Web Design Freelancers – how important is maintaining your client list?
They say, statistically it is seven times harder to get a new client than it is to maintain an existing one. I’ve often wrote about the uniqueness of this industry at our present point in time – I wonder if we work in an environment that is an exception to this age-old rule of thumb? Could it be that the demand for web design work is so high, to the point it grossly out-weighs the supply, that maintaining client relationships is actually more costly than not?
I’ve noticed in the past twelve months an overwhelming increase in my own freelancing – to the point where I’ve started outsourcing (sub-contracting) a small percentage of my work. So now I am in a peculiar position; taking the time, however small it may be, to reconnect with past clients and maintain a healthy relationship is actually costing me money. A majority of my work is on large scale projects – mostly new designs or complete redesigns. The average company or organization really only requires work of this magnitude once every two years, on the aggressive side. Most of my repeat business tends to be on smaller projects – generally between 10% and 20% of the original (in scope and price). These smaller projects are not difficult in scope, but often times tedious and whose duration can last as long as the larger project; once factoring in the communication, project management, invoicing, delivery, sign-off and integration.
Is it short-term thinking to be focusing on the larger projects and ignoring the smaller ones; at whatever cost it may be? If we work in an environment that has such large demand and in such short supply – does it change how we handle client relationships? Should we perhaps be altering our business model to accommodate this shift in thinking? Lets be honest about another thing; the larger projects not only bring in more money, they are also more fun! We, web design freelancers, work in an environment where new clients are a dime-a-dozen. And, for every small project we take on for an existing client we are potentially giving up the opportunity to obtain a new client with a more exiting project at 10 times the price. Is there a line to be drawn between business-best-practices, common sense, old fashion common curtsey and greed?
Now, don’t get me wrong; I am not advocating abandoning your clients after the big paycheck comes in – just simply trying to figure out my business plan on the fly perhaps. No matter how the numbers play out, I can’t ever see abandoning my clients – perhaps it is my personality, some sort of business ethics — politeness even? I am sure you all know there is a lot more than monetary value to a happy and growing client relationship; referrals, word-of-mouth advertising and ensuring positive association with your name (brand) are all extremely valuable – essential even!
The real question is: how do we consider our venture successful? Is it the amount of revenue generated in a year, our number of clients, quality of our portfolio or the happiness of our clients in the short and long term? I think the answer is obvious – it is the combination of it all. We each need to individually seek out that comfortable area in the middle that keeps our pockets full, our creativity flowing and our clients satisfied.
- September 18th, 2006
- 11comments
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Awesome Article!!
Thanks (as I desperately hope that isn’t strong sarcasm). I will say, this was inspired over the weekend as I had to decide whether or not to “waste” part of my Saturday afternoon appeasing a pleading client – lets just say, the client is extremely satisfied, more so than my Saturday.
I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum on this one: 1. I’ve had an overwhelming client list and found it difficult to maintain satisfaction with most/all.
2. I’ve had my client list shrink to the dangerous point of having to print resumes.
This said, I’ve always kept one thing in mind from old business training: There comes a point that you need to evaluate the opportunity of ‘firing’ your clients/customers. Some clients require so much hand-holding and maintenance that they can reduce your productivity and satisfaction with other, better paying [or more rewarding] clients. Case in point: I had two clients that both brought in a fair amount of work. However, they both required so many face-to-face meetings, and hand editing of Web sites and video work (regardless of the fact that I had installed many automation tools to alleviate their labor and cost concerns). While I appreciated the continual work - some of which was quite rewarding and became golden examples in my portfolio - I had to eventually ‘fire’ them both. For the first client, I slowly introduced an outsourced developer I trusted into my meetings, eventually suggesting to the client that he could better handle their business (he used the client as his sole income). The second I merely had to let go, explaining that I could no longer offer the level of support he required.
While I’d love to keep a portfolio of clients, especially with ongoing service contracts, there does come a point where you have to simply evaluate your own capabilities in terms of honest-to-God hours in a day.
Chad — I appreciate the real-world-example insights.
I recently had to let a long-time client go (one of my first clients actually). It was a very surreal feeling, almost like breaking up. We grew apart in different directions; their organization shrunk and was implementing cost-cutting procedures while my business was growing, my rate along with it. I maintained my original rate throughout the years, slight adjustments for inflation, nothing extreme — more out of courtesy and respect than anything else. Like you, I transitioned them into a relationship with another designer (more junior with a cheaper rate) and set them up with several self-management processes, back-up files, registration information, etc.; making the “break-up” as pleasant as possible.
great article martin. like you, our small company is experiencing the same problems and have been doing the same things you have to maintain client relations while gatherning a huge influx of new clients. =)
Productivity is important. And there are those clients that suck the life right out of you… however, those life sucking clients are my best mouthpiece, and I wouldn’t give them up for all the programmers in Silicon Valley. There’s a happy medium between large clients and hand holding the smaller ones, and my bottom line is being able to work on my own at my own pace.
I think that’s a great idea, Martin, and it made a big “duh” sign go off in my head. There’s so many projects where I’ve brought good ideas or interesting designs to the table and the client has wanted change after change after change until it’s pretty much garbage that I don’t want anyone to know I’ve worked on. The problem is finding the time in between these garbage projects to get some “me” time.
Nice post. Similar things have been going though my mind - I’m at a small agency and we try to do what we can to offer ‘post-production’ services. That can make it hard to bring new clients in (they might assume everything and anything is covered), but I think it’s good to have some products that are related to the site/identity but require another level of commitment from the client.
Yeah, it is crazy how burdening success can be sometimes, ha.
You don’t want to abandon your clients – but you also don’t want continue support to come at the cost of growing your business; and ultimately your bottom-line.
very well written post. I’ve been in a similar position the past 2 years as a freelancer. Things have been giving way to larger, more lucrative clients and certain older ones are being introduced to newer more junior dev’s and designers. The real trouble I’ve found is finding people to refer these clients to… Seems like it’s been a good time in our industry over the past few years with very few qualified people waiting in the wings.
jpea, I hear you! Iv found that some of the online communities such as CSS Beauty can great places to find talent!