I am always learning. There are times where I think a task or procedure is overkill, but then I run into a scenario where it would have been great. Sometimes, learning the hard way is the way to really nail a lesson in.

I was working on a website for a client. It was actually a pretty recognizable name for these parts of Texas. The client asked for many bells and whistles, so I priced it accordingly. I was pleasantly surprised when the proposal was accepted. The sticker price was pretty expensive, but the job was going to take extra work. The client pulled out their card, so I took the 50% deposit payment, and rushed to work. In the back of my head, I thought to push to have the client sign the contract too, but then I guess I lazily/greedily accepted payment in lieu of signature.

The contracted website looked good, and pleased the board of directors; it was designed and fully developed on the client’s server. I had worked to complete it before the summer, as requested. I was pending only a few bits of content from the client; the space was carved out for the content, but it was awaiting action from the client.

The client squeezed out a bonus website from me at this pause; that bonus website was supposed to be simple, but it ended up being complicated, and really meriting a separate fee. I actually never do free websites, unless I offer one to a non-profit. I did it, because I was still happy about the contracted website. Perhaps the idea of potential slows to business during the pandemic kicked around in my head. This was not a smart move, because then the client perceived the delivery of this bonus website, as a block to completing the contracted website. It was also a bad move to start another website, while the first one was not done. I was actually wanting to finish the contracted website before starting the bonus website, I ended up letting the client drive the priorities. If it was a true consensual favour, that would have been the order since favours are not tied to money. The contracted website was nearly done, but since the bonus website was attached to a time sensitive date, I began to rush on that one. It was especially tough, because their go-live date was supposed to be the same time as my annual art fare, so I struggled to do both. I struggled to balance my business event, for a free “favour” website.

Well, the big day came, and I was still jumping through hoops to get the bonus website done, even offering to pick up products to do free product photography for. The client acknowledged the bonus website was nearly done, and asked to be invoiced since they foresaw the closing of the project too. The client ended up being busy, and the website ended up not being launched because they were in the thick of their event. I naively believed that I would be paid in just a few days, and ended up buying a fancy dishwasher on my credit card, inaccurately thinking that I would be paid soon, and thus could pay the balance… another mistake.

After that point, we had some momentum to finish the bonus site by the end of the year, but the go-ahead was never cleared.  The bonus website sat. The client needed to update their current live website, which was HTML edits via an FTP connection; they ended up changing the password to do this, thus locking me out of the website. The main website sat (I did ask about moving on it.) I do get that clients can get busy, but it does tap into my fear of the website not closing out as a way not to pay. 

This was probably my fault too for not asking the client enough. When someone says they are busy, and they would get to it in X days, I tend to believe them. Instead, I should have been more of a squeaky wheel.

Perhaps the biggest mistake of all was thinking that the big budget was worth the above-and-beyond extras, which does not make sense. I priced the website more expensive than average, because it foundationally required more work than average websites. By doing the extra favours, I lowered my rate. I also ended up in a position where I only had the deposit, and not the full payment. I should have took 25% upon the design acceptance, but I always saw that as a finicky step. 

So as a consequence to these belly flops, I had to take a 3rd job to pay that credit card balance that was racking up interest. The temp job did not pay great, but I just needed cash to reduce that balance. What put salt in the wound was that working my butt of on physical labour, took me away from advertising to design clients that would have paid more, for less sweat; I kind of felt like I lost money, but needing cash in the short term was better than no cash,

Welp, so now I know the reasons for these design management practices, and to enforce them:

• Take 50% down, but also take 25% upon design approval. Without doing this, you are starving until the client gets around to approval of the website’s launch.
• Have the client sign the contract before starting work, even if they paid. There is no other way to enforce the evaluation period limits without this.
• Say no to favours. Clients are not friends. They are just trying to get the most for not paying. It also shows they don’t value your time or talents.
• Don’t let the client drive the priorities. Finish project A before project B. If project B was a real rush, they should have asked for it first (and paid for it). Worst case, charge a rush fee for that rush project; that will show how much of a priority it is.
• If a client is pushing for their freebie and you are busy with something else, don’t do it. Say no to freebies. In fact, if they did pay, then it would be a fare business decision to work them into the schedule, but there is no reason to compromise my non-client time with free client work.