[thelist] Client contact - design presentation

lists lists at semioticpixels.com
Mon May 24 13:53:00 CDT 2004


Hi Tim,
Essentially, anything that costs you time and money should cost a client
time and money.

I had a similar problem once. Meetings with a particular client were turning
into 5 hour consultation marathons, I wasn't charging for meeting time
(silly me), and the meeting would end with the client saying "they'd get
back to me with decision" (which they wouldn't until the next 5 hour
consultative marathon). 

After a few of those, I told them that I felt 2 hours was a reasonable
amount of time to do what we needed to do and time over would be charged as
consultation time. Future meetings were done under 2 hours after that.
Since that project, I try to keep my meetings to 1 hour - it's plenty of
time for a small group of people who are fully prepared, with a prepared
agenda to make decisions.... and I don't charge for the 1/2 hour of
obligatory small talk.  

Re: design comps - I send out all meeting materials a few days in advance so
they have time to review and print out any comps to be initialed. I don't
know what to tell you about people who won't look at it until they meet with
you other than - your expense should be their expense. As a knowledge
worker, your time is your expense.

After the 5 hour meeting project was completed, I modified my bidding
process to include meetings and print costs in my project management
estimate.  Some potential clients accept that and some don't. My take on it
is that if a business doesn't want to commit up front to paying for my
time/expense doing the work, I'll probably have trouble collecting from them
after I've already done the work. 

hth
-chris
http://www.semioticpixels.com





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