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[FAQ]
1) who is silverflux design? 2) where are you located? 3) but do you have any formal training? 4) why should i use your services? 5) okay, i'm sold - so how does this work? 6) why do you need a deposit? why are my payments non-refundable? 7) what if i don't know how many pages i need or how to buy a domain? 8) how does the design process work? 9) do you do pro bono work? 10) i don't want to pay you so can i have a free website? 11) what can i do to keep my costs down? 12) why do you have warnings plastered all over your website? 13) why don't you use paypal? 14) but craigslist says people who use other payment services are scam artists! 15) i want (blank) but i don't see it listed on your website - can you do it? 16) can i sell your services for you? 1) who is silverflux design? silverflux design is one woman and a bunch of sub-contracted scripters. i find the best, the brightest and the least likely to rip us off! 2) where are you located? my teeny little firm operates out of a home office. the people who work with silverflux design operate out of their own homes, maybe from their couches - i really don't know. the very nature of this business means that your designers never have to be in the same room to get your project completed. in fact, i feel that more work is done because there is no time wasted standing around the water cooler with the co-workers, talking about what we watched on showtime the night before. another bonus to working remotely is that the client doesn't pay our overhead; we have no office to rent, no electricity or internet bills to pay - those savings are passed right on to the client. 3) but do you have any formal training? the short answer is yes and no. some of us have been to school and some of us have not. i can continue to compete with bigger companies because i dedicate myself to learning about the newest technologies the moment they appear. regardless of schooling, no one person knows everything about web design - anyone who tells you they do is lying. the long answer is this: i've been doing what i do for almost ten years and i'm good at it. i've worked with a couple of major media firms in the new york city area and been responsible for some serious projects - (coughbankofnewyorkcough) - for some serious companies. at this point, what could be taught in a classroom would not only be irrelevant, and i also feel that it would probably damage the natural talent i seem to have for this kind of work. many of my scripters and designers have had some kind of schooling or training at one point or another but honestly, we're all here because we want to give you the best site for the best price - a piece of paper on the wall does not a good designer make ;) 4) why should i use your services? i listen to you. i take your input and create a website you can be proud of. 90% of my clients choose the first design presented to them.. i'm really just that good! i know how to combine functionality and art. everything i design is strictly a custom job - there are no templates here. all of my sites are eye-catching, creative and easy to navigate so your visitors will keep coming back for more. all of my logos are created around your express instructions so you will not be forced into choosing something you don't like, which is the way some other companies operate. basically, what i do is translate what you're telling me into a product you can show off. i'll make your experiences with me easy, fun and enlightening. i operate on strict guidelines that will make your silverflux design experience so easy that you won't know why you ever worked with anyone else. you'll laugh, you'll learn and you'll keep coming back, because personally, i think that graphic and web design should be fun - it's art! (it doesn't hurt that i'm very affordable, either!) most importantly: i won't rip you off! a lot of designers will take your money and disappear on you. i've heard it a thousand times - in fact, at least 50% of my clients worked with someone before me and i couldn't believe the awful laziness and negligence of some of my peers - but not here. when you work with me, you work with a professional. also, i'm cute. well, adorable really. 5) okay, i'm sold - so how does this work? what you'll need to get started: 6) why do you need a deposit? why are my payments non-refundable? i take deposits for a couple of reasons. mainly, i've been trusting in the past and been scammed out of many thousands of dollars because of that. i would work on things for people who didn't pay deposits and then they'd disappear with their project files, never to be heard from again. in fact, there are a number of websites existing today that i created and wasn't paid for - if i didn't take a deposit, i probably wouldn't make any money at all. i make the payments non-refundable and then i would cry. by making a payment you are agreeing to these terms and conditions. if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. 7) what if i don't know how many pages i need or how to buy a domain? if you don't know how this works or are confused at all about the process, drop me a line and let me know - i'm always happy to answer questions and give you a little advice. i walk a lot of my clients through their domain and host ordering on the telephone. 