One of my new clients is excited about starting the design process for their website. In the sales presentation, I explained that WordPress is the preferred platform for their website; they showcase several products, need to update content themselves and understand the power of blogs and search engine optimization.
The client is a self-starter, a real high energy entrepreneur that is excited about her business. On her own, she jumped the gun and started investigating WordPress templates (themes). From an outsider perspective, most WordPress themes look similar with larger image sliders (flippers) that dominate the home page, followed by widgets and text areas. The headers and footers almost always look the same. WordPress themes, before being customized, can look generic and lack creativity.
Needless to say, my new client questioned my judgment for choosing WordPress before we even started the project. A quick ten minute conversation with my designer dispelled the misconceptions about WordPress, but I still learned a good lesson: when presenting WordPress as a platform, explain in detail how themes can be customized.