the best way to run the project.

Get to the heart of the matter

Every project has weird requests. It’s your job, as a project manager/marketing guru/therapist to determine the source of this request. Sometimes clients make conflicting demands. You can decipher such puzzling requirements by paring them down to simple pieces. If the requests are vague, ask the client to elaborate their point. When the requests are unreasonable oddities, direct their attention to whatever principles are driving the request.

Listen, listen, listen!

“I want an animated flying monkey that swoops in and drops the letters C.Z.C. into our logo.” This is a cry for help. And trust me, it’s not an affinity for flying monkeys. The key here is listening to the client carefully and looking a lot deeper than the actual words they say. I get this kind of request sometimes. A lot of clients think that animation adds “sizzle” and makes the site more attractive. The desire for the letters to come in is actually not uncommon either, but it usually takes the form of “make my logo bigger.” What I would suggest is that we consider whether the branding is really strong enough; sometimes the design is distracting and can diffuse the effect of the branding. But usually I ask the client to decide if it’s more important to draw attention to the logo or if they want people to buy something.

Changing Minds

Remember how I said you were the expert? Well that only goes so far. Sometimes your recommendation goes unheeded and the client chooses a different path. That’s fine, except when it’s a show-stopper. The client might ignore your advice, believing some random blog article or even a complete stranger’s comments. You can counter these situations with other viewpoints, expert opinions, or research that proves your point. This can be risky, however, because the Internet has no shortage of opinions and “facts” to back up your own position. It works both ways, and clients can set themselves even firmer against your suggestion. This erodes the respect they have for your expertise, which leads to even more difficult scenarios.

It’s their idea

When you find yourself on opposite sides of a point, you need to begin manipulating. This sounds mean, but it’s actually just a personality trait: some people are stubborn and aren’t likely to change their mind. They trust their intuition more than they trust you, no matter what appeals to data or authority that you might have to support your point. One day, late in the project, CZC brought up the dreaded Fold. That is, they wanted to make sure the entire homepage was visible within the browser screen without needing to scroll down. This is one of the most common fights I experience, from clients to users to even our own managers. So I’ve had a bit of experience with this. One way I win this argument is to bring the client around to my side by giving them the pieces and letting them come to the logical conclusion. When you come into a conversation with all the answers, some people get defensive. But when you offer another view, do it by asking questions. Offer subtle hints, such as “what size monitor do you use?”, “do you want to support mobile users?”, “which content do you want to take off the homepage?”, or you can mock up the design to match and then open it in a much larger resolution screen. Ultimately, we want CZC to realize that the fold is actually in many different places and isn’t very predictable. When this happens, the objection begins to dissolve and can even turn into a decisive, “well, people know how to scroll anyway” type of conclusion.

Threaten the client

There are two methods you can use that scare the heck out of clients, and you should be careful about how you use them. These are hard-ass tactics, where you must be resolute in your position. These can be very effective, but can also damage the project and your reputation. You don’t want your customers spreading negative press about you.

Three factors: schedule, budget, deliverables

I am fond of saying, “Good, fast, cheap: pick any two.” These are more accurately translated into schedule, budget, and the deliverables. Clients make this choice, often unconsciously. If you know that a client cares more about keeping the budget, off-the-wall requests can be easily handled with a “well, that’s going to add another x hours and y dollars.” Or it pushes back the timeline a couple of weeks. Or even make it a choice between one feature and another (which offsets the budget and schedule). These usually shut down scope creep.

Nuclear Option

If all else fails, and you’re at a point where you absolutely refuse to continue down a certain path, you can end the project entirely. I’ve only done this a few times, usually where the client breaks a fundamental rule such as drastically altering the designer’s work. I simply state, very calmly and professionally, that this is a deal-breaker and that our policy is to terminate the project and bill all work to date. Sometimes this needs to be stated in the project contract. But I leave it as a choice: the client can continue as they wish but the gravity of the situation usually causes them to step back and re-evaluate. As I said, these aren’t easy tactics to use and they can certainly endanger both the project, the relationship, and your reputation.

