Plan on Going Professional? part 2

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by iManda

Know when to say when.

You never got around to making your client decide what they wanted and commit to a definite project plan. The vague verbal agreement was for a five page static site, with a few graphics here and there. Your client, having no preset boundaries, has been calling you with additions and changes six times a day since — and you have no real basis for challenging that. So now, the site is four hundred pages and growing, with two interactive games and thirty embedded Quicktime movies you had to buy special equipment to edit. As you're trying to figure out how to make the browser window jump around the screen like he asked, he calls again — because he thinks he'll need an alternate version of the site for people who don't have the sixty plugins required to make the current site work. This scenario is not an exaggeration; unless you learn the word "no", a project without a plan can and will spiral so out of control it will make your head spin. We all want to go above and beyond the call of duty for our clients, but you'll have to put your foot down sooner or later.

Speak in layman's terms.

This is necessary for successfully putting your foot down. You'll have to explain why you're denying your client's request for a nine-minute background AIFF, and you have to take into account that he is probably not as knowledgeable as you about web technology; if he were, he'd be doing this himself. He doesn't realize that a custom e-commerce application requires more work than basic HTML. Unless you can convey the problem in a language he understands, then your client may think you're just combative, possibly jeopardizing a good recommendation he was planning to give you to another client.

Be firm on pricing.

All that extra work you've been doing should come with a price, or else you're just wasting valuable hours of life. Find out beforehand what market value for your services really is, and determine your own value accordingly. Offering a nice discount is one of the most effective ways to attract clients and make a name for yourself, and is heavily recommended, but you shouldn't undersell yourself either. High-end web design is taxing work, and deserves more than minimum wage. Price is an uncomfortable issue, and requires some responsibility on both ends: your client must agree to the budget beforehand, and be willing to compensate you for extra hours spent on additions and changes they hadn't originally requested. You are responsible for keeping the client up-to-date on the cost of the project, to avoid nasty surprises in the end. Believe it or not, he will have been expecting to get that four-hundred page multimediapalooza for the same price as the original five-page static site. And why shouldn't he, if he had no agreement and no explanation from you about technical considerations?

Plan on Going Professional?

Part 3