4M

Recently a client fired us. Normally for a small web design firm you might expect this to be unexpected or unwelcome news. We were … less than devastated. Why?

Well, there is a continuum on the client scale. They go from angels, who give you content on time, respect your expertise, make quick firm decisions, cheerfully pay on time, refer their friends etc … to demons who end up costing you time, money, energy and emotion.

The thing is, we knew before we signed up with this particular client that they leaned towards the demanding end. They had a reputation far and wide. We knew they were infamous for niggling over price and trying to squeeze more and more from contractors. We knew they were micro-managers. But we took them on, misgivings and all.

What happened?

They niggled us over price. They tried to squeeze blood out of our tiny turnip. They micro-managed at every turn. They insisted on designing by committee. We jumped through every hoop we could find trying to please them. We did far above and beyond what we normally do for clients, which is far above and beyond what MOST web designs do. We twisted ourselves into knots trying to assume a shape that would please them. We worked out the number of un-charged hours we had spent on all these ridiculous gymnastics and realized they were paying us slightly less than minimum wage.

Surprise! We were happy to see them go and try to find another contractor who would deliver the results they wanted on the miniscule budget they had set aside; who was willing to sit through innumerable meetings with their entire staff including the janitor to nitpick design and architecture issues; who was willing to review the 30 competitor websites in harrowing detail and copy exactly everything from each one of them; etc. etc. ad nauseam.

We don’t blame them for being who they are. It’s our fault. We just should have trusted our instincts in the first place. And next time, we will.

Excuse me while I go kick my heels in glee a couple times at being released from this subhuman bondage …

Oh, and if you think I’m crazy, … well, you might be right, but This dude agrees with me.
He says:

… they wanted a very complex and time consuming project completed very quickly for very little money. Can you say Red Flag?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Project Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.