Don’t worry, be happy

When you’ve got a solid customer relationship, you can make all kinds of mistakes and still be ok. Customers want two things: not to worry, and to be happy. If you’re the expert, can be a benevolent authority, are a thoughtful listener, offer positive viewpoints, and help the client see the light, then you’ll be a hero. The client will rest assured that they’re in good hands and even the most difficult situations will be easily resolved.

And Cray Z. Corporation will tell everyone they know.

When I was in high school, I listened to my dad and his friends talk about the cars they used to work on. Two brothers had worked together to rebuild an engine and had to drop it back in on their own � one on his back holding the engine in place with his legs, the other tightening the bolts to anchor it. I cracked a joke about dropping in a new motherboard and having to anchor it to the aluminum case I had custom-ordered.

Today, working on the engine in my junker of a boat, I reflected on the similarities between my hardware tinkering and the world of the grease monkey. I might call these guys engine geeks or car hackers. These are the guys who built transistor radios or took apart the toaster. They share something in common with today�s computer geeks: fearlessness. Fearlessness is knowing that you might screw something up but that you can probably figure out how it works and how to fix it.

Tinkering is about trying something, figuring out how it works, and then trying something else to get the best results. This translates to business, too. There’s a thrill in taking risks and being fearless, and it’s the only way to innovate.

I’m heading back out to the boat now… we’ll see if my tinkering paid off.

Lately, there�s been a lot of talk in our office about working from home. On one hand, there�s the belief that our work can be done at any time and from any location. On the other hand, that has an effect on how easily we can manage our teams, schedule meetings, etc. I am a proponent of remote working: partly because I commute 45 minutes each way and partly because I�m more productive when I�m away from the office.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Mark J. Drozdowski writes about working from home as a fundraiser and manager. He lays out some of the pros and cons of this and I want to share these.

What�s more important than results?

As Mark writes in the Chronicle, working from home requires that we admit that our notions of productivity are too dependent on presenteeism.

Eventually, the numbers I generate will dictate success or failure�If they�re getting their jobs done, why worry about the process?

Best Buy has developed the Results-Only Work Environment intended to reduce the workaholic attitude that more hours is better. They�ve had tremendous success with this and it�s gotten a lot of attention:

ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Currently, there are two authentic ROWEs�Fortune 100 retailer Best Buy Co, Inc. and J. A. Counter & Associates, a small brokerage firm in New Richmond, WI. At both organizations, the old rules that govern a traditional work environment�core hours, �face time,� pointless meetings, etc.�have been replaced by one rule: focus only on results.

In a service-oriented business, customer service is a huge part of your success. This doesn�t have to take a hit, but you have to be prepared for how it will affect your service levels. Face time has a lot of value, but that also has a lot of costs. Use it wisely.

Yes, sometimes you need to be present.

This is the big discussion in our office. In an emergency, remote working made it difficult to contact some of our staff (myself included). The issue is the breakdown in communication, not the remote working. I could just as easily have been in a client meeting and out of reach. The answer here is protocol and preparedness, not presenteeism. Mark, again:

My management responsibilities require me to interact more frequently with people on the campus, to put out fires, to slog through budgets and piles of paperwork. That part of the job keeps me campus-bound. Were I an untethered major-gifts officer, however, the duties for which I actually needed to work on the campus would be minimal.

But it attracts talent.

Top talent have a lot of options, which means there are more factors to consider. You can�t possibly compete across the board in all factors, so it�s important to look for the factors that matter the most to employees and work on those. Money is an obvious factor, but for many it�s not the most important; and some factors are very inexpensive. Telecommuting costs very little and matters a lot. Mark continues:

Imagine a job candidate weighing two offers. One university will furnish a nice office, a computer, a phone, and other supplies necessary for the job. But you have to come in every day unless you are on the road. The other university will furnish the same items, but will allow you to fashion a home office and will require your physical presence on the campus only when necessary. Money being the same, which option is more attractive?

So what�s stopping you?

