Dootch » clients

Top 5 reasons to turn down a client

Luke — Tue, 04 May 2010 01:17:12 +0000

I’ve written before about how turning down clients is necessary to grow as a freelancer, but today I want to focus on signals that alert you that this job might be a good one to turn down.

1. The client is quote shopping. Government departments are great at this. They send you an email with a 20 page brief they’ve prepared, and want you to send back a quote to go along with the 20 other quotes they’re collecting.

Have you ever gone to a government website and seen how crap it was? Well it’s because they go with a cheap company that invariably don’t care about anything but fulfilling the conditions of the contract.

My advice: Save the effort and don’t even bother reading their brief. As soon as it’s clear that they’re collecting quotes, turn it down. My one exception is if you’re in a state of growth and you’re happy to take a pain in the arse job for the sake of building credibility.

2. The client wants too much. A small startup contacts you and wants you to do a site for them. They have a huge feature list which you know to do properly will cost $50k and they want to “just start small and build from profits”.

These jobs should come with a scope creep warning attached to them. You’ll do the job and a list of revisions come back that look a lot like features. You say it’s not part of the scope and suddenly they realise the brevity of the job they’ve asked for.

These jobs aren’t worth it. The exception is if the buyer is experienced in dealing with developers and understand things like scope.

3. The client wants it cheap. Cheap like this non profit business. The problem with doing work cheap is that if you always do it, eventually you’ll figure out that you’re not making enough money and you’ll end up in a cubicle working 9-5 because that actually pays the bills.

Buyers that want cheap work can pull their hair out trying to speak Indian.

4. The client will be a pain in the arse. If the client has been through 5 designers already. If the client is controlling the quoting process. If you missed one of the earlier signs but have a gut feeling that it’s going to be bad. If you have no clear contact who is in charge of the project. If your contact has no authority within the client organisation. If you’ve heard bad things from the grape vine.

All signs that you’re better off sending an email saying

Thanks for contacting me for a quote on your website. After looking through the design brief I’ve decided that our services aren’t a good match for your particular needs, and that you’ll get a better solution from a different provider.

Best of luck with it all.

5. The project is going to fail. Sometimes I’ll get someone looking for a quote for a website, and I talk to them a bit about their idea, and it’s just a terrible idea. Maybe they need a shitload of money that they don’t have. Or something else that just sounds ridiculous.

My advice: Stay away from shitty ideas. It’s no fun being around someone who’s going to blow some cash, and it’s even less fun when they blow it on you.

Summary

Our job is to educate clients, but sometimes, it’s impossible. And when it’s impossible, you’re saving yourself time and money when you politely decline before the situation turns bad.

All about passive and diversified income for freelancers

Luke — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:29:41 +0000

People say that one of the joys of being a freelancer is the freedom. That you don’t have to work for ‘the man’.

That’s true in some senses, but in reality, it’s the same stuff with a different man. Especially as you work for bigger clients and make more money. There are still deadlines and still difficult people to deal with.

Our clients are our bosses.

That’s why I like building up multiple sources of income. It diversifies risk, keeps life interesting, and sometimes removes the need for me to be actively working to produce income.

Here are some ideas for creating alternative income streams.

Create a product and sell it. I often looked at sites for sale on Flippa and on the old Sitepoint marketplace. I saw an iphone unlocking site sell for 1.5 million. I have seen a simple forum population script making over $70k per year.

I see those things and realise I can do the same thing. As a result, selling software is an area I am moving into increasingly.

You already know about Freelance Total, but you may not know I also have two other software products, with two more products planned for this year.

Doing these projects not only creates a bit of money on the side, it also makes me a better freelancer. My marketing skills have increased dramatically. I have experience making sites and products for myself, and especially when I’m talking to potential clients that are a start-up, that experience counts for a lot.

Offer webhosting. It takes some knowledge to offer web hosting, but I believe it’s well worth it. I offer hosting packages to my clients and my clients only. Probably about 60-75% of clients host with me. I’ve been doing it for three years now, and the income just keeps building.

