Woes of the small web dev business, Chapter 792

Over the past few days, I delivered a proposal and estimate to a client who I had had a number of conversations with. Having spent a good amount of time discussing his project and getting to know him and his organization, I felt fairly confident about the proposal I submitted (and fairly confident that I hadn't just wasted another 6-8 hours!)

Unfortunately, his response was an all-too-common one: everything was fine about the proposal except for the price and the time schedule. In other words, he was happy with my experienced analysis of his organization's needs, my careful explanation of how I would carry out the project, my choice of excellent partners to work with, and, apparently, with my reputation and portfolio. He just wants the same site cheaper and quicker!

Timing-wise, this client, though a very nice person, has no idea what it takes to produce a web site - in this case, a database-driven site with an administrative back-end as well as a number of static pages. His original request was that the site be completed within three weeks - not three weeks from the starting date, but three weeks from the proposal-limbo stage we were currently in. Any web developer with even, say, a year's worth of experience in the business knows that this is unrealistic.

I will try to be patient when I explain to the client that the process of designing a web site is a series of important decisions made by him, and that many of these decisions will take him at least an afternoon and an evening, and more likely a day or so, to make, and that he knows full well that he is a busy person already.

I'll also try to be patient when I explain that our pricing is figured on the basis of the features and functions we will be building for him, and that I'd be glad to go over the list with him and remove some features if he'd like to pay less for the web site, but that no, we're not interested in being paid less than normal for our work because of budget issues on his end.

And I could quote the old maxim about this type of work: that there's quality, price, and speed, and that he can't have a quality job at a cheap price and a super-fast delivery time.

But what this really gets down to is experience. Over the past 10 years, we have worked on about 84 web sites for some 74 clients, including producing 60 complete new web sites. We know the process, we know what it's like to work with clients, and we know how long it will take and how much is fair to charge. If this client wants to take his chances with less experienced web developers who are offering a database-driven web site in a period of 4 weeks for a cut-rate price, I'll have to wish him good luck and go on my way.