Dealing with your clients

I’d like to discuss how to properly deal with your clients, setting expectations and holding everyone accountable.

Defining the Rolls and Creating Goals

During your initial meeting with the client, after they’ve agreed to hire you, you need to define everyone’s role in the project. You should create a spreadsheet with deliverables, and assign a person and date to each item. For example, if it’s copy for their website you’ll want to assign that to the client, and a date for delivery. Stress the need to stay on schedule, and that the client makes it a top priority. Educate the client on the project, your methodology, goals and deadlines. Make sure everyone is one the same page before you start. Make sure that any deliverables that are needed to begin the project are met before you even think about starting the project. Don’t just give them a completion date – Create milestones and expectations. Wouldn’t it be better if the client decided to start the project over at the first milestone, rather than the completion date?

Documenting

Document everything. Follow up your phone calls with emails that summarize the phone call. Store all your emails and documents related to the project. Without getting in too much detail, remember to stay organized. Create a consistent file/folder/directory structure for all your projects, both soft and hard documents.

Getting Paid

If you haven’t already, you need to form a payment structure and stick with it. For example, a common payment structure in web development is 50% due to begin the project, 50% due on completion. There are various other methods, such as charging all up front if it’s less than $2,000 for example, or setting up a custom payment schedule for projects over $10,000 – depending on the client and or project. Make sure you don’t waiver on this, even for the smallest of projects. You might also consider giving a discount to payments received on time or early, and penalties for payments received late.

Summary

• Create goals and milestones
• Assign deliverables to everyone with deadlines
• Educate your client
• Document all contact between you and the client, follow up a phone call with an email
• Create a consistent file structure
• Create a consistent payment schedule
• Give discounts for early payments, penalties for late payments