8) how does the design process work? when we start your project i'll take all of your information and create a couple of mock-ups for you; this means i'm roughly sketching out ideas for your layout and design. if we find something during that process that works for you, i'll refine it and get your approval to code it into HTML. once we have a page in HTML i'll duplicate it until there are enough pages to create your website. then i title those pages appropriately, add your content and tweak everything until it's absolutely perfect. at this point, i take your final fee and upload the site to the web. it's really just that easy! 9) do you do pro bono work? in some cases, yes. i have recently begun to do pro bono work in special circumstances. as a general rule, silverflux design does not offer free web design services to charitable foundations or non-profits but i do offer discounted prices to certain organizations. to qualify for discount or pro bono work, please contact me with some information about your organization and why you need pro bono services. 10) i don't want to pay you so can i have a free website? hahaha, no. are you drunk? silverflux design is made up of a bunch of people all over the world. we don't have a lot in common but one thing we do share is the need to pay our bills. everyone deserves to make a fair amount of money for the work they do. if you think you qualify for free web work, you're more than welcome to contact us but please bear in mind that we all need beer money too :) 11) what can i do to keep my costs down? to keep costs down you should be willing to do your own research, copy editing, stock photograph harvesting, etc. i will always offer options that will allow you to save yourself a bunch of money on your 12) why do you have warnings plastered all over your website? there are a number of people out there who will create email addresses that look similar to addresses used by legitimate web design companies and then send out rude or harrassing email to that firm's clients. unfortunately, individuals like this have recently begun bothering my clients or claiming they work for me when, in fact, they do not. if anyone ever emails you claiming to be from silverflux design always verify their email address before responding. in some cases, it can look like the return address is correct but this is a technique called "masking" and the actual return address is not shown. at silverflux, i do my very best to make your experience enjoyable and i sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused you. 13) why don't you use paypal? in the five years that i have had a paypal account, i have lost as many thousands of dollars to their poor management and bad business policies. for example, a client had me work on a site for three months and when the design was perfected i sent an invoice only to find out the client had accused me of wasting their time and initiated a chargeback through their credit card company. i did not get the remainder of the money i was promised for the design and i was forced to refund the tiny deposit i had already received. not only did this client waste three months of my time but they were also impossible to please so the entire situation was a nightmare. and i received no compensation whatsoever. a few weeks after this happened, i checked the URL for that client's site and guess what? the design i had done for their site was up; it was taken by another company and programmed. why did the client accuse me of wasting their time? because i had to have emergency surgery and wasn't able to work for two weeks at the end of their project. a project that would have been finished two months earlier had that client been able to make up their mind. long story short, i don't use paypal because i have no control over refunds. 14) but craigslist says people who use western union or moneygram are scam artists! but they're wrong. i've never taken a single dime from a client that wasn't rightfully mine. if i use services like western union and moneygram, and i don't scam people, that makes the disclaimer on craigslist invalid. i think craigslist staff is extremely irresponsible to claim that each and every individual who uses a payment service like western union is a scam artist. it's unfair and it loses me business. if you're concerned that using emoneygram.com means you will somehow get swindled, please note that all payment services have policies regarding con artists and when i go pick up a transfer, i'm required to show my driver's licence at the counter. talented scammers may be able to rip you off through this kind of set-up but i'm not that kind of person. don't believe me? check out my reviews page. paypal has taken money that i've earned and returned it to dishonest people who were looking for someone to work for them for free. i disagree with this policy so i don't use their service. that doesn't make me a scam artist, does it? if anything, i think it makes me disgruntled :) unfortunately, at the moment there are no other decent online payment options available. if you know of one, email me and tell me about it! 15) i want (blank) but i don't see it listed on your website - can you do it? i can do anything. no, really. if you don't see a website in my portfolio with ecommerce, that doesn't mean i'm not experienced with it. a lot of sites (especially ecommerce sites) fail. this isn't because of anything i've done, i promise! sometimes, websites just don't work out for whatever reason. a lot of the time, the owner finds they have other priorities and not enough time to maintain their website. i've done at least a four dozen websites that are no longer available online for viewing. some of those sites were definitely ecommerce. i offer probably a hundred services. if i can't do it myself, i have someone working for me that can. if it helps, just think of me as a digital contractor! 15) can i sell your services for you? you sure can. i offer a 10% commission on all sales so if someone emails me and says you sent them, you get 10% of whatever that person spends. for more information on where to get digital sales packages and how to use them, please contact me. more topics will be covered as feedback comes in.. if you'd like to suggest questions for this FAQ, please feel free! |
