How To Deal With Clients: On A Budget

Even when you start a business on a small scale, you still need to do everything in a professional manner. I’ve noticed that no-one understands this better than religious organizations. They have amazing websites. Really good graphic designs, standards compliant, something I didn’t expect at first, but makes complete sense now that I think about it. They are trying to embrace new technologies to get their message across.

I have seen situations where someone comes up with a number, then doubles or even triples it randomly to pad the rate for unforeseen circumstances. - Jeff Knooren

Most people just don’t understand that a website is YOUR way to get a message across. Ignoring really crucial details when they embarking on a new business, is obviously a disaterous mistake. The root cause, seems to be they wish to keep the costs low. If you plan everything in an orderly manner, shoestring budgets are the set up of your small business.

The Budget Client

Every client is on a budget, but some clients just seem that much tighter than the others. The budget client can be the result of doing a friend or relative a favor, or equally just a regular client who never has any cash.

The Good News:
Budget clients are happy when the work you do comes under budget. Though unfortunately this isn’t always the case because they don’t have much room to play with.

The Bad News:
It’s almost a given that any work you do for a budget client, will not be good enough to even mention that you worked on it. This makes them bad for business.

What to do:
Make sure your budget client realizes their projects are not first priority. Extra changes or revisions probably won’t be done, because it simply doesn’t make good business sense to work for the price they’re paying. Of course, this will probably make them aggressive, accept that they aren’t worth it and let them go. If you’re going to work cheap, at least work for non-profit organizations like churches.