It is no secret that I love Racing. All types of racing. Not like crew boat racing or anything, I am an Ivy League college guy or something. But I do love racing cars. So when I was asked by a client to build their website, I was all excited. It wasn’t about racing, its actually an E-commerce site and a crazy one at that. So there was not a lot of money to start off, so I used a template I had laying around. It’s actually one of my favorites. It’s called Bonfire. So I hack it up to match what they wanted and then comes the fun part.
See, when you have a client who knows just enough about Photoshop and how to use Google Chrome Inspect Element to mock up their site, you have to be very specific. “You can do this, you can’t change this ” is usually how it goes. Then they take advantage of you and you cave. Because money these days is available, but your reputation in Vegas can spread very fast. So you cave in and make changes. You are very stern with them and you say that you had to do a lot of code changes to make this happen. What proceeds are more emails with more changes. After all is said and done, you should of just used a HTML site and called it a day! But I lover WordPress and you know, I build it all on WP.
So what I did was this. I mocked up an amazing Photoshop document, showed them what is possible and then make the sale. They are happy: Until they see the final changes and wants to edit that.
See I am convinced that no matter what you do to a site or theme, people will find the tiniest detail that they want changed. I call it the “POWER IN CHARGE MOVE”. My old boss in Reno used to do this and I caught on very fast. It got to the point where I was able to argue my point and win because I could prove a point to them and do 4 hours of changes in a few hours. Nothing is sweeter.
But how is it that you please a customer when you are close to the project. Well here is how I deal with it. I’ll make it simple and easy to understand.
YOU PUT EVERYTHING INTO PERSPECTIVE. That’s it. It doesn’t get harder.
You tell them that there is going to be a lot of work and since you are offered a part of a non existent company, and very little cash, it’s not in the cards right now. You can make more money on using a smart kid like myself to do SEO and Marketing, and later on the site can be upgraded when you have the money.
I used to hate companies, because I knew they marked up the price a lot. Now I get it. Running business that deals with customers sucks at one time or another. It comes down to how you handle things and knock people back into reality. Clients have a tenancy to think they have the next Facebook, or Ground breaking do-dad. So you have to cut them a break. But at the same time you have to smack them when it counts!
Hope this helps! Stay gold and until next time.