What to Prepare Before Your First Call With a Website Developer

A first call with a website developer goes a lot better when you've spent ten minutes getting ready for it beforehand, rather than working it all out live on the phone. It's not about having a formal brief, most small businesses never write one, it's about having a handful of things ready so the conversation moves fast and the quote you get back actually reflects what you need.

Short version: have your business explained in plain words, some real photos, a couple of sites you like, and a rough budget in mind, and most first calls take a fraction of the time they otherwise would.

1. What you actually do, in plain words

This sounds obvious, but a surprising number of first calls spend most of their time just establishing what the business actually does and who it's for. A couple of sentences, written out beforehand, works better than trying to explain it live: what you offer, who you offer it to, and what makes someone choose you over the next option. This is worth doing even if you've explained your business a hundred times to a hundred different people already, a first call moves faster when it doesn't have to double as an introduction to what you do from scratch.

2. Real photos, even rough ones

Stock photography is a last resort, not a starting point. If you've got photos of your actual work, your actual space, or your actual products already sitting on a phone somewhere, that's more useful going into a first call than anything a developer could find or generate afterward. They don't need to be professionally shot, recent and genuine beats polished and generic almost every time. If you genuinely don't have any yet, that's worth saying too rather than assuming it's a dealbreaker, a developer can usually work out a plan for getting some, whether that's a quick phone shoot or scheduling one in before the site goes live.

3. Whatever you're already using online

A Facebook page, a Google Business Profile, an old website even if it's outdated, all of it is worth mentioning upfront. A developer needs to know what already exists so nothing ends up conflicting, duplicated, or accidentally abandoned once the new site goes live. If you're not sure whether you have access to something, like an old domain or hosting account, saying so upfront saves time later rather than discovering it halfway through the build. This is particularly worth checking if someone else originally set up your online presence, a family member, a previous employee, an agency you no longer use, since access details can get lost along the way without anyone noticing until it actually matters. None of this needs to be resolved before the call, just mentioned, since untangling old accounts and access is often something a developer has done many times before and can usually help sort out.

4. What you actually want someone to do on the site

Call you. Book online. Request a quote. Browse a menu and decide to walk in. Every website should be built around one clear main action, and knowing what that is before the first call shapes almost everything else about how the site gets structured. It's worth thinking about this from the customer's side rather than your own, what would actually make you personally decide to call or book if you landed on a website like the one you're about to build. If you're not sure, that's a completely normal thing to work out together, but it's worth thinking about beforehand rather than assuming it's obvious.

5. A couple of sites you like, and one or two you don't

You don't need design language or the right technical terms, just a few examples and a plain explanation of what you like about them, whether that's the layout, the colours, or just the general feel. The same goes for sites that put you off, knowing what to avoid is often just as useful as knowing what to aim for.

6. Your details exactly as they should appear

Business name spelled and capitalised the way you actually want it, phone number, email, physical address if that matters for your business, and your current hours. Getting this right from the first call avoids small errors slipping through and needing fixing later. It's a small thing, but a business name spelled two different ways across a site, or an old phone number that never got updated, are some of the most common and most avoidable errors that turn up after launch. Worth double checking these against what's currently on your Google Business Profile while you're at it, so everything matches from day one.

7. A rough sense of budget and timeline

You don't need an exact number, but having a rough range in mind, and being upfront about it, gets you a far more useful conversation than either side guessing. The same goes for timeline, if there's a genuine deadline, a launch event, a busy season coming up, say so early. A developer working toward a real date behaves differently to one with no timeline at all.

8. Anything that's a genuine must have

Online bookings, multiple languages, a specific integration with something you already use, particular accessibility needs, anything like this changes the actual scope of the build and is far better raised in the first call than discovered halfway through. Nobody expects a full technical list, just a heads up on anything that genuinely isn't optional.

9. Who else needs to be involved

If someone else needs to sign off on the final decision, a business partner, a manager, whoever holds the purse strings, it's worth having them on the first call too, or at least being upfront that they'll need to review anything discussed. Nothing slows a project down more than getting most of the way through only to find out someone who wasn't in the room needs to approve it from scratch.

What you don't need to prepare

You don't need to know anything technical, what platform to use, what a domain even is, none of that is your job to have sorted before a first call. A good developer explains the technical side rather than expecting you to arrive fluent in it, so don't let not knowing any of that hold you back from picking up the phone.

Where this leaves you

None of this needs to take long to put together, most of it is sitting in your head or on your phone already. Turning up to a first call with these basics ready doesn't just save time, it usually results in a more accurate quote too, since a developer working from real information gives a more honest number than one working from guesses. A first call is also a two way thing, it's as much a chance for you to work out whether you actually want to work with someone as it is for them to understand your business, and arriving prepared makes it easier to focus on that instead of just getting through the basics. If you're getting ready for a first call with us or with anyone else, running through the list above first is worth doing.