Mark concludes:

Fund raisers don�t work 9 to 5, so why make them conform to an office culture based on that schedule? Perhaps that�s why some leave for consulting gigs, which often let them live anywhere and travel when necessary. Given similar freedom from a university, might they stay? I imagine insecurities and a perceived loss of control will prevent this notion from gaining traction. Or maybe managers simply don�t trust employees enough to free them from office shackles. But the practice is out there in other fields, and it�s certainly a growing trend. Don�t be surprised when it begins to trickle into our lives as well.

There are valid concerns about working from home, but these usually come back to management: define the criteria for performance management, establish results and goals for the employees, and create protocols for how you handle the absolutely necessary in-person time. As Mark said, these are insecurities of management, not employees. If you don�t trust your employees to get the work done, why would you hire them in the first place? There are so many benefits to working remotely that it�s worth the extra effort for management to overcome any downsides.

The customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is more often than not very wrong and has no clue what he’s doing.

This isn’t ego, it’s simple truth: you probably know your product better than your customer does. After all, you’re the expert, right?

A customer walks into a shop to buy a chainsaw. He is met by a salesperson, who may ask a series of questions and offer advice on the right product to fit the customer’s needs. How often do you cut wood? How big are the trees you intend to cut? And so on. But sometimes, the salesperson won’t care what the customer needs and will simply try to sell the biggest, most expensive chainsaw available. Then he also tries to sell him attachments he doesn’t need, a service plan he doesn’t want, and a DVD set of “Ax Men,” which he doesn’t want to watch. He’s not a logger, he’s just a guy with a couple of trees to chop up each year.

The customer know this game. He wants to spend as little as possible to get the job done. He’s on defense, trying to keep from being ripped off or unnecessarily upsold. Sometimes, he will buy the cheapest product possible, even if it doesn’t meet his needs.

The good salesperson understands this dilemma and works his tail off to help the customer understand the decision and come to the right conclusion – even if it means not making as much money on this sale.

This is where the fight starts.

What it means to be an expert

In the web industry, like so many others, everyone has some experience with the product. The result is that everyone has an opinion about what makes a good website. And that’s when your job gets tough.

I know a lot of arrogant designers and cocky developers (it takes one to know one, to be sure). Often, there’s an underlying frustration that comes from years of working with clients who pick apart a design or scrap a project and start over. The defense mechanism is to position oneself as a superior mind, contradiction a sin against the expert.

This is damaging. It teaches customers not to bring honest feedback and criticisms. This attitude builds a cycle of stalling and uncertainty. It builds a wall so the customer doesn’t understand what is happening, which creates fear. And worst of all for the expert, it damages your brand.

For fun and profit

The ideal scenario is one where you bring the customer around to see your side, ultimately agreeing with you and doing what’s best. If you’ve ever watched a Democrat and a Republican go at it, you’ll know this is no easy task.

The fix is to create mutual trust. The customer should know his business and goals better than you do. But he’s also paying you, the expert, for your help. You can’t do this without him, and he needs your expertise to make it work. Be transparent, bring him into the process the entire way, and explain things as you go. Pick your battles and fight the ones that truly matter. And if the project continues to deteriorate, offer to let the customer out of the agreement.

Remember, sour projects are rarely the fault of one party. The customer might make poor decisions, but you’re the one letting him do that. You have to be strong enough to bring the customer to the right solution, because the right chainsaw can make all the difference.

TechCrunch has launched a service where CEOs and founders can deliver their elevator pitch to TechCrunch visitors. They get 60 seconds. TechCrunch elevator pitches…

I just went through a bunch of these, and I have to say – most of these are terrible. Not necessarily the companies or ideas (though there are a good share of “me too” businesses) but the pitches themselves are awful. I found myself skipping to the next pitch after 15-20 seconds.

Too many entrepreneurs start off by talking about themselves, not about the problem they’re solving. Or they talk about their competition. Or the investment opportunity.

Too few start with a problem and then solve it. Even fewer can describe their business in a way that immediately speaks to the need.