The major operational problem designer service providers may face during their initial stages of establishment may be navigating through trouble waters by getting properly and timely paid for things. Similarly, there are plenty of potholes and nightmare situations raised by many clients with conflict of interests with your business.
It will also be a wrong approach if you think in a line as to first build my resume and then get paid. Once if you allow flexibility for granted, this can easily be made a practice and you will find it troublesome to survive it on a long-term basis. If you are running a web designing business, here we will discuss a few specific areas where your clients can kill your business if you are not diligent.
Not having Agreements on Paper
When you take up a project, it is very important to discuss the project’s scope in detail and ensure that both sides well understand the work involved in full. Prepare a detailed agreement in written including;
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Specific constraints
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Timelines
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Milestones to be achieved
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Revisions
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Changes within the scope
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Pricing terms etc.
Make use of a formal professional contract if possible, which will give it more authenticity and also will give you an upper hand without tampering the client relations.
- Allowing scope creep :
Scope creep is such a deal killer for any business, especially in case of web development and web designing services. You cannot start your work with just a one-liner description from the client about their requirement. On providing your quote based on this, later you may find them coming up with more and more requirements on a daily basis, but you getting paid only for one-tenth or lesser for what you did. Perfectly defining the scope of the project and deliverables is the only way to avoid the possibility of scope creep.
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Spec work : Identify it as a trap if you hear something like ‘we have to see examples from others/competitors to decide what we need’ or ‘we’d like to first see your ideas.’ You need to politely convince the clients that you cannot work for free. Succumbing to this approach will ultimately put you into a desperate condition where one need to rework countless times to get paid for even a simple work.
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Avoiding up-front payments : Up-front 50% and 50% on completion or equally split into three with one-third up-front is a standards practice to follow. Any client thinking it is not fair to trust you to make an up-front payment may mostly treat you poorly in terms of payments. Even as a fresher, don’t be afraid of committing things, which you are confident to do while taking up deals.
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Delivering the work fully before final payment : The end of the project where you are supposed to get the final instalment paid is when the clients gives you an okay signal, but before the final deliverables is sent. Don’t let the web site go live before you have the money in hand. You can also possess the vector graphics and other files until the payment is completely done.
As you also know it well, money is a very sensitive subject and majority of your clients may play unfair about it. It is a tricky game to get what you deserve in business by offering products and services, which you need to effectively master.