If you’ve been following my series on Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients and you took my advice about having a preliminary conversation with a prospect before rushing off to meet with him, then you’ll soon find out (if you haven’t already) that not every so-called “prospect” actually is one.

“Prospect” is a misnomer. We use the word too freely, as if everyone with a pulse who asks about our services qualifies as one. The proper word ought to be “suspect.” It’s only after you’ve had a chance to question your suspect that can you determine if he’s really a prospect or not.

It’s disappointing when someone you hoped was a prospect isn’t really one. But it’s important that you realize it sooner rather than later; otherwise, you’ll continue to try and force him into your sales process, only to frustrate yourself even further. As the old sales axiom goes, if you’re going to lose, lose early.

But all is not lost—if you recognize what’s happening and switch from selling back to marketing, that is. Here’s where Plan B comes in.

I define “marketing” as everything you do to find and be found by your potential clients. But it’s also about staying found. Just because this hot prospect didn’t turn out to be one doesn’t mean he won’t down the road. Perhaps he’s not far enough along in the buying cycle. Even if he or she never becomes a client, they may become a source for a referral. But first you must give before you get.

Here’s a thought: if you’d like someone to give you a referral, how about you send them one first? After all, if you’re speaking to a lot of people, trying to sell your services, you’re bound to meet people who need the products and service of your existing and future clients.

Plan B is simply a way to stay top-of-mind with anyone you’ve had the opportunity to meet in the course of prospecting for business.

Here’s what I mean. I once met with a photographer about a website. But it turned out that he really didn’t want a one because he couldn’t handle any more business. It wasn’t that he had so much of it. He just wasn’t very good at managing and organizing what business he did have. A couple other people at the chamber meeting where we’d met mentioned that he takes a long time to deliver the photos, once he took them. What he really needed was an assistant. Do you think it was in my best interest to help him find one?

You see, having a Plan B isn’t just referring those who don’t buy to your blog or Facebook page. It’s anything you can do to help them overcome the business obstacles they’re facing. And, believe me, if they’re in business, they’ll have a few of them. It’s nurturing those relationships that’s going to gain you future business, more so than asking them to follow you on Twitter.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not down on social media. It’s a great way to stay connected to people. It’s just that it’s extremely difficult to cut through the clutter. If your potential prospect is active on social media, the signal-to-noise ratio is a challenge. How do you get your Tweets and posts to stand out? Business owners and decision-makers are busy people who are busy running their company. Just because you send them a link to your latest blog post doesn’t mean they’ll read it. What’s your inbox look like? Mine’s pretty full. I subscribe to newsletters all the time and most never get read.

Here’s something from my playbook. Feel free to steal it or write me off as an idiot. Mail a printed newsletter. That’s what I did eight years ago when WordPress wasn’t WordPress yet and blogs hadn’t become mainstream. So I had an ’Articles’ section on my website. How quaint.

But I wanted people to actually read what I’d written and email marketing had reached critical mass. So I mailed a one-page, double-sided newsletter each quarter. Most of the information was a condensed version of a larger article on my website, which I invited them to visit.

Even though I did that eight years ago, I’d do the same today. Even if it didn’t get read, it’s a tactile reminder of who I am. After all, they have to touch it to throw it in the trash.

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This is the 11th and final installment of my series, Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients. I hope I’ve made it clear that the solution is not to continually complain and blame clients if they treat you badly, but to take responsibility and make the appropriate changes to your business practices.

An important “best practice” for your business is to have a system for selling your services and managing the sales process. When I first started out, I didn’t realize I needed a process, one with a beginning, middle, and end. Not having one meant I typically started off badly, fumbled around in the middle, and didn’t really know when (or if) it really ended. By not knowing how to close (end) the process by asking for the sale, I allowed it to fade into “maybeland,” which is the worst place to be when your income depends on whether you sell or not.

Having a clearly-defined process allows you to build in checks and balances, to define and manage client expectations. Not having one means clients can walk all over you—either unintentional or deliberately—and you wind up feeling abused. So here in a nutshell is the process I followed for many years … once I figured out I needed one, that is.

Preliminary Consultation

When I make contact with a potential client, the first step is to determine how viable of a prospect he or she really is. Rather than immediately scheduling a meeting, I’m going to have a preliminary phone call to determine two things:

1. Are they truly serious about the project?
2. Can they afford to pay for a top-end site like I’m going to provide, or are they just looking for the cheapest option available?

