Perfect Is Not Enough For This Client

Sorry, I needed somewhere to post this other than my blog.

So I recently started working with a client earlier this month. I met with her and we discussed how we were going to put this website together. She only wanted a customised starter website where she could display her work (she works as a hair stylist), but she didn't want to spend a lot of money on web hosting. Since she was being cheap, I offered to create a Blogger template for her which would make the blog look like a "real" website (she still had to buy a domain name). After I showed her a website that I had done for a client in the past, she was ecstatic and we agreed to what the website would look like. After she sent me everything I required for the design, I created the website and then I showed her the draft. At first, she requested small changes to it which were reasonable (editing her images to make them appear cleaner, making the navigation bar match the overall theme, etc), and she was very content with the website's design. She said that it was great and now we can focus on adding information to the biography and testimonial pages. Since I thought that I was nearly complete, I asked about 25 different people what they thought about it and all the responses were positive. All was good until she messaged me a few days ago requesting a few 'minor' changes. Her requests were as follows:

• Enlarge the images she took with her iPhone camera and also make them "higher quality".
• Make the background more "modern" (she wants a fancy custom background for free).
• Turn the gallery page into an interactive book where visitors can flip the pages (she also wants this for free).
• Make the website more dynamic (again, for free).

After I told her that this is not what we originally agreed to, she sends me a message that eloquently says, "I need something like this I feel my website . More mature looking", and links to a $5000 template design, but she wants the extra work done for free. After I told her that there's no way I'm creating that for free in 1 week, she messages me saying, "Okay what it (if) we look into squarespace.com. I need it to look higher quality". In other words, she wants me to abandon a month's worth of work for a bloody squarespace website (which she doesn't know costs money).

Charge her for the work you already did. After that, whatever she want to improve, change, upgrade - charge separately. You did your job, her requests are additional work that you didn't agreed to do.
Make price list for your services, granulate it if needed to smaller jobs (slider, flip the book script, custom design, logo, background, etc etc) and make general price for your hour. If she want to play with your time, charge it. It is simple.
I had one retard about a year ago, with absolutely same situation. About 40 significant changes from first plan, just because he don't have a fucking clue what he want. 4 month of wasting time with one idiot, for same money that we agreed on start because he just wanted one simple one-page theme with basic stuff that gradually became full blown website on 2 languages, full media presentation blog, and 95 % custom design, layout and customized internal functions. I am still angry not only on that guy, but on me, how stupid I was to involve myself without classic contract and working hours talk, thinking that is really easy 2 days job like he said. Never ever again without a contract and detailed work flow plan.

that's why i no longer take on coding jobs...

TZ2011 said:

Charge her for the work you already did. After that, whatever she want to improve, change, upgrade - charge separately. You did your job, her requests are additional work that you didn't agreed to do.
Make price list for your services, granulate it if needed to smaller jobs (slider, flip the book script, custom design, logo, background, etc etc) and make general price for your hour. If she want to play with your time, charge it. It is simple.
I had one retard about a year ago, with absolutely same situation. About 40 significant changes from first plan, just because he don't have a fucking clue what he want. 4 month of wasting time with one idiot, for same money that we agreed on start because he just wanted one simple one-page theme with basic stuff that gradually became full blown website on 2 languages, full media presentation blog, and 95 % custom design, layout and customized internal functions. I am still angry not only on that guy, but on me, how stupid I was to involve myself without classic contract and working hours talk, thinking that is really easy 2 days job like he said. Never ever again without a contract and detailed work flow plan.

Click to expand...

I agree here. I would add this: when you set out on a project like this you should have a written agreement detailing exactly what work you're doing, and making explicitly clear that any extra work will be billed over and above the original estimate.

Yeah I agree with the others - charge her for where its at today - where she had agreed - but say look your asking to build a site that is more advanced and costs alot more... if you want to continue that - then I have to requote for that type of Site.

Obviously she has shown what you did for her to someone else and they pointed her to that.

Constant problem in the industry I hope you can work it out to your satisfaction.

Well one hairstylists are notoriously stupid, so you could have seen this coming. Get paid for the work thus far. Don't talk about anything else. Don't give her control of the website until she has paid in full, and once you have been paid bill her what you want.

How much money are we talking here, for everything?

If you don't particularly need the money I would strongly suggest get rid of her ASAP. This kind of clients only causes problems and more problems.

Get paid for what you have done so far and if she is asking more for free, it is not worthy of your time.

You got a deposit I hope! If people are not willing to at least give you a 50% deposit upfront - they will usually try and screw you for everything. Just my two cents worth...

Danny1111 said:

Yeah I agree with the others - charge her for where its at today - where she had agreed - but say look your asking to build a site that is more advanced and costs alot more... if you want to continue that - then I have to requote for that type of Site.

Obviously she has shown what you did for her to someone else and they pointed her to that.

Constant problem in the industry I hope you can work it out to your satisfaction.

Click to expand...

You're exactly right! During our last phone coversation, she mentioned that she showed the website to some college student client of hers (during this time, I was also in the middle of updating the website) and she told her, "Mmm girl, it needs a lot of work. You need one of those high quality websites like the ones on squaredspace and templatemonster. Look girl, I made a website for my grandfather, so I know what I'm talking about (yes, she really told her this :lmao, so if you need a website, you just pay me". Now she suddenly thinks that she's entitled to extra work for free.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for her to reply to my last message, but she seems to selectively reply to my messages. Even if she doesn't pay me, I know of a few people who would love to buy the template.

tell her to pay up, or someone else gets her template.

order for my opinion tell us what you charged and show us as screenshot so wr can decide

should have got half the payment upfront. ask her to meet you in the middle. some of her requests are free to add into the site, just use free options to complete her requests don't code anymore.

thisismymp3 said:

order for my opinion tell us what you charged and show us as screenshot so wr can decide

Click to expand...

I gave her a big discount since I wanted to try out a few new things (she is also my mother's friend, or should I say was), so I charged her $80 for the whole website since I wanted to practice working on SEO using her website (I know I could have done this with any other website, I just wanted to try it with a client). So she was pretty much getting free SEO included with her website. I included a custom logo, custom background, a decent navigation bar, 8 pages, a jQuery slider to display her images, and I photoshopped around 25 photos of her clients to make them look better (and, of course, I removed anything related to Blogger such as posts, gadgets, favicon, and links) . I don't want to post her website or a screenshot of it because, since she's vain and requested what I'm about to say next, her picture (along with pictures of her clients in a jQuery slider) is plastered on the front page. I actually just wanted to see what the members of BlackHatWorld thought about her behaviour, since everyone here is pretty damn knowledgeable about websites and clients. From the beginning, I treated this as a learning experience to get better with creating templates, and I can also revise my contract now. Thank you everyone who has replied so far, your advice is very helpful!

that's your issue right there.. you charged way to little. You basically told her your time is worth nothing...
Just be frank and say if she wants more she is looking at a 5k bill.

never take on cheap clients EVER it is not worth it.

youtalkmedia said:

that's your issue right there.. you charged way to little. You basically told her your time is worth nothing...
Just be frank and say if she wants more she is looking at a 5k bill.

never take on cheap clients EVER it is not worth it.

Click to expand...

Yes, cheap prices attract cheap clients!

for $80 just tell her - your done -- look for someone else to help her.

You already made an effort and done a wonderful job so if she wants to change the whole thing you need to tell her and be straight forward because some people doesn't know sh*t about what they are requesting.

you should have told her you need a deposit to start the work

I agree, she should have done squarespace in the first place.