May 03. 2007.

We all make mistakes.  I certainly have.  And I am not always right in my opinions about the web & media industry.  Still, there are certain mistakes that we make as marketing consultants, designers, videographers & developers that can really make our lives miserable.  Here are a few:

• Doing work for free
• Failing to manage client expectations
• Not drawing up a simple contract that covers some key elements

...

And here are some more…

• Under-bidding
• Over-bidding
• If going by an hourly rate, not communicating those hours on a regular basis
• Taking on projects that are not a good fit or seemingly small and simple
• Not charging for work that goes beyond the scope of the project

We’ve all underbid projects.  In fact most of us do it all the time.  The point here is not to bleed the client dry, rather, to compensate appropriately for the amount of work you’ve done or are going to do.  Underbidding really sucks, because if you are a good service provider you always have to do what you say you are going to do..right?  This is a basic tenant of business.  The key is to bid appropriately.  Then, whether you get the job or not, you won’t have to constantly question yourself for the next several weeks on what you should have done.

Of course, the other side to this is over-bidding.  We’ve probably all woke up one morning, took on a little extra attitude/confidence for whatever reason (I don’t know, maybe you won an FWA or Webbie award or something...) then you figure that you are pretty much a gosh darn Designer or Marketing Rock Star right?  Now everyone has to speak to you as if you are Hillman Curtis or Shane Mielke yes?  Well, just take a deep breath and come back head back down to earth ‘Buzz’, because this goes both ways.

The other stuff, well, pretty self explanatory.  If you aren’t telling the client what you’re doing and the work you’ve done or hours spent, they will most certainly come back and say, ‘but you haven’t even done anything, why are you charging me?’.  This also goes for project based scenarios when you are silently adding things throughout the project that you didn’t promise to do.  I’m not saying to never do ‘extra’ stuff for a client (because there are clients that we very much need to take care of), rather, I’m saying that you need to tell them that you are doing extra stuff so when they recognize when you are giving a little extra.

Along these lines, you must know when to put a pause on a project at the precise moment that the scope of the project changes.  This doesn’t mean that you should blow your lid and cuss out your client because they (and the government) are conspiring against you, it means that you need to consistently manage the project, their expectations and ensure that the project stays within the confines (to an extent that is most reasonable for the client) of the project scope.  Always have that ‘change order’ ready to rock.  (Boooonngggggggggg...I just rang a bell so you’ll remember this).  Should you let this scenario slide (work performed going beyond scope of project) you will realize really quickly that it is just a matter of time before you are out of business.

But remember folks… Balance.  Assertiveness.  Not cockiness or arrogance.  This is the remedy.

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