Cheap client translator
We’ve all been there; face-to-face with a cheap client. “Cheap” has a rather negative connotation, so lets be clear that there is a distinction between small business clients on a budget and unrealistic clients who expect greatness for next to nothing; cheap! There is value in what we do; don’t ever let anyone trivialize that by compromising for less than you are worth. Cheap clients do have their place in the eco-system, especially for highly-talented yet very young and inexperienced freelancers. They are the ones that feed the fuel for the cheap client – they have the talent to offer awesomeness at a rate they’ve set low due to their lack of experience and confidence in their work.
If the cheap client is a client you wish to avoid you need to learn the lingo. The cheap client uses certain keywords that should act as a red flag raising trigger to you. There is nothing worse than spending thirty minutes on a call with a potential lead to find out they expect a $5,000 project to cost $500. So, what does the cheap client say and what does that mean? Here are eight keywords/phrases to watch out for and their hidden meaning.
- Simple = “I’ll pay your hourly rate as long as it doesn’t go over an hour”.
- Basic = “Don’t waste time on originality, copy what already exists”
- Students Welcome = “I have no money or taste, just create something; anything”.
- Easy = “Build me a MySpace clone; can’t you just view source?”
- Portfolio Builder = “Having a website that looks expensive is really good for you; that’s your reward”
- Barter = “I won’t pay you but am willing to give you something useless of much lower value”
- Tweak = “I’ve already spent a lot of money; now make it much better for less”.
- Small = “Small project, small budget, small appreciation”
We, the nclud team, had a lot of fun joking about this topic yesterday afternoon as a previous employer sent in an inquiry that used six of the above mentioned eight. While I still glance at the Craig’s list world from my feed reader – you’d be amazed just running down the titles how many of them utilize these red flags; Craig’s list has always been notorious for being a breeding ground for cheap clients. Cheap clients have their place but look for the signals before investing too much time into a seemingly large lead.
- April 19th, 2007
- 11comments
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Thank you, I’ll have those words in the back of my head, next time I’m reading job ads.
Actually, as I was reading down your list of ‘lingo’, I kept thinking that I’ve seen them over and over in Craigslist! :P
So, I know where to find cheap clients, where do I find the not-so-cheap ones?!
funny translator :), but “translates” the holly truth ;)
Very welcome — Craig’s List is a funny beast. When you are starting out it is your life blood but at some point you just starts to get upsetting seeing how much people expect for so little.
I keep thinking that the real problem is the perceived “ease” of creating a site from scratch. This was propogated in the late 1990s with the dawn of the horrible WYSIWYG editors, and has persisted now because it’s true that almost anyone can have a blog in minutes. If the masses can have a site in minutes, then businesses figure that they can do the same.
My brother’s girlfriend was recently asked by her company to learn how to make them a web page and get it done “in the next couple of weeks or so.” She called me to ask what program she could buy to get it done. There’s just no public perception that site creation is really something that people spend months or years to learn how to do decently.
And that’s the real challenge – how do we, as an industry, walk the line between saying that the web is something that’s easy to use, but yet still justify telling clients (rightly) that a website is not something trivial to create. What is the one- or two-line message that reflects this discrepancy?
Jackson,
I think you make a great point. One of the inspirations for this post was a situation I actually went through when I was freelancing where I spent over an hour in a potential client’s office discussing their upcoming project. I was overeager, excited and hungry – ignoring many of the red flags I suggest others watch out for. Needless to say the client expected a rent.com equivalent for $1,000.00 and to be completed in a week. I was completely speechless from his ignorance.
I realized not even the best salesman in the world could convince this client of how unrealistic that was – he would only learn through time and failure. However I did make an attempt – his business was high-end home remodeling. I asked him candidly how much his typical project ran and he replied “between $50,000 and $100,000”. I asked him, what if a customer told you they could get it done through Home Depot for half that or a quarter of that through Craig’s list, what would you tell them? He didn’t respond directly to the question as he realized the point I was making.
The issue isn’t simply that the masses don’t understand the time/cost of what we do it – I think the issue is most “small” clients don’t value what we do. The value they see is simply in creating a website, which has no value as anyone can do it within 3 clicks on Blogger.com.
The true value is in creating unique, stylish and usable designs for the web. To answer your question, that is the one-liner we use at nclud to try and reflect that discrepancy.
So so so so true! I guess you can’t blame people for trying. And indeed a half-reasonable budget can usually be accomodated with restrictions on the number of design options and fussyness permitted.
And then there’s third world programmers who seem to do CMS-driven, SEO’d sites for what we would charge for a consultation.
Recently we have found that nonchalantly saying to a client that we don’t usually touch a web project for less than US$4000 has them begging for work at slightly less. Perhaps we should start saying $40,000.
Long live the free market!
I’ve found that your minimum has to be slightly higher than your minimum — sometimes you change what you minimum is depending on who you are talking too.
The same is true for the client side — they are typically always willing to go slightly higher than their maximum if you can prove the value to them.
It is a strange game we all play trying to get the most bang for our buck.
Here’s another one.
Just = “I just need a header and a logo and I’ll do the rest of the design myself”
And by logo, they mean they want some kind of crappy clip art or something like that.
HA HA. Nice.
Great article!
This is so very true. I like to check out craigslist ads, mostly for fun. Some of the people who are looking for experience have interesting ads as well as people who claim to have a decent company with unrealistic expectation.
Here is a great website to point craiglist shoppers to, and is a response to client education.
http://www.no-spec.com/
Later,
Adam Nollmeyer
Phoenix Arizona Photographer
@Adam, thank for the response and the reference — much appreciated.