This post is dedicated to all those hard-working and competent (yes, I said competent) designers, developers and marketers who happen to be nice guys/gals.  Running a business and/or being a consultant tends to wear on the psyche over time.  I remember the days when I was young, innocent and the only thing that ever came out of my mouth is ‘yes’, ‘sure’, ‘golly gee Mr. client you are asking for a lot, but ok I’ll do it’.  I will give you a piece of advice before you click into the meat of this post.  Are you ready?  Ok, here it is.  If you do not value your time, no one will. The bottom line is that consultants and developers need to protect their time.  Read on.. by clicking on “more” below.

It really isn’t rocket science.  Yet, I had a tough time figuring out when at the end of project, after payment had already been made, we were often still doing work.  This phenomenon can be caused by underbidding project - which is a separate topic, but I’m speaking directly to the amount of time you spend on a project and the fact that this time has to be accounted for.

So the first question you have to ask yourself when bidding a project is whether you are going to work under a ‘project fee’ - which includes the delivery of a completed project to the client - or work on an hourly basis. I had this conversation recently with some friends at a Bay Area Video Production agency.  Ok, before you tell me that a client would never go for this I will assure you that if you stay in this industry long enough, you will come back to this post and realize that this is not such a far-fetched idea.  Does this mean that you can hire a junior developer who, say..takes three times as long to complete a task (not counting research) when you could be using your go-to guy - and then charging the client for these excess hours?  No.  This is not the case.  Working on an hourly basis on a project means that you (and/or your team) is good and efficient at what they do.

My first horrific experience with a lawyer came several years ago when I foolishly hired counsel at a Law Firm at $375/hour.  This was my first introduction to someone who truly values their time.  This jack-ass was charging me for the time it took him to read emails, send emails, lick an envelope, think about what he was going to do, and of course - telephone time.  When I received the first bill, I was shocked.  The second, I damn near fell over.  And the third, man, I was pissed.  All I could think about was this guy in the bathroom, sitting on the pot, thinking about my case, charging me for it, then after he was done - running back to his computer to log the time.  Did you ever see that scene in Office Space - where the lead character was dreaming about his boss doing some dirty things to his girlfriend?  Well, it was kind of like that only it was in the scenario I described above.

Ok, so what did this experience do for me - other than shortening my life by about 6 months because of undue stress on autonomic nervous system...well, it definitely made me think.  One of his comments, when I confronted him, was that his firm pays them a lot of money and every minute of each day has to be accounted for.  You see, I had become so used to doing work for free, that it never occurred to me that my time is valuable.  EGO ALERT, EGO ALERT....Does this mean that you can, out of the blue, start charging the client for thinking about the project or demand that the project be set up on an hourly basis?  Pipe down Spartacus, all I’m saying is that:

• You should think a little more about the time you spend on a project and whether this time is being accounted for in your project price
• You should spend some time thinking about the boundaries of a project - when a project is officially started and officially finished.  Should you be doing work (beyond included services) after the project is finished, this should be paid for.
• Learn how to matter-of-factly explain to a client your thoughts on these types of subjects
• Be more aware of client requests, and whether these requests fall under the scope of the current project
• There are only a handful of hours in a basic working day.  If you have multiple clients, you’ll have to get better at time management or you’ll never get anything done.
• Time is money
• It doesn’t matter if you are charging $10/hr or $1000/hr for ‘additional work’, the principle still applies - account for your time.
• And remember...if you do not value your time - no one will.