The True Cost
Lately I have been reading Clients From Hell (funny site for anyone in design or development!) and hearing stories from fellow class mates starting to get their feet wet working for clients. It’s funny how under appreciated the amount of time and effort that goes into design and development is. Now I know there are plenty of tools out there today that help with both design and development immensely, and many are free, but I’m talking about good quality, standards complaint, efficient code, and ascetically pleasing, exceptionally laid out, usable design. These things take time.
People tend to take the internet, and the amazingly interactive content on it, for granted. In today’s age when people have all these tools to do things they think anyone can whip off a proper website for free and in 20 minutes. This is just not the case if you really want something of superb quality that is unique. Is that what everyone out there needs, no so for them ya then can go out and do it themselves (or have their kid do it as they often say they can) but don’t insult a web designer or developer with a $50 – $200 offer and waste their time.
Even worse is the person who asks “For a site like facebook” and then turns around and says that they will pay $300. So many people really don’t get a grasp the amount of work that goes into creating these sites and applications, or even that they are talking to a professional that has to make a living doing this. Even something as simple as having a map embedded into your site with custom icons marking your offices in the city on it takes time. Yes using the API is easy and straight forward but it still needs to be codded and fit in with the site, it’s not a point and click process. I think this spawns from tools that allow an end user to create personalized home pages so easily in different applications that they believe it’s that easy for the developer to create the application.
I look forward to entering this industry when I’m done, but I’m not so much looking forward to the people who may depreciate what I do. I hope that when faced with theses clients I can be civil and hopefully get them to see the truth, or at the very least know when to turn and walk away because they are just not worth my time (much like the ones at Clients From Hell).
With nearly 30 years working experience in the IT industry I can tell you first hand that most people don’t know what goes into building a web site or a web application or writing a software program. If they did they’d do it themselves!
They do know that they pay $0.99 for an iphone application and maybe as much as a few hundred dollars for an operating system. So, part of the sales process is educating the prospective client on what goes into building what they want.
As much as possible I try to get the client to talk about price expectations as early in the process as possible so that I can take it into account when talking about possible approaches. Anyone who has bought a car knows that the salesperson will quickly try to determine how much you want to spend. All the cars he has to sell have an engine, 4 wheels, a steering, wheel, etc and will get you from point A to point B. The price, to a large extent, dictates what features you get and the salesperson doesn’t want to waste time trying to sell you a car you simply cannot afford. Same with web site design … the more you know about what they are willing to pay the more you can tune what you are proposing to fit their price expectations.
While clients are frustrating at times they are the reason that we are in business and serving them is how we make a living. So … I always, always try to remember that (a) “they are always right” (even if they are wrong they can take their money and walk away … they win, I lose) (b) it is my job to help them get what they need as a price they can afford and I can make a decent living at.
Michael Martineau
Not only that it’s the developers who are “hard up” for cash who say they’ll do it for 200$ lol… Also 300$ isn’t bad for a little social media site…. set them up with a ning account and make a custom skin for it.. that’s worth at least 300$. People need to learn from mistakes. Jeff will get his nephew to do his company’s website for 50$ it wont drive in sales or visitors and possibly COST him business because people are turned off by such a disgusting website, then Jeff will spend the 3-5 thousand dollars a small business deserves. Sure it can take us a day to “whip up” a design… a day and 2-5 years of school work, and however many years of experience.
@mikenstn Thank you very much for your insight, 30 years of experience is something to be listened to for sure. Although I can’t fully agree that if a client walks away with their money they win, if in fact that it’s just not worth your time for what they really want. If you can’t come to an understanding and they still want to undermine your expertise your time and efforts may be better used finding another client. But again you are the one with 30 years on me (I mean this with respect not sarcastically)so we will see how I sing this tune when I’m faced with the situation. I only hope then I can still rely on you for some advice.
@John I like your comment of – ya it may take us a night or so but that’s a night plus 2-5 years of education and x amount of years of experience. What a professional can whip up in a night is leaps and bounds beyond what a non professional can do whether they want to admit it or not. One of the biggest lessons a professional designer has over someone else is the ability to know they don’t design for themselves but the target audience.
There is an old story that you might have heard that is relevant to this discussion. Seems this retired engineer was called back to the factory where he had worked for many years. They had a problem with one of the machines that they had been unable to fix after several days of concerted effort. The downtime was costing them tens of thousands of dollars an hour. The engineer came into the plant made a few adjustments and all was fine.
The engineer sent them his bill – $10,000. The company balked, saying he’d only spent 10 minutes working on the machine. How could the engineer justify what amounted to $60,000 per hour? The engineer told them that they were paying for 10 minutes of his time and 25 years experience and that he’d likely saved them tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to figure it out themselves.
Part of the job of selling your services to a client is determine what something might be worth to them and to find a way to deliver what they want at a price that is comparable to the value they place on it. This task is not an easy one and something that they rarely teach in school.
You are quite right that there will be times that you cannot reach an agreement on price and it is best to walk away rather than take a job that undervalues your experience and expertise. Just be very, very careful not to let your ego get in the way. Be sure that you have done everything you can to fully explore the client’s needs to see if you can find a way to deliver something at a price point that you can both live with. Remember, you are the expert, the client is not. They likely have little idea what is involved in doing what they want so it is not surprising that they under price it.
Mike