If you’ve read my 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling, then you already know some questions to ask. I want to learn a little bit about the company and his business goals and objectives. At some point in the conversation, I’m going to ask some variation of this question:

“My prices start at $X,XXX. Were you prepared to spend that?” Unless I get a positive response, I’m not hurrying out to meet with him any time soon.

It’s tempting to skip this crucial first step, or to avoid asking the hard questions and just set up a meeting. But if you want to stop wasting time with prospects who aren’t serious, I highly recommend you don’t.

Preparation

If the initial conversation warrants a meeting, I’m going to do some research in order to be able to ask some intelligent questions. I want to walk in knowing as much as I can about the company, its owners, and their business model. In this day and age, there’s no excuse for ignorant questions like, “What exactly is it you do here?”

Needs Analysis

The heart of consultative selling is asking questions and actually listening to the answer (as opposed to thinking about what you’re going to say next). My 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling are very direct and to-the-point, and it takes a bit of courage to bring yourself to ask them … especially the first time.

It helps if you don’t get down to business right away. Think of it like this: the questions you ask should go from general to specific. At some point you’re going to ask some quasi-confidential questions, like how much would he like to increase revenue. But a more appropriate question to begin with might be, “How did you get started in this industry?”

Before you jump into the deep end, you need to break the ice. I’ve heard it said that prospects who want to get straight down to business really want to get straight down to “How much is this going to cost me?”

Recommendation

At some point, you’ll need to turn the information-gathering conversation into a diagnosis. Once you feel you sufficiently understand the prospect’s business goal, needs, and objectives, you can begin to offer suggestions and solutions.

The trick is to avoid giving away too much free information. You do that by discussing the WHY, agreeing upon the WHAT, and ignoring the HOW. Forget about the technical stuff you love talking about. To get the prospect’s commitment to do business with you, you only need to establish and agree upon two things you:

1. What he’s trying to accomplish, his “big picture” objective
2. That you’re the one to help him accomplish it

Engagement

There comes a point when it’s time to close the deal and ask for the engagement. There are many ways to do this, but I always liked to ask a simple question: “Are you ready to move forward?” (You do this after you’ve discussed all there is to discus and recapped the entire conversation, asking if there’s anything that needs to be added.)

If your prospect says, “yes,” he’d like to move forward, you need to establish the next step. For a lot years, that meant spending several hours preparing a detailed proposal—that is, until I learned how to stop writing proposals to win business.

If you establish and agree upon items #1 and #2 above, then you ought to be able to obtain the prospect’s verbal agreement, conditional on price, without ever writing a proposal. Once you do, it’s a simple thing to prepare a cost estimate without turning it into a comprehensive project plan. Whether I did that on the spot or went back to the office depended on the size and complexity of the project. Once I had a price, I got back in touch to get his agreement.

Finalize

Now it’s time to finalize the agreement. If the prospect has agreed to the price, you return to his place of business with your final, written document in hand (based on everything discussed during the Needs Analysis and Recommendation steps), then sit down with him and go over every clause in detail. To prevent future problems like waiting to get paid when your client delays, making endless design changes, or avoiding the slippery slope of scope creep, you must stop getting walked on and set some boundaries. That’s exactly what you’re doing here, by managing expectation up-front, in a face-to-face conversation, instead of after the fact.

The Final Word

There are many ways to skin this cat; this just happens to be the way I skin it. You may develop a process that’s similar or completely different. Steal mine, borrow from it, or make up your own. But come up with one that works for you, then refine it until you get it right. It will do wonders for your business and will put an end to abusive clients, misunderstandings, and mismanaged expectations and once and for all.

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This is part 11 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes

In my series on Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients, I’ve talked a lot from the seller’s perspective. But before I put the final wraps on the series, I’m going to take a slight detour to discuss things from the buyer’s side of the fence. Let’s talk about how to get hired.

Over the past few days, I’ve had to post two different job opportunities; one for a full-time sales rep, and the other for some contract web work. The responses I’ve gotten have been interesting, to say the least.

One of the things I deliberately do is include both an email and my direct phone number as contact points. Which you chose may very well mean the difference between getting hired and getting ignored.

Within minutes of posting the ad for the contract position, I received a phone call. Shortly afterwards, I received a second call from another firm. Both took the time to find out my objectives and what I’m trying to accomplish before talking up their firm.

The rest sent an email with some variation of “check out my website“ and “call me back.”

Who do you suppose I’m considering?

Hiding behind Web 2.0

Recently, my son’s scoutmaster left a voice mail message about an upcoming Eagle ceremony for one of the other boys in his troop, and that his attendance was “mandatory.” The only problem was, all he gave us was the name of the church where the ceremony was being held … no address, no city, nada.