The downside is increased responsibility, but well worth it if you ask me.

Other income producing websites. Maybe you’ve got an idea for a website that can make some money. Whether it be publishing, blogging, affiliate marketing or whatever.

For me, I am a partner in a couple of e-commerce stores. The agreement is that I manage the websites, and my partner handles the operations side of the business. This allows me to work on it when I have the time. It allows my partner to have access to sweet websites without having to lay down large sums of cash up front.

Like creating a product, having experience in ecommerce is great when talking to potential ecommerce clients. My money is where my mouth is.

Other examples that I’ve seen other web designers do is niche informational sites, adsense sites, etc.

Designing themes. This is a great one for designers. I’ve never personally created a theme to sell, but it’s an endeavour that’s well worth it for designers. Especially if it helps to build a portfolio.

Stock photography. Again, this is something I don’t have personal experience with. But if you have the skills, it’s a great thing to do.

Be smart about it

I’m a strong believer in constantly building alternative and passive income streams. But there are pitfalls to avoid. It’s easy to spend more time on things than they’re worth, especially if you’re like me and really hate working for any sort of ‘man’. Building passive income streams takes a large investment of time up front, and it’s important that the time you put in is likely to see returns. There’s no point putting 200 hours of effort in a project, if over 5 years it will pay $2000.

There’s an element of risk in going after passive income. Do your research and make sure the reward is there.

Don’t spread yourself too thin

There’s nothing worse than over-committing and under delivering/being late. And I have to admit I have done it on some occasions. If clients are making the majority of your income, clients come first. After all, they’re the ones paying the bills. (for now =))

Leverage your resources

Leverage the resources you have and the situations you’re in. One of my products, I made after one of my clients wanted a solution, and the current market offerings were lacking. Because it looked like I had to do it anyway, it made sense to capitalize on it and sell it.

Partnerships and other people are resources. There’s no way I have time to process orders in an e-commerce store. There’s no way I can code as much as I would like.

Partner with people where they get the most out of your skills, you don’t spread yourself too thin, and you get the most out of their skills.

Do you diversify your income streams?

I’d be really interested to hear some of the other ways people are diversifying their income. If you have something to share, please do!

Freelance Philosophy Friday 4: Treat your clients like they are your boss

Luke — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 21:26:01 +0000

It’s great as a freelancer to not have a boss. Bosses can be bastards.

But in reality, instead of having one boss, we have lots of bosses… our clients.

I don’t mean they’re our bosses in the way that we have to do everything they say, but I mean it from the point of view that “It’s all about the clients”.

Our single goal is to give value to the client. We have to continually do what’s in the best interest of the client, convert their ideas into reality, keep them updated on what we’re doing, and be able to tell them when they’re wrong.

Freelance Philosophy Friday #2: Make it easy to work with you

Luke — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 08:30:55 +0000

Freelance Philosophy Friday: Every Friday, I take a piece from my philosophy and explore it a little further

The easier we are to work with as freelancers, the more successful we will be. Let me explain:

If we’re easy to work with, our clients get happy
Because we’re so easy to work with, we’ll get repeat work when it arises
We’ll get opportunities to help the client in other ways
We might be called upon for advice when certain decisions are made
We get better testimonials, and referrals
Our outsourcing relationships work smoother

Here are some ideas that make us freelancers easier to work with.

Give answers NOT questions

A while ago, I was doing some coding for a client, and a situation arose where there were about three different ways to accomplish a goal. I could explain the options to the client, and ask which he would prefer. Or I could explain the options, make a decision myself, and run it by the client to make sure it doesn’t have implications that I’m not aware of.

The second method is inherently more valuable. Most times, clients not only don’t understand the range of issues involved with a decision, but also, decisions are work. They take time, they take effort, they sometimes take research.

