Why do I FREAKING bother.

[Fufu]

People even complain/whine about free services... good example here

 

[MGSteve]

That sounds like a nice, even generous approach.

Like I said, it really depends on the client. I'd rather have a happy client than one that thinks I've ripped him/her off. Obviously up to a point, I wouldn't exactly roll over and have my tummy tickled.

But I agree on the contract point - especially on the contract I've just taken on, its around 110 days work and will be using XenForo as a key piece of the website (shared logins etc..), which will be quite fun.

The specification for the website alone runs to over 70 pages!

And yes, there is a change procedure in place, what's in the specification is what's being done, anything extra and its down to me whether I charge for it or not! Obviously 5 min changes are fine, 2 day re-writes are not!

 

[CTXMedia]

Like I said, it really depends on the client. I'd rather have a happy client than one that thinks I've ripped him/her off. Obviously up to a point, I wouldn't exactly roll over and have my tummy tickled.

Exactly that attitude helped me keep all my clients for 10 years. They were very disappointed when I shut it down, but I made sure they all found good homes for their sites ...

70 pages of specs. though ... never took anything like that on. Good luck with it all !!!

Oh, and Slavik, good attitude - make something positive out of it by updating your contract ... good thinking.

Cheers,
Shaun

 

[Dominion]

And yes, there is a change procedure in place, what's in the specification is what's being done, anything extra and its down to me whether I charge for it or not! Obviously 5 min changes are fine, 2 day re-writes are not!

Ah, that's a very good point. I also told translation clients first thing that any major additions or changes to a job were subject to additional billing at my discretion, cancellation of work already completed would be billed regardless, and cancellation of work not yet completed would be subject to a penalty fee at my discretion (since I'd probably cleared my schedule for them).

I didn't do written contracts (except for a few extremely large jobs) because Japanese firms don't tend to use them much. But if you can get a signature on paper, I'd recommend it. Once I failed to get a contract on a very large job, and regretted it: the person with whom I'd exchanged a verbal agreement left the company in question before the job was done, and they claimed they had no record of his agreement with me. A likely story!

If a contract isn't practical, you can still assert the terms of your agreement by sending the client a detailed estimate for the work you'll be doing. Better still if the estimate has some small print listing the conditions that apply in case of change or cancellation, etc. Get them to send an email confirming that they received the estimate and have no issue with the numbers, and that may be almost as good as a contract. (Don't quote me on that, though, I'm no lawyer.)

 

[User]

Sounds like you need to watch this:

Leave it to a member of a well established ethnic community to get a room full of people to pay him for common sense advice.

 

[Forsaken]

Leave it to a member of a well established ethnic community to get a room full of people to pay him for common sense advice.

Sadly, most people don't bother with anything he covered.