After a Google search turned up just one church with that name several cities over, I asked my son to confirm if this was indeed the right church. So on the day of the ceremony, he made phone calls and left voice mail messages, trying to find out. No one, not the scoutmaster, his patrol leader nor any of the other boys in his troop responded. Finally, out of desperation, he posted the question on Facebook.

Within 15 minutes, three boys replied. I fear this does not bode well for the future of our youth.

Too often, we use Web 2.0 tools to avoid direct interaction. For instance, it’s easy to hide behind marketing to avoid selling. Don’t fall into that trap. When I give you the choice, pick up the phone and call me.

Why would I say that? Two reasons. One: I’m really, really busy. When you call me, you get first-mover advantage, because you’ve taken a task off my all-too-busy plate—the need to follow up on all the emails responses I received. I really don’t have time to “check out your website,” and then “give you a call.” Besides, your website probably contains the same generic fluff as everyone else’s. How about you demonstrate why you’re different and why I ought to hire you? You can do that by picking up the phone and having an actual conversation with me.

Reason Number Two is: it shows me you have initiative as well as people skills. You see, if I really have a need, I’m going to want to talk with you to determine if you are someone who can fill that need. If I’m the one hiding behind web 2.0 tools, asking you to communicate with me via email or Facebook, I may not be a genuine prospect at all. I might be someone who’s merely “interested,” or not far enough along in the buying cycle to waste valuable time with. But if I’ve offered my phone number, than means I’d like to speak with a living, breathing person. That person could be you.

Here’s another tip: When I ask you to follow up if you haven’t heard back from me by such-and-such date, that might be a test. Calling me back shows me you want the gig.

What I didn’t mention is that there was a third firm that called; but he got the short straw—my voice mail—and never called back. If you have a genuine lead, keep pursuing it, even if they aren’t returning your calls. If you saw my desk, you’d know why I didn’t call you back.

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Last week, I talked about the slippery slope of scope creep, which can begin with something as insidious the client making last-minute changes to your already approved design.

When a client has second thoughts about your design that far down the production road, chances are they were never fully-satisfied in the first place. Or perhaps some mysterious third party has suggested a different layout, color scheme, or functionality not originally discussed.

The trick to limiting the amount of changes is to nail the initial design as closely as possible to the client’s vision. That means you’ll need to ask questions. Lots of questions.

The first question I always asked was, “Do you have a particular design or layout in mind?” If a client had a pre-conceived notion of how they wanted the site to look, I wanted to know beforehand. Whether they did or not, I asked for examples of other sites they like and why they liked them. If they had an existing site, I asked what they liked and disliked about it.

The next thing I asked was about their competitors’ sites—which they liked, which they didn’t, and why.

One technique that helped was to ask the client to list a number of adjectives describing the look and feel they wanted for the new site, such as “corporate,” “conservative,” “artsy,” or “elegant.” Then I listed about 100 different words and asked the client to circle the ones that best described their company.

I hear a lot of designers complain about “not being a mind-reader” when they don’t come up with what the client had in mind. But you don’t have to be clairvoyant; just ask the right questions.

Only once did I create a design that was completely different from what the client wanted. She expected “artsy,” and I gave her “corporate.” But it was my fault; I wasn’t thorough enough with my design brief questions.

Now comes the time to present your mockup to the client. Assuming you nailed the design, any changes should be minor. It’s fine if the client wants his logo “3 pixels to the left,” but how many times will you allow that?

If you read my 27.5 Must-Ask Question for Consultative Selling, then you know it’s important that you identify all the decision-makers and ask the right questions. Well, now you’re going to repeat that process to “close the deal” on the design of the site. Just like you gained agreement about doing business together, now’s the time to go back and forth until you gain agreement on the design.

And you thought the “selling” portion of this project was over.

Regardless of whether you allow two or twenty design changes, make sure your client knows your limit long before this stage of the process. Regardless of what number you choose, setting a limit doesn’t mean you have to strictly enforce it. We all want our client to be pleased; setting limits lets you rein in those who never seem to be.

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This is part 10 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

Last week I suggested you treat your clients like children. Studies have shown that children are happier and feel more secure when they know what their boundaries are and what’s expected of them. Your clients will too.

scope creep /skōp krēp/ noun

1. changes in a project’s scope after the work has started
2. a creep of a client who keeps asking for free changes

Scope creep often starts out as small and seemingly insignificant changes or additions to an already approved design or feature. Sometimes, the changes become so numerous that the project becomes a former shadow of what it was originally intended to be. If you’ve never read Matthew Inman’s comic, How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell, take a few moments to have a good laugh (or cry), and we’ll continue.