Being easy to work with is all about reducing the amount of work for the client.

When you’ve got a question, make a decision, and give an answer.

Don’t create problems out of laziness

I’m sure you’ve had those scenarios where you can do a quick fix that is going to cause problems down the line, or you can take a bit of time and do it the right way.

Always do it the right way. You don’t know what situation might come up.

I made a fairly big error once while changing over the domain delegation details for a client. I notified my main contact of the change, but didn’t do any more in depth checks. I didn’t check with the IT department that everything was ok, and being very stupid, I didn’t check the current DNS records. So I changed the domain to point to the new server, and all of a sudden, email was down. How could I be so dumb right? (In my defence, it was part of a large rollout of sites where all of the other sites involved had their email managed on a different domain, and the email was used in a part of the organisation I wasn’t aware of)

It got worse, the IT department didn’t know what was going on and made some changes to their mail server. Not only did this affect the organisation I was working on at the time, but also about 30 other organisations that all operated on the same infrastructure.

So what’s my point? Errors can compound, situations can change where a small mistake can be magnified, or an action you make, however innocent, can result in adverse affects. Be aware of the results of your actions, both now and in the future, and do the right thing!

Don’t waste the clients time

Taking the time to ask questions is important at the beginning of a relationship, because it shows the client you know what you’re on about, you get an understanding of the requirements, and it forms trust. Those are the reasons to ask questions.

But for repeat work, you’ve got already built trust, so you only need to get an understanding of the requirements. If you’ve worked with the client before, chances are, you know the requirements better than them!

So don’t waste time talking about work, and just do it.

If the client can spend 10 minutes telling you a problem, and it comes back to them the next day fixed. That is awesome for them. If it takes them an hour to explain everything to you, that’s a pain in the butt, and they’re not going to be as quick to give you more work, especially smaller, “quick fix” jobs.

Be candid

Tell people as it is. Be straight-forward about problems, and how you are dealing with them.

Candor makes people happy because it makes listening so much easier. Not only that, it saves time (as above).

Be professional

Keep your promises, be on time, be neat, etc. This stuff goes without saying.

Be flexible

The other day, I got a request from a client via an SMS on my mobile. Surprising? Kinda, but is fine with me.

Be flexible with how clients can deal with you. If a client likes the phone, use the phone. If it’s email, use email. etc.

Don’t ask everyone to send you everything in email because it’s easier for you. Asking everyone to email you is symptomatic of poor client management or project management systems/software. (However handy, email is not a good task management system). Instead, use something like Basecamp or Freelance Total.

Summary

Being easy to work with has it’s benefits. It’s like the oil that makes a car go smoothly.

Next time you’re working with a client, maybe it’s worth asking… How can I make it easier to work with me?

You aren’t designing for yourself

Luke — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:22:45 +0000

One thing I find a lot of freelance designers, especially young designers, have trouble with, is the concept of designing for clients.

I recently had contracted a designer to design a website for a client. The designer didn’t like the look of the clients logo, so he made some changes to make it fit with the design he had in mind.

I must say, I happened to like this designers version of the logo better. So, being a fool, I presented the design to the client.

It doesn’t matter how much “better” the design looked for it, there’s no way you can get away with stuff like that. The client loved the design but wants his logo in it. Of course. You could see that coming from a mile away.

As freelancers, we aren’t designing to make things look good. We are designing to achieve the client’s business objectives. We are designing for the client’s customers.

It is our job to work within those constraints to come up with something that achieves those objectives the best.

Branding is one of those client objectives, and we can’t let our opinions on things we can’t change hold us back. Instead, we should see it as an opportunity to try new styles, and to make things work in ways we haven’t thought of before. Stay open minded to possibilities.

When a client is paying us, ultimately, we have to listen to them. On the way, we can do our best to help them with recommendations from our experience. But if push comes to shove, we have to realise that we aren’t designing for ourselves.

How about you? How do you deal with client objections that kill your ideas?