Convincing your boss? How to....

[DonnaL]

I work for two really sad people... ok, they're not physically sad, but sad in a way that they just can't get "with it".

They own and run a weekly newspaper as well as putting out a Supplemental thing once a month. They are both 65 years old and are both really OLD SCHOOL! Both work with computers but they have NO idea what they are doing... their desktops are literally cluttered with so much stuff, i wonder how they can find anything. They use their "trash" as storage!!! They just don't understand computers.. but they "get by". Anyway........

They refuse to make their website 'readable', reason: it'll take away from their paying subscribers. (they only have 200!) yet their webstats are much higher.
They won't accept credit cards for payment, reason: it's too costly with fees! I can't tell you how many people want to pay by credit card.
They won't put the classifieds on the website. Now here's where we WANT to make that change. "we" as in me and the other designer. We get so many calls wanting to know what it costs for putting a classified on the website and we have to turn them down. The owners are losing money by not offering certain things because they are "afraid" of the web. They are extremely paranoid.

When people subscribe through the website, they have to send in a check. It's a pain to wait for the check in the mail. The subscribers won't have to wait 2 weeks for their first paper.

If they don't want to accept credit cards, I was thinking about setting up a paypal account so payments could be made that way. Granted paypal does charge a fee, but there really isn't as much hassle as with a credit card swiping machine and getting invoices from the cc merchant.

Anyone have an ideas on how to convince these owners to sign up with paypal?

I'm thinking that advertisers could even pay their invoices by going through paypal instead of writing out checks. They have sooo many advertisers that haven't paid their bill. Atleast this way, they can get payment up front for the contracts they signed. This whole teeny weeny company is just the pits. It's a mess!! And we'd like to sort it out.

[DC1]

I know what you mean. One newspaper was convinced they had almost no olde online subscribers and their survey results backed it up.

What their survey didn't take into account was the small, fixed type their designer -- 24 with perfect vision -- set the layout with. When the type size changed, so did survey results ....amazing.

People have a tendency to form an opinion of the world and then use everything at their desposal to make that opinion come out "right." Unfortunately that includes never testing assumptions.

One opnion against another is not going to work. What might work is test results others have conducted, which prove profits go up from just the changes you're suggesting.

Again, you have to think there will still be objections. The next objection to anticipate is "...maybe, but it's still going to be too much work." And, given they are not fluent computer users, anything that might involve more computer work is going to be turned down.

To overcome this objection, you or someone other than your bosses will have to both administer the extras and provide reports on status.

I've had a lot of similar problems presented to me. You are not going to get anywhere arguing against the inertia of the status quo. ....Call up a bunch of former subscribers who've left and find out why. If it is due to the things you suggest, that is going to provide a powerful incentive to change.

Otherwise it is your opinion against the bosses opinion -- and you lose.

[Calligirl]

Takes names of everyone who is turned away and what the reason is, i.e. paying by check, advertiser on web, etc. and after a month, present the owners with how much money they lost because this or that was not implemented. They may be old but money talks at any age. They're probably used to 'youngsters' telling them 'everybody else is doing it' and they need to be shown specifics, not generalities.

Good luck trying anyway.

[DonnaL]

Thanks, actually that's not a bad idea.... writing down what "could have been" a nice transaction.

Will give that a try

[jimking]

The other thing DonnaL, and not to be funny is offering to buy the business down the road, maybe. They may only have another 10 years.

[DonnaL]

Would be a nice thought.. because we'd revamp this whole paper....

But thinking long-term... I'm working on moving to australia (only they don't know this)... so...

And 10 years? maybe not even that.. neither one of them has had a vacation in ions and the husband is about ready to blow a gasket one of these days. We're waiting to show up to work and find out one of them had a stroke....

[jimking]

Got a good co-worker/partner? Now is the time to offer. They would sell in a heartbeat I bet.:)

[DonnaL]

Hard to say... and I wouldn't go into business with my co-worker. I don't think they would sell either. The owner/publisher is pretty passionate about his paper. He's just really bad at business decisions. All he cares about are getting stories and ads. BUT.. must pay by check! They are in debt, they have to be because, sometimes they say "We don't have enough money..." to buy you a new $20 keyboard!!! <THUD!>

I could give you TONS of stories about this place, but I"ll spare you all! LOL!!

p.s. I can't afford to buy gas for my car, let alone a business.... Anyway, going back to school to earn my degree... gonna attempt freelancing.

[urstwile]

Have you considered presenting a formal proposal showing why your model works better than their current one?

I understand you're faced up against some set in their ways folks, what I suspect frightens them is the somewhat flibberty-gibbet way that the Internet seems to work...at least I suspect that's their perspective.

I suggest you do some research, find some hard and fast surveys, do some charts, show improvements gained when people go with your model, etc. Then formalize it in a proposal, wherein you sit down with them and do a presentation, which would give them a feeling that they have a) some cold hard data and b) a choice. In other words, pitch it!

I suspect your objective will not be achieved by chatting with them informally, or even by being an evangelist outside of a formal presentation.

[budafist]

Give them an offer. When it is on the table, they might see that 65 isn't a bad age to retire at.

Otherwise, above posts are very sensible. Keeping track of a list of names for classifieds and credit card payments is an excellent idea. Get their contact details so that you can contact them at a later date to let them know that this option is now available to them if they wish to put in a classified or do credit card payments.

Who knows, you might have more work than you can handle at the beginning if you save up a months worth of enquiries and tackle them over a few days.

It will also look mighty good if you could get all the sales you missed out on.

[DonnaL]

After writing this post and seeing some suggestions, it's a bit hard to just research and slap a proposal down in front of them.

I'm self-taught in this field and have been doing this line of work for the past 12 years and just decided to go back to college and get my Bachelor's. So Im currently working on my associates. My first class was Business Essentials... and after taking that class.... they should be the poster child as being the worst business to ever be conducting. I just can't believe how they run their company. It's just the two of them and the two of us (designers). They have no accountant, they pay us by a hand-written check (IF they have enough money!) They're constantly "waiting" for checks from people who've advertised. It's just crazy... We sooo want to turn it around. Start accepting credit cards but they refuse. "It's a hassle"... too many fees"... They don't even carry credit cards themselves. Can't order supplies online. They don't even have a business credit card. Not that they can afford it... it took them 3 months to get me a new $20 keyboard.

I figures Paypal would be a simpliar alternative to credit cards. So, that's where my thinking process started.