In a perfect world, clients would approve your first design without asking their mother’s opinion of it, never request a single revision during the course of the development, and send you an expensive gift basket when the project’s finished. They would never ask you to keep adjusting the size of the header graphic until it became so gargantuan and ugly that you considered putting your worse competitor’s name in the footer instead of your own. Nor would they request you make all their product shots into animated gifs, or that you “fill up all the empty spaces” on the site (whatever that means).

If only we’d all listened to Wikipedia, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess:

This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled.

That’s what I’ve been trying to convey throughout this entire Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients series, except I’ve added one more step, so the process look like this: define, document, discuss, and control. Here are some things to define.

What’s Included; What’s Not

Make sure your client knows exactly what is and isn’t included. Are you providing SEO services? If not, be sure the client understands that you are not guaranteeing he rank well in the search engines. Otherwise be prepared to have that awkward “I’m not on the first page of Google” conversation a week after you’ve launched the site.

What about copy writing, site updating, technical support, and training? How about copyrights—that is, who owns the website once it’s done? Remember, what seems like an unreasonable expectation to you and me may seem perfectly reasonable to the client. Just as children don’t fully understand the world around them, neither does your client fully understand the world of web design and development. Help them do so, by setting clearly-defined boundaries and expectations.

Eleventh-Hour Design or Programming Changes

An all-too-common scenario is a client who approves your mock-up, then wants changes after you’ve built the site.

If you fail to manage this expectation up-front, you become the “bad guy” when your client demands to know why you won’t comply with his request. You’ll find yourself explaining how the process of converting a Photoshop design mockup into a working “HTML” site means starting from scratch—none of which will he understand or even care (nor should he have to). All he’ll understand is that you’re being unreasonable.

The simple, two-part solution is to first break the project down into phases and require a sign-off for each, like so:

1. Design Phase
2. HTML Coding Phase
3. Programming Phase

Then, discuss the Photoshop-to-HTML conversion problem before the project begins, not when he wants after-the-fact changes:

Mr. Soon-to-be-Client, let me explain how the development process works. It’s broken down into three phases: a Design phase, a Coding phase, and a Programming phase.

Due to the nature of web development, it becomes very difficult to make changes to a previous phase once the project’s moved into the next one. For example, once you’ve approved the design I’ll create, it’s very difficult to make changes once I’ve began the coding portion. It’s almost like starting the project from scratch. Does that make sense?

So here’s how it works. I create an initial design. We’ll go through three round of revisions. That should be more than enough to nail down what you want. Once you approve that design, I can’t go back and change it, unless you’re willing to pay for the extra time involved. The same applies to each phase.

This gives you the opportunity be the hero instead of the bad guy. Let’s say the client does ask for some after-the-fact changes, and agrees to pay for them. You get to decide whether or not you’ll charge him. When the project’s over and you’ve been paid in full, you decide that the changes you made were insignificant, so you send him a refund check in the mail. Remember that expensive gift basket you wanted? Well, guess what you’re getting next Christmas.

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This is part 9 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

As the father of two boys, I’m continually amazed and confounded by the difference in their personalities. My oldest tends to go with the flow, but my youngest always feels the need to push the boundaries. One day, he’ll grow up and become your client.

How are you going to handle him, when he does? As parent, it’s my job to define the boundaries and let them play within them. Your job, as a web consultant, is not so different.

Am I suggesting you treat your clients like children? To a certain degree, yes. Children do not have a complete understanding of the world around them. When left to their own devices, they tend to make foolish choices. Likewise, when a client steps into the world of web design and development, they have an incomplete picture of how that world works and may have unrealistic expectations. Bill Cosby once said that with 200 active two-year-olds, he could conquer the world. A single over-active client can overrun yours. It’s time to set some boundaries.

Don’t Assume Your Client will Read the Contract

Boundaries and expectations live or die by a written contact. Don’t assume the client will read yours.

Signing the contract without reading it? Seriously! You are legally obligating yourself to my terms here. Make sure you understand them. It’s great that you trust me, but we’re still going to have an awkward conversation when you do something not allowed by the agreement.

- Michelle Gower, author of How to Fire a Client

You can avoid “that awkward conversation” by sitting down with the prospect, face-to-face if possible, and discussing each point of the contract before he signs.

