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Interesting story. I think you're saying it's a bad thing to treat our estimates as commitments though. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think you need to

by rapind 16y ago

Interesting story. I think you're saying it's a bad thing to treat our estimates as commitments though. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think you need to commit and just accept the fact that you won't always be accurate, but that over time you will become more accurate. Most consulting companies pad their estimates to cover this risk, but I think it's better just to bill out as high as you can. Billing out higher but still committing has a couple of advantages. 1) You eliminate the cheap customers who would've cost you money and are generally a pain to deal with. 2) You're client has peace of mind since you're committed to finishing what you started. 3) Your client will generally respect you more because it seems as though you're time is worth more (even if others padding an estimate with hours works out to the same final amount).

sophacles 16y ago
Why not just provide a reasonable estimate, with a "price assuming this goes as expected", what can go wrong and a price for fixing the various common issues encountered along the way, and a worst case scenario price?
- rapind 16y ago
  Well I never said your estimate shouldn't be reasonable. I think you should always be reasonable and honest with people, but that's just my view. However, in my experience, if you tell a client "This will cost you anywhere between 50k and 60k depending on what goes wrong" they will immediately assume they're paying you 60K since it's pretty easy to justify that extra 10k given your language. Regardless of whether your intentions are gold. If it happens to work for you though, then go with it ;) This is why it's hard to get a real budget out of a new client. They assume (and often rightly so) that you're knowledge of their budget dictates your quote.
  - ashleymoran 16y ago
    Thanks for the replies both. Yes, this is one of the issues I have found: honesty over the risk in a project can make you look more expensive if you don't explain it carefully. This is especially true in a young relationship, when the client has not yet build up trust in the supplier. Fortunately, I have found once clients are used to regular progress, they're more accepting of variation, and willing to accept estimates based on real statistics.

by rapind 16y ago

sophacles 16y ago

Why not just provide a reasonable estimate, with a "price assuming this goes as expected", what can go wrong and a price for fixing the various common issues encountered along the way, and a worst case scenario price?

rapind 16y ago
Well I never said your estimate shouldn't be reasonable. I think you should always be reasonable and honest with people, but that's just my view. However, in my experience, if you tell a client "This will cost you anywhere between 50k and 60k depending on what goes wrong" they will immediately assume they're paying you 60K since it's pretty easy to justify that extra 10k given your language. Regardless of whether your intentions are gold. If it happens to work for you though, then go with it ;) This is why it's hard to get a real budget out of a new client. They assume (and often rightly so) that you're knowledge of their budget dictates your quote.
- ashleymoran 16y ago
  Thanks for the replies both. Yes, this is one of the issues I have found: honesty over the risk in a project can make you look more expensive if you don't explain it carefully. This is especially true in a young relationship, when the client has not yet build up trust in the supplier. Fortunately, I have found once clients are used to regular progress, they're more accepting of variation, and willing to accept estimates based on real statistics.