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cheapskates are disproportionately pathological clients ^^^ This! One of my first clients got me at a ridiculously low rate, and has over history been the most

cheapskates are disproportionately pathological clients ^^^ This! One of my first clients got me at a ridiculously low rate, and has over history been the most demanding client I've ever had. That said, I used to use this client as a tester to try out different wordings when I've upped my rates, so it wasn't a total loss ;)

zalew 16y ago
cheapskates are disproportionately pathological clients ^^^ This! One of my first clients got me at a ridiculously low rate, and has over history been the most demanding client I've ever had. "Work for full price or for free. Never for cheap." is the most useful advice on this subject.
- tptacek 16y ago
  "Free" is usually a bad deal for both the client and the consultant. The client is automatically in last place on the consultant's list of priorities, regardless of how important his work is. The consultant has established a $0 price floor for her work, making it that much less likely that she'll ever get a good project from the client. If you do stuff for free --- and we do --- make sure it's different stuff than what you charge for. We are, for instance, happy to give free advice, or to chat on the phone with you about problems. We are not going to be happy to take a little time testing your app. This isn't just me pontificating. More often than not, when I've tried to help people out with free project work, things have gone badly with the project itself.
  - patio11 16y ago
    Clients who get free work also treat it like it is worth nothing, too. My ex-ex-day job decided to do some pro-bono work for academics in my prefecture, and told them "Sure, Patrick will do technical translation for you. For gratis." This resulted in me getting a stack of journal articles about several subjects. Most memorably, steel smelting and formation of microbubbles. I don't really know much about microbubbles, so the professional thing to do was say "When they said 'technical translation', they really meant 'regarding software' because that's really what we do here". The client said "Who cares? Its free. Just do your best." So I did my best and asked copious questions about steel smelting. "I don't really have time to deal with you this week. But hey, its free, just do your best. We'll be happy." So they got a journal article they wanted to submit for publication with grammatically correct English which almost certainly contained numerous material errors of fact. It was a tremendous waste of the time and professional reputation of everyone involved.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- philcrissman 16y ago
  So true. When you work for cheap, the client can still reasonably justify asking for all sorts of changes (after all, they are _paying_ you), without considering that by giving them a discount you are already essentially doing some of the work for free. If you want to help out a friend/non-profit and actually have the time to do it, "free" is usually a better option. That said, you still need to keep the scope of what you intend to do for "free" ironclad, otherwise it will probably creep out of control just like any other project.

zalew 16y ago

cheapskates are disproportionately pathological clients ^^^ This! One of my first clients got me at a ridiculously low rate, and has over history been the most demanding client I've ever had. "Work for full price or for free. Never for cheap." is the most useful advice on this subject.

tptacek 16y ago
"Free" is usually a bad deal for both the client and the consultant. The client is automatically in last place on the consultant's list of priorities, regardless of how important his work is. The consultant has established a $0 price floor for her work, making it that much less likely that she'll ever get a good project from the client. If you do stuff for free --- and we do --- make sure it's different stuff than what you charge for. We are, for instance, happy to give free advice, or to chat on the phone with you about problems. We are not going to be happy to take a little time testing your app. This isn't just me pontificating. More often than not, when I've tried to help people out with free project work, things have gone badly with the project itself.
- patio11 16y ago
  Clients who get free work also treat it like it is worth nothing, too. My ex-ex-day job decided to do some pro-bono work for academics in my prefecture, and told them "Sure, Patrick will do technical translation for you. For gratis." This resulted in me getting a stack of journal articles about several subjects. Most memorably, steel smelting and formation of microbubbles. I don't really know much about microbubbles, so the professional thing to do was say "When they said 'technical translation', they really meant 'regarding software' because that's really what we do here". The client said "Who cares? Its free. Just do your best." So I did my best and asked copious questions about steel smelting. "I don't really have time to deal with you this week. But hey, its free, just do your best. We'll be happy." So they got a journal article they wanted to submit for publication with grammatically correct English which almost certainly contained numerous material errors of fact. It was a tremendous waste of the time and professional reputation of everyone involved.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
philcrissman 16y ago
So true. When you work for cheap, the client can still reasonably justify asking for all sorts of changes (after all, they are _paying_ you), without considering that by giving them a discount you are already essentially doing some of the work for free. If you want to help out a friend/non-profit and actually have the time to do it, "free" is usually a better option. That said, you still need to keep the scope of what you intend to do for "free" ironclad, otherwise it will probably creep out of control just like any other project.