It’s not as nerve-racking as it sounds. Let’s take the issue of getting paid even though your client delays sending you content. You accomplish that by setting up a payment schedule, rather than attaching payments to production milestones. Here’s how to have that conversation with your client.

First, discuss the project timetable and let the client see that the projected completion time is 60 days (or whatever time frame you’ve agreed upon). From here, it’s easy to transition into the reasons why a project can get behind schedule:

Mr. Prospect, one of the problems I often encounter is busy clients who end up delaying completion of their site because they take too long to send me written copy and images. It’s usually not intentional, but I end up waiting weeks or even months to get paid when that happens.

To prevent it, my contract stipulates that final payment is due in 60 days. That means, if you don’t send me the content I need by then, and your site’s not finished because of it, you’re still agreeing to pay me. Did I explain that clearly?

Each and every aspect of a site design has the potential to be miscommunicated, misunderstood, or assumed by your client. Here’s an example of a client who assumed that something I left undiscussed was included: setting up all the domain email accounts on his office computers. He didn’t know how and, after all, I registered the domain for him. (What a pain; I hate doing that stuff, especially when I get stuck doing it for free.)

But where some see problems, others see opportunity. From that point forward, I asked each client whether or not they could handle this internally. For those who needed help, I sub-contracted to my cousin’s networking business (marking up his fee slightly). After that, he got to keep them as a client, if they needed more work.

And, as an aside, when I started asking the same question about copy writing, I found that clients would pay extra to have me provide this service.

Consider some of the “abusive” behavior we’ve discussed throughout this series: scope creep, endless design revisions or technical support, clients deliberately stalling to delay payment, client site modifications after-the-fact. What parameters can you set to minimize or prevent these, while still providing the client with enough latitude to accomplish what he wants? Draft a policy for each and write down what you will say to the client. Sitting down and explaining each of these points has never been anything but a positive experience. I’ve found that the other person appreciates this and understands completely. Besides, you just saved him or her 45 minutes of reading and translating your legalese gobbledygook.

In my next (and possibly final) installment of this series, I’ll discuss some of these behaviors and give you suggestions on how to address each one.

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This is part 8 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

In January of this year, I traveled to our New York sales office to conduct a week-long sales training session. Mid-week, one of the newly-hired reps made a follow-up call to a client she’d sold adverting to the week before, reminding him to send the ad content.

Not only did her client eagerly email his logo and photos, he also sent her a text message, letting her know he’d done so, because he knew she was out of the office all week.

Is that a common scenario for you, clients enthusiastically sending content in a timely manner? I didn’t think so. Her off-handed comment after she’d read his text message was: “I train my clients.”

The advantage to newspaper or Yellow Page adverting is that there’s a deadline. Clients know if they delay, they risking missing the publication date. With the Internet, no such urgency exists. But you can create a sense of urgency by implementing Action Step #5.

Action Step #5: Stop Attaching Payments to Production Milestones

What this Solves:

Waiting to get paid because of client delays

Our industry has fallen into the trap of attaching payment schedules to production milestones. I once waited seven months to get paid for a site that was 95 percent complete, sans content—all because I didn’t require a deposit and foolishly stipulated “payment upon completion.” It took some time to figure out a better way, but once I gained some experience, I knew I could produce a custom site within 60 days, tops. So here’s what I did.

First, whatever document my client signed (i.e., contact, proposal) included a project time table:

• Apr 1: Client provides all content
• Apr 10: Developer presents site mockup for client review
• Apr 10-30: Client reviews design, requests changes; developer submits revised mockups
• May 1: Client approves final design
• May 15: Designer presents working site for client review
• May 15-30: Client reviews site, requests changes; developer makes revisions
• Jun 1: Client approves site

Next, I structured by payment schedule like so: one third up-front, one third in 30 days, and final payment in 60 days. If all goes well, you’ll notice that the client will be approving the final design approximately the same time payment #2 is due; but, again, it’s not a milestone. Dragging his feet on approving the mockup doesn’t mean he gets to drag his feet sending me a check.

Perhaps the client still hasn’t sent the content; but I used stock photography to create a design, so I’m still good. I’ll use the 30-day payment benchmark to remind him I’ll need content very soon.

At the 60-day final payment benchmark, if I’m the one who’s behind schedule, I can choose not to invoice him just yet. But if the site’s incomplete due to his inaction, he’s getting a bill.

Most clients delay because they’re busy, but some delay intentionally. One developer had a client who purposely delayed final payment by taking weeks to review the site. Another had a client who refused to pay the full amount upon completion to insure the developer would provide technical support. If you’ve not been paid a dime at this point, you’re in a poor position to demand payment, because you risk losing it all. If, however, you used my three-step payment method, you already have two-thirds of your money. If things go south at this point, you have a lot less to lose.

