June 23, 201115 yr I don't. One of my freelance clients about 2.5 years ago - I might have kissed her. A little bit. Ended up going out with her for a year and a half haha . got some bonuses in your pay packet?
June 23, 201115 yr I don't. One of my freelance clients about 2.5 years ago - I might have kissed her. A little bit. Ended up going out with her for a year and a half haha . You still got paid thoe right lol
June 23, 201115 yr Oh man am I glad I got out of that Client2Business hell, even if my current predicament sucks. Someone of you guys asked me to make a demo pitch. The thing is... I don't pitch. I can see now that majority of you guys are designers, so you deal directly with clients and present a finished product. I don't do design anymore, I just don't have it in me, my portfolio proves that. I'm an old school coder, I'm best at doing custom coding, PSD->HTML, PSD->Wordpress, MySQL interfacing, data processing, web crawlers, custom Javascript animations, custom Ajax (PHP, JSON) based stuff. Seriously, this is not a classic portfolio material. My potential "clients" are designers themselves or web agencies. I don't know, maybe from your point of view I'm wrong, but I believe in solving a problem, accepting a challenge. Bull$hitting the client just isn't my thing.
June 23, 201115 yr Bull$hitting the client just isn't my thing. I agree with this I can't do it. I just tell them straight.
June 23, 201115 yr Your not a consultant, are you giving them a website? Yes, thats your product thats what your selling. This is the other problem with web development today people thinking they are bigger than what they are. I don't want to go into a P****** contents site for site, client for client and so on but c'mon you really consider your self a "consultant" ? Your set the limits in the outline of the project what you offer for x, thats what a contract is for, a verbal agreement saying you will do x for y without anything on paper is crazy. It never ever works the way your saying up there thats why people have contracts. No most small business would never have commissioned a design but then your not an artist, your a designer they have experience dealing with trades men or people with skill treating them any other way is narrow minded. Then again maybe we have different client types... Oh, believe me I'm all in favour of contracts and I've no desire to get into any sort of P****** contest. But like you said, it's a good idea to get your lawyer to review or even write your contract. The end product there is a contract, but that's not what you're paying for - every contract is necessarily different; what you're paying for is your lawyer's knowledge and experience applied to producing that contract, and that's what you'll be billed for. The product is incidental and doesn't make your lawyer a merchant, what you're paying for is a professonal service. Our main problem is we can't strike off cowboys for unprofessional conduct like lawyers can. Edited June 23, 201115 yr by Renaissance-Design
June 23, 201115 yr Damm, I undercharge like a mo fo... Think of it like this... Lidl charges a lot less than other supermarkets, Waitrose charges a lot more... yet Waitrose makes way more money. Quality counts. Try Andy Clarke's Contract Killer. Damn Chris you're chock full of useful links today! Id have to disagree with this again, your not a consultant your a merchant I'd say a combination of the two. 60% of the work i do (roughly) is consultancy. Teaching the client the best things to suit there needs etc etc. All billable by the hour of course Very rarely do i get a client that knows exactly what they want and how they want it done. The product (Final website) at the end is only a small part of the process. You know more than them do you? About websites? Yes! Just a quick on on contracts anyone downloading one now or asking for an old freelance gift pack i got give even if they are decent ones nothing beats having your solicitor look it over and alter to suit you so you know what is in there and its water tight, i tend to make sure mine have an equal give between me and the client so if my delivery is late i get penalties applied etc etc Damn right! My contracts change as much and as often as the industry does!
June 24, 201115 yr Author Thanks for the feedback here, some really useful information. Im going to have a good read through it and see where i am going wrong. Seems like i need to stop replying to them with so much information and a quote without meeting them first... right? Or is it ok to quote via email? One other thing, on your websites/portfolio, do you state that you use such OpenSource as Wordpress, OpenCart and so on? As i am redesigning my site i was going to mention that the platforms i use are Wordpress for CMS or OpenCart for Ecommerce??? If you have a look at my current site www.pbwebdesign-warrington.co.uk would you guys do anything differently here? This also might be putting people off!??!! Cheers Edited June 24, 201115 yr by pbul2004
June 24, 201115 yr I dont tend to use them unless the client wants to use them. I don't offer them up before hand either (i.e naming what stuff i use, its just a chance for someone to say wordpress is crap, pressword is better). I got my own label cms and ecommerce system now, if the client is really pushy quote via email but get that meeting in no excuse if they are local anyway if you ask me Edited June 24, 201115 yr by pandadoodle
June 24, 201115 yr Thanks for the feedback here, some really useful information. Im going to have a good read through it and see where i am going wrong. Seems like i need to stop replying to them with so much information and a quote without meeting them first... right? Or is it ok to quote via email? One other thing, on your websites/portfolio, do you state that you use such OpenSource as Wordpress, OpenCart and so on? As i am redesigning my site i was going to mention that the platforms i use are Wordpress for CMS or OpenCart for Ecommerce??? If you have a look at my current site www.pbwebdesign-warrington.co.uk would you guys do anything differently here? This also might be putting people off!??!! Cheers I have had a good look around your site and i can say without doubt you are undervaluing yourself! Your site looks and acts like a professional company and you should be a bit more confident in your abilities! I will be starting my own business come September(like i bloody keep saying) and i wouldn't even look at a client who's budget is under £600. I am going to make mistakes, i know that as this will be a learning curve. But i know what i can do and confident in what i can acheive and i would rather have the one high paying project a month and spend that month getting it looking pucker then having four small cheap projects a month and only been able to put a small amount of effort into making it look nice. More time you have the better your sites will be and the more referrals you will probably get thus the more you can charge for your services. I don't however pretend to have the expereince of full time freelancing but i have worked for a small web agency and i am currently working for a large promotional and marketing company and i have seen how things work. You charge peanuts, you get monkeys! Before i am going to take the plunge into the business arena, i will be looking at other ways of making money - tutorial writing - themeforest - codecanyon to name a few. I am in the process of designing and building two fictional websites and let my creativity go bonkers. I will then use these fictional sites as a hanging carrot for potential clients. How often when designing do you actually get the chance to go bonkers on a client project. You are always under their spell and your first superb mock-up eventually turns into a bucket of ****e from the ever change requests that spill out of these creative experts that we call clients! Free yourself my friend.....free yourself from these people who only serve to hold you down.....free yourself....er....hang on.....what the bleeding hell am i going on about? Hmmmmmm Bye! EDIT: Now that i have gotten over my dizzy spell, i wanted to bring something to your attention. Take a look at Chris spooners contacts page and look how he weeds out the time wasters and low payers..... www.spoongraphics.co.uk Edited June 24, 201115 yr by neilp
June 24, 201115 yr Chris spooners contacts page This guy seems good. I like his work and his website.
June 24, 201115 yr This guy seems good. I like his work and his website. That is onm no nonsense contact page! I like.
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