Linda Wishman wrote:
> Jack wrote:
> > Also, if they are highly cost conscious about spending money
> on a web site,
> > it may be because they don't know much about the medium or
> what it takes to
> > develop a site. Sounds a bit like they might feel like they're being
> dragged
> > into this kicking and screamin, maybe by someone at their
> business. Someone
> > who really wants a web site and understands what it's about usually
> > understands the costs involved and will respectfully pay you your due
> > without hassling about the money. This project may require that you
> > "educate" your client (figure extra time into your quote).
>
> I'm dealing with the same guy who hired the last designer. He's pretty
> computer and Internet literate. Somehow, though, the idea of the
> web site as
> advertising hadn't quite sunken in. I mentioned it and got that
> "oh yeah!"
> look from him. (I thought, what line item do you charge this to?)
As I had guessed, your client doesn't know what the web can do. What line
item? Well, just figure in some extra $ for the other things that you'll
inevitably want to explain.
> Haggling is
> just this guy's way of doing business, I'm sure. He first
> bragged that he'd
> gotten the first designer to do the site for a mere 20% of what they first
> requested. He later admitted, "Maybe that's why I got what I did." So he
> knows. He's just playing the game to see how good I am at it.
> I'm not good
> at it! Mostly I'm under the gun to do the job for less than the
> last guy, and
> I just don't see how I can do that, even if I don't give him a cart and 5
> translations. I'd have to cut my rate more than in half.
Don't do it! If the guy is cheap he'll always be cheap. He'll always haggle
and he'll always expect more than he's willing to pay for. I'd take a good
look at him and decide whether he himself will be a hassle in the long run.
Regarding how to quote the job: quote it for what it's worth! You should get
paid for what you do, at a fair market value (which is pretty broad,
admittedly). If you cut the price down to what you think he'll pay, then
you'll end up working on the project while a little voice in the back of
your head says "OK, now I'm working for x amount of (low) dollars per hour".
If he's a haggler, you may find that you can get what you ask for. He may
respect you coming back with a higher figure than he thought you would. And
he may respect the fact that you stick to it. (Others more familiar with the
haggler ethic may want to chime in here!)
One question that has to go into your decision is: "what am I willing to
sacrifice to get this job?". And, if you make a sacrifice, "what am I
getting in return?".
I'm
> willing to give
> some to establish my reputation, but I don't want a reputation
> for being cheap
> or easy. :-\
Right. If you get that reputation you will have annoying clients.
> > Then again, since you haven't done a shopping cart in the
> past, perhaps you
> > are willing to eat some of the profit in exchange for the learning
> > experience?
>
> Again, yes, to a degree. I do a pretty good job of balancing actual hours
> against billable, so I will slow down the clock during that phase.
Glad to hear that you do a good job balancing hours/billable. That is a very
challenging dept for me. In almost invariably put more into the project than
I had anticipated, partly due to the "portfolio quality" factor and partly
because I almost always come up with some cool feature I'd like to add and
don't really feel like haggling with my client about the extra expense.
Quoting a project is definitely a skill learned from experience. I've done
fairly well estimating the hours and then adding 1/3rd, though for early
projects it should have been more like "double it". (Anyone else care to
tell their formula?)
Things that I often didn't allot enough time for:
writing alt tags
writing page titles
creating text-based footer nav (when not using SSI)
creating "pages" embedded between <noframes> tags when doing framed sites
(ug)
Jack
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