Remember my story of how I waited months to be paid because one of my first clients took so long to send content? Years later, one of my very best clients asked me why several pages of their site were incomplete. I told her because her predecessor never sent content. She seemed surprised and assured me she’d send something right away. I’m still waiting … but not for my money.

This is part 7 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

I had a client meeting today, though it was a different than usual. I had the distinct privilege to be working with a committee on a web design project. Yes, some of what they say about design by committee is true, but by sitting in on their meeting, I was able to gain some unique insight about how clients approach a design project. It really brought into question how we go about our interactions with clients, and how we the designers are doing it wrong, or at least could be doing it better.

A little background:

I work for a university as a web designer. If you’re not familiar with how the education system work, it’s like any government department, where committees are, more often than not, the way decisions are made, and work gets delegated.

I’m building a website that is going to incorporate a few objects from a dozen or so organizations on campus, and so a dozen people are involved in the process. I meet a person in charge of the project, get the information I need, and got to work. I designed a mockup quickly, there really aren’t a lot of pages, and the website should be somewhat persuasive. I decided to essentially make it a one page site with four sections, each linking to their respective pages. One long main page with a fixed bottom bar for in-page navigation and 4-5 other pages. Pretty simple I thought.

I meet with the same person again and they like the design. Then the committee had their meeting and the response was that they generally liked the design but there was some “confusion.” I didn’t really know what that could be, because the design was so simple, but I agreed to come meet with them and go over some things…

What I Found

The confusion was generally caused by people’s inability to understand the Photoshop mockup. But it went even deeper than that.

If a person has never seen a mockup before, you really shouldn’t expect them to understand all of the assumptions you the designer are making (and there are many). Such as:

• What content are links and where they go
• How the page looks in a wide browser (no there won’t be white space on either side of the design)
• How the content will look when scrolling and in smaller viewports
• Any type of animations or hover states
• Internal vs external vs in-page links

Another problem, which still amazes me in 2012, but many people, especially over the age of 40 have only a very basic understanding of the internet and how to use it. They manage, but in the most clumsy, awkward way imaginable. Most people can’t tell you what browser they use, they press in the “internet button.”

But the biggest one is: What about the design can change and how easy is it to do. Clients, rightly so, have no concept of how a design is made and how hard it is to change something, or how long it will take. So they do one of two things.

Instead of saying what they want changed they say they want you to change the content of an area. Not because it should be changed but because they don’t know what it would take to make the change they really want. Or they come out and say it. How about you move this over here. Which may or may not be better.

The real problem is that the client cannot get past the mockup in front of them. They have never played with interface design and have no idea what is possible. So any changes they try to make are housed in the narrow confines of what is on the screen before them.

And maybe you are thinking, you want it that way. You don’t want clients causing you to start one completely. But the problem is, we as designers aren’t really solving the client’s problems. A website has a purpose aside from bring functional and looking pretty, and the client knows more about that than you do, yet they are forced to use your mockup, to solve that problem. For the client it’s like trying to assemble a complex toy for their kid and the instructions are in a language they cannot read.

A Typical Approach

What do you do when you work with a client? You make them fill out a questionnaire. You sit down with one or two people and try to figure out what they need. Chances are good that you don’t get it quite right but you agree to work together. You probably check out some of the competition, maybe a few other website to see what else is out there.

And then you make the big mistake. You start designing. I do it, we all do it. We have a good meeting. We have some ideas already forming in our minds, so we pop open Photoshop, or a sketchpad, and start working on the mockup.

By doing so we are seriously reducing the chance of creating a successful project. We could make an amazing looking design – the colors, fonts and imagery all look perfect. The layout is functional and easy to navigate, but does it really solve the client’s problems and do you address all of their needs? And not even that, how can you make a mockup without any of their content, or even knowing how much content there needs to be?

In reality, you are letting your client down. You may come up with the best way to organize and display the content you were given in a pleasant looking way, but it may not be the best content, the best implementation of that content and you aren’t spending all of your design time and page real estate address the most important issues the company may be facing.

We are presenting what information we were given in the best way we know how but it isn’t the right information.

Visuals Prevent Clients From Expressing Their Needs

Clients have a hard enough time trying to communicate what they need but put a mockup in front of them and it just became impossible. They have no experience communicating design ideas with anyone and have now forgotten why they wanted the website in the first place. They get stuck on the little details like the size of the logo and background colors.

That website had a definite purpose when you first met with you but from the time the client sees that mockup it just becomes a process of moving pixels back and forth. What happened to that content that was supposed to be so important?

Those Dreaded Last Minute Changes

The worst thing you can hear from a client at the end of a project is “I talked to so-and-so and they feel the main photo area should be at the bottom”. You try to explain that making that change is a bad idea or out of the scope of what was agreed upon in the contract but really if the client understood why you designed it the way you did there wouldn’t be this problem.

The reason clients drop these bombs on you is because you’ve both moved so far away from the problems the website was supposed to address. You laid out the site that best fit with web standards and a way that looks pleasing and functional but the client doesn’t know why one area is above or next to another. The client is happy with how it looks but they realize an important goal isn’t being met but instead of just saying that, they try to explain it to you through the design, and they fail miserably. Causing frustration on both ends.

You’ve based your design choices not off of solving the clients problems but what works best with the content you have. So you defend your design because you did do it the best way possible and the changes the client asks for probably are making it worse. Communicating through the design is causing the project to be less effective than it should be.

How The Process Could Be

We as designers are at fault for the problems that arise late in the design process. We have led clients to believe that the design comes before the content. That the design is somehow separate. When really the entire site should be completed, in writing, before the design ever begins.

Start With A Series of Problems

From your first meeting you should layout the purpose of the website, what problems must it solve? Make a list of everything the client would like to accomplish and what their company’s goals are, then order them from most to least important.

1. We need to launch a new product
2. We aren’t selling as much as we should be online
3. We don’t know our customers
4. Our support team is understaffed and gets the same questions every day
5. Product B should be selling but it isn’t
6. Our reach doesn’t exist outside of X area

What you are doing is finding real problems your design will try to solve, and you are putting it in terms the client understands. You are also making the cost of your services worthwhile. The client isn’t going to the website store and picking out one they like the look of. You are an integral part of the problem solving process, working to increase exposure, sales, brand recognition and profits. Your services have real, definable, value.

Find the Best Way to Solve Each Problem

Don’t think in terms of just a website. A website can do a lot of things but it cannot do everything. Brainstorm solutions to each and every problem. This should be done alone and with the client. See which ones can be done from within the website. Those will be the focus of your design efforts.

If a large website currently exists, a content audit may be in order. Check every piece of information on the website against your list of problems and solutions. If it isn’t mission critical, consider removing it.

I would strongly recommend getting the content written for the website at this point but I know how we designers are. You’ll probably get to work on the mockup. Which is still a better place to be than if you hadn’t spent the time finding the real purpose for the website.

Revealing the Mockup

When it is finally time to show the client the mockup, go over the list of problems again, in person. Show how you went about solving each one with your design. If the client(s) start to talk about the design, try to steer the conversion back to the problems and have them describe their changes in relation to them.

If the client says, “I don’t like the blue background,” explain in regards to the solution to a problem, why you chose blue over green or red. “Your main competitor is green and we felt red wouldn’t resonate with the target market.” If they are not satisfied with the answer have them come up with another solution that doesn’t involve design.

Even when working in a committee, if you can keep the conversation about problems that everyone can understand, you can keep people’s design opinions out of the conversation a little more and focus on issues everyone can talk about. This allows really solutions to be made, or at least gets you looking in the right direction.

Nothing is ever easy but when you don’t define the problems in terms everyone can understand it gets a whole lot harder. Clients have no business worrying about design, they hired you after all. So don’t let them get caught up in what you do best. Find out what they really want and need and you both will be happier in the long run.

Okay, so my title’s a bit of a cliché, but you know how it goes: If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got. Assuming you’ve followed my Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers series from the beginning, you now realize the first step to doing different things to get different results begins when you take full responsibility for how you allow clients to treat you.

Hey, no condemnation; you were naïve and excited about freelancing or starting your own business. I was, too. But that naivety led to some bad decisions. And those decisions developed into habits, and then into a workflow. Waiting weeks and months to get paid because the client never provided content became “standard procedure” for me. Perhaps for you as well.

By now, you’ve learned a better methodology, such as:

1. Disqualify prospects who aren’t serious by having a preliminary fact-finding conversation before you rush off to meet with them
2. Refusing to give away free information by discussing the WHY and the WHAT, but not the HOW
3. Closing business on a verbal agreement, then writing a proposal to finalize it

Action Step #4: How to Quote a Price without Giving away the Farm

Now it comes down to the wire. Your soon-to-be-client had agreed to hire you, conditional on price. But how can you give an accurate price without knowing all of the technical details of the site? After all, you want to be sure you don’t short-change yourself by leaving something out. As web strategist Joel Hughes recently commented to me on Twitter: “a fixed price with a shallow spec is a big problem.”

So, motivated in part by self-protection and the need to “wow” the client, you end up writing a comprehensive project plan. Even if you use hourly billing to avoid becoming entangled in scope creep, you’ll still need some type of project blueprint.

If you are providing a fixed quote, don’t do so unless all aspects of the project are discussed, agreed-upon, and completely documented. That’s a given. Yet, that creates a new set of problems; namely, how do you prevent your prospect from stealing ideas from your incredibly detailed (and incredibly free) project plan? Or worse, handing it off to a cheaper competitor? I once thought this didn’t happen very often, that it was the exception rather than the norm. But after reading many of your comments, sadly, I’m finding it’s not.

That’s why I keep pounding into your head to discuss only the WHY and the WHAT, not the technicalities of HOW. Yet, the client did reveal many of the technical details when he told you WHAT he wanted. You merely didn’t reveal HOW you were going to create it. (And just because you’ve taken copious notes during the entire meeting doesn’t mean you must turn those notes into a document and hand it over to the client.)

Agree First, then Document

Here’s how it works. Suppose my prospect tells me he wants his visitors to be able to search for time-share condominiums based on location, availability, number of rooms, and other such criteria. I’m going to write down everything he says and ask follow-up questions so I can translate that information into geek-speak—meaning, I know that entails a database-driven website, some back-end programming sprinkled with a little JavaScript and CSS, and a user friendly-way to search and filter the results.

I gather just enough data to allow me to work up a price. Later, I can turn that into a written plan … but not until he agrees to the price. So the proper order is: discussed and agreed-upon, then documented and finalized (meaning, he signs it and gives you a check).

But we get into trouble when we arrange it like this: discussed and documented, then agreed-upon and finalized. That’s backwards. Get your agreement before your documentation. Make sense?

Not every project requires detailed documentation. A basic static site can be scoped out in a two-page “executive summary,” but overly-complex sites will require more. In many instances, we found it effective to charge for the project plan—much like one would pay an architect to draw up floor plans for a house. Clients who needed a site this complex understood the architect vs. builder analogy and didn’t have a problem paying for this phase; especially when we made it clear they were free to take our blueprint to another developer. (None did.)

You Closed the Deal; Now What?

You did it! You closed a deal without having to write the equivalent of War and Peace to do so. The hard part’s over … or so you think. If your contract isn’t air-tight—dare I say bulletproof—you’ll find yourself rowing a sinking ship you’ll soon wish to abandon. We don’t want that to happen so, starting next week, we’ll make sure you’ve crossed all your I’s and dotted all your T’s.

Next week: Get Paid! Even when Your Client Keeps Delaying (also known as Action Step #5)

Questions? Comments? Fire away!

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This is part 6 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

In the last article, I showed you how to stop giving away too much free information, by selling your prospect on the concept of WHY—and leaving the HOW until after he agrees to become a client. If you’ve been following along with my series, then you may have noticed that each “action step” is actually a progression from one step of the sales process to the next.

Having a clearly-defined sales process is the difference between making things happen and wondering, “what happened?” If you don’t have a deliberate process that you’ve consciously thought out, let me assure you that you still have one … except your prospect’s the one in control of it, not you. It probably goes something like this:

1. You define a “lead” as anyone with a pulse who inquires about a website; and you’ll gladly drive clear across town to meet with such a person.
2. You attempt to build trust and demonstrate your expertise by offering ideas and suggestions. If they seem genuinely interested, you offer to prepare a proposal. Sometimes, the proposal ends up being a full-blown comprehensive project plan. (After all, how can you quote an accurate price without knowing each and every minute detail about the project and its scope?)
3. You deliver your masterpiece to the prospect and wait. And wait some more. Oftentimes, you never hear back, and that once “hot prospect” seems to have disappeared through a tear in the space-time continuum. (Yes, I read too much sci-fi.)
4. You convince yourself this is “standard procedure,” but in reality, you’d do anything to avoid asking for the sale—especially if it means looking directly into the prospect’s eyes and quoting a price. Instead, you hope your proposal will do the selling for you, and you bury the cost on the bottom of page nine.
5. If the prospect does decide to hire you, you rush off to write up yet another document—a contract—to finalize the sale … praying he won’t change his mind in the meantime. When you do get the signed contