C#, VB.Net, XML and mass consumption of coffee.

I am a busy guy, full time job, wife who recently decided to learn how to code, kids – hockey practices at 7 am on Saturdays and bed time stories and many other things normally occupy my day. On top of this, I have to stay up to speed on what is going on with technology, work on my side projects (partypm.com is cool, sorry for the shameless plug) and occasionally I do freelance.  However lately I am not that enthusiastic about freelance projects and this comic from the Oatmeal perfectly describes the reason why.

While I have been blessed with complete lack of any talent for working UI, which minimizes the damage described in the comic, the designers I work with are suffering tragically.  There were so many instances where the original site was simply horrible, the design we came up with was great and the client loved it, but additions and changes initiated by the client completely ruined the project to the point where you don’t even want to visit that site later on, forget using this in your portfolio. 

I know, I am not saying anything new, most of the developers dealt with this, its a part of our job, but my question should it be the part of our daily life.  What happened to Expert Power mystique which surrounded us for quite some time?  Do you question your doctor?  How about giving suggestions to your dentist or lawyer?  You might, no one is saying that you are not allowed to, but mostly you would trust their judgment to do what is right.

The problem begins where you realise that the client is paying for your services, so he has complete right to control how the final product will look and act.  You can’t completely ignore his wishes, and at times it is next to impossible to convince the client that your idea and your design is right, but I think we should try.  Surely it will be more time consuming, frastrating and so on, but at the end everyone would benefit.  Let me tell you about my boss Dave.  Dave is a great guy, he is very smart and reasonable boss, but at the begining of our dealings, I had to spend number of hours trying to convince him that what he wanted was either impossible (when it was really impossible.  ie – can we just create a button that will do all the work) or unreasonable (create a feature for one particular client while the application is distributed to many clients).  I did not really fight his ideas and suggestions, but rather modify them to make sure the features are reasonable and fucntioning.  After a while, we both learned that we could trust each other to do the best we can with what we have – suggestions from our existing clients and demands from potential clients. 

I am happy with this setup.  He calls me as says company X wants feature Y implemented.  I take feature Y and make sure that we can do something that could be useful for everyone, not just X.  Then I give him back my estimates and my plan regarding the feature Y.  If he is satisfied, the work goes into a queue and everyone is happy eventually.

This became possible because I work with Dave on a daily basis for about five years now.  Achieving compromizes with your freelance employers might not be possible due to the time constrains, but here are the principals I am sticking to when thinking about freelance:

• I don’t work for family / friends  /friends of family and so on.  In my experience, this really ruins relationships with people – you ask them for money for your work, they generally think that you should do it for free and the way that want it and so on.
• Before I begin coding, the client has to approve the design and feature list.  I will not start work until this is done.  I do take deposits, generally 50% of final price.
• Once approved by the client (signed on a piece of paper) all request like “can we just quickly add this” costs an arm and a leg.  It is extra work, I had not planned for it.  Clients know about this rule and if they are not happy with this rule, we won’t be working together.  Years ago I was installing pool tables to pay my way through college.  For those who don’t know, it takes between 4 to 6 hours to put that table together and once assembled the table is too heavy to be moved, not mentioning that once you moved it, the level is messed up and installer had to re-do half of his work.  Before I start, I would demand the client to tell me where exactly that thing is going in.  It was not possible to change it.  When clients asked to change something after the table is done, my fee was automatically multiplied by 3.  Pretty much same thing is applied to my freelance projects.
• I do offer support on complete projects including training and so on, but after a free chunk of that, the support is becoming expensive.
• I don’t work for free.  Which include a company that creates a “contest” for best design of their new site, offer to pay me in products they are selling, promises to promote me, promises to bring me new clients, offers to get me in as a partner in their business and so on.
• I don’t do clones of existing products.  People who visit freelance oriented resources know what I’m talking about.

I know this might sound condescending and maybe outright crazy, but I feel that this set of rules helps me and my designers stay sane and happy with projects we take on.  Clients that decide to work with us are happy too, those who choose not to, are happy because we informed them of the conditions upfront giving them a chance to make informed decision.  They will find a freelancer who will do what they want, I am sure of it.

I would love to hear about you and your approach to dealing with clients.