“I could have gotten it Cheaper from India”…

So you’re thinking…

I swear if I hear that line out of another client’s mouth again, I’m going to take my shoe off an beat them in the face.

Well…that’s the initial reaction at least…
A little drastic and dramatic…and for this…it works.

But let’s take a breath and see if we can’t iron this out by pointing out some of things that are already.clearly.obvious.

1. Had they outsourced their project to India, they probably would have gotten a cheaper project..
   1. They definitely wouldn’t have had to pay as much, so it would have been cheaper in cost…
   2. But 9 times out of 10, it would have also been cheaper in quality.
   3. And 10 times out of 10, they’ll come crying back to you asking you for a discount since they already wasted so much money where they got it cheaper…in India.

Now…for the sake of doing so…let’s list the things that you’re probably dying to ask in response…but shouldn’t ask for obvious reasons…

1. Well…why didn’t you?
2. D0 you not remember how you complained about the communication issues you had in dealing with developers in another time zone? And how you were “Oh, so excited” to find a reliable company in the same country?
3. And when they ran away with your money the first time, that didn’t clue you in on a problem?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems…
Let’s discuss somethings that might be OK to say in response…

1. I’m really sorry to hear that you feel this way. But how can we work with you to make this project all that you hoped it would be.
2. I’m really sorry to hear that you feel this way. But let’s determine what aspects of your project we might be able to eliminate to achieve your desired price point.
3. I’m really sorry to hear that you feel this way… *catching the trend here?*… Let’s discuss how we can work this out for both parties, as we’d like to continue working with you in developing a spectacular final product.

Yeah…it hurts to be nice sometimes…
But…remember that 9 times out of 10?
Well…9 times out of 10 they’ll keep coming back because they feel that you’re willing to work with them.
And if they decide to be difficult and send their project to India anyways…they’ll usually come back begging for mercy and you can tax their ass off twice times *j/k - but not really*!

Communication is the Key

It is a reminder that Communication is the Key when working with clients and vice versa.

Sometimes rehashing things and repeating things for clarity isn’t a bad thing.

Yes…there’s a way to do it so that the client doesn’t feel as if you’re treating them like an idiot. It’s all about clarity, and understanding needs, because sometimes what a client needs may not be what a client wants.

Everyone understands things differently, and it’s important that a project’s scope is completely outlined and understood by all.

Ciao!

Weblog Tools Collection has put up a list of features that will be released in Wordpress 2.7. Hopefully, it will be out before the end of the year…

Planned Feature List:

• Comments API
• Keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation
• Theme Update API
• One Click Plugin Installs
• WordPress core updates
• Default Sitemaps
• Admin Panel Comment Replies
• Comment Threading
• Subscribe to Comments
• Widgets for Dashboard and Write Box
• Batch Editing of Posts

WLTC: Features Planned for WordPress 2.7 ]]> http://www.hustle-life.com/blogging/wordpress-27-features/feed/ http://www.hustle-life.com/blogging/wordpress-27-features/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Hustle-lifecom/~3/X6e9pHHS8kE/ http://www.hustle-life.com/business-savy/a-list-apart-the-survey-2008/#comments Sat, 02 Aug 2008 21:42:10 +0000 Erwin R http://www.hustle-life.com/?p=68 Have you taken it yet?

All though it’s 18 pages…they’re really not that long…

If you haven’t get on the ball!

Go now…run.

In any case…

The second most favorite gripe of the week is Nickel and Diming a Project.

Usually when someone asks for a quote, we ask for more details on what exactly they need out of their project. It goes a little something like this:

Potential Client: I’d like a quote on xyz.

Us: Can you please provide more details as to what you’re looking for us to do in this project, and what you’d like to get out of this project once complete?

Once they’ve gone through their list of requests and we’ve given a quote, I’d say 2 out of 8 of the potential clients will ask the following:

Potential Client: Well, what if I have *my brother in law, sister’s cousin, my second cousin, my half nephew* do xyz?

This is a clear indication that they’re looking to get something for almost nothing…and not only that…but they expect the best.

*scratches forehead*

It’s hard not to run from a client like this. We try not to…in fact, in most cases, we don’t. We actually try to work with the client so that all parties involved are happy and satisfied with the end result.

• Yes, we understand that you want to get the best bang for your buck.

• Yes, we understand that there are some companies who will charge you an arm and a leg for something they can do in 5 minutes.

• Yes, we understand that you’re wanting to stay within budget.

But…

Don’t come back after the project is complete wondering why this or that wasn’t included.

Because we’ll simply pull up the project board with all of the project details, dates, times, and messages, create a screenshot of said board, and send our final email with big red errors indicating the things that your brother, sister in law, friend from college, or nephew said that they could do.

And definitely don’t come back expecting the same price when said relative or farm animal could not handle the request that you had of them.

Have a great weekend!

I think a lot of people understimate how rough it can be. An experience that we have on a regular bases sparked this post today…

I wasn’t sure whether to call it “You Get What You Pay For” or “The Common Denominator is You“.

But I think I’ll reserve the latter titles for more specific posts.

So here goes…

Often times we receive calls from clients who have been scorned by previous developers.

Usually the call is prefaced with “I hired a developer in India to do such and such”, and is followed by one of the following:

“They took the money and stopped responding.”

“They didn’t understand what I was wanting to have done.”

“They said that their uncle got sick and now they have to take some time off…  ” (believe it or not, this one’s popular)

Situations like these make it harder for those of us who are trying to do right by their clients. Granted you can’t please everyone, nor can you work with everyone, but we can sure try.

But when the person who was previously scorned is expecting you to jump through hoops so that they feel better about working with you…it’s difficult. We, as designers, are forced to take extra steps so that the customer feels comfortable and not being taken advantage of.

It’s very tempting sometimes to decline the project once we hear about how they were treated by someone else. Suffice it to say, 3 out of 10 of those clients end up being difficult clients to work with and you can almost understand why the person wanted to “disappear”. Which leads us to tomorrow’s post…

“The Common Denominator is You”

*jumps on soap box*

Contrary to popular belief…

Web Developers are not psychic.

5 times out of 10 we can not “diagnose” something that happened without actually looking at the problem. Yeah, usually we’re pretty smart and can figure out what you did or didn’t do…or what “just happened the other day” without looking… but not always.

Don’t get me wrong, it’d be great to just hear what happened and be able tell you what the problem is 100% of the time, but…if we were psychic…trust me…we wouldn’t be in web design, development, or programming. We’d be in lottery tickets.

*steps down from soapbox*

But, for the past few days, Twitter has been going down a lot…

I’ve never seen the “down for maintenance screen” so much in my life.

I love this image…lol

It was all about technorati …

Or so it seemed.

Does anyone still use, go to, hear of Technorati?

Now how is that for networking?

Someone favorites you, and then you can pretty much broadcast whatever you’d like to them…loud and clear.

Maybe Barak Obama should invest in an Imeem account…

Or hell…maybe he already has one.