Comments on: How To Do Client Work Right

By: Funding Your First Business | Adam McFarland

Funding Your First Business | Adam McFarland — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:44:22 +0000

[...] whatever else it takes to get your first clients for free. For more ideas, check out my post How To Do Client Work Right that I wrote just after we got rid of the service side of our [...]

By: No More Client Work - Michael Li

No More Client Work - Michael Li — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:21:58 +0000

[...] The client side of our business was a vital part of our business which started Pure Adapt, but at this point it just isn’t worth it. Client work just started to take up way too much time for what we were getting paid for. One thing we neglected to factor in was we were charging projects as if one of us was working on it. Almost all the projects should have been at least double, since there was the development time and client management time. I still believe in the business of web development, but I’m done with it. Adam recently posted detailed outline on how to do client work, that I totally agree with, called “How To Do Client Work Right“. [...]

By: Nev

Nev — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:05:24 +0000

Great post Adam!

By: Hobbes

Hobbes — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:30:14 +0000

This is an extremely valuable article, especially for those just starting out in services.

By: Adam McFarland

Adam McFarland — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:10:20 +0000

On this topic, just came across a great post on Site Point about handling client maintenance fees http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=529595

By: Robert Carter

Robert Carter — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 18:16:41 +0000

Very helpful Adam, especially the lead generation stuff. Thanks!

By: Adam McFarland

Adam McFarland — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 17:15:59 +0000

Great additions guys. I know that Anthony does what George mentioned (keep credit cards on file and then auto-bill for minor work). We did not have a proper system in place for this and spent too much time chasing down a check.

I spent probably 2 cumulative hours emailing and calling about a client that accidentally paid us $50 short. Had I had a CC on file, it wouldn’t have been an issue.

By: George Dushensky

George Dushensky — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 15:42:57 +0000

One other thing I may add that I would recommend doing if you’re going in the services business. Keep your clients credit card on file before you do ANY work. This will save you a lot of time and headaches when it comes to collect your hard earned money. Also, if you bill per change, phone call, etc. you can let them know ahead of time and don’t have to worry about them sending you a $50 payment for a half hour fix.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 14:40:56 +0000

Adam,

This is 100% dead on. I’d like to go a step further with your first 2 points. I charge by the project and do set clear terms regarding how much support that includes. Typically, a client can call all they want for about 30 days after a project has been completed. After that, we have a no-fault policy. In other words, if they are calling because of a problem with current service on our end (email server is down, for example), that support is free. But anything else is charged at a standard hourly rate.

You never are extremely happy to be receiving unexpected problem/request calls from clients, but it makes it a bit better whenever your mindset changes to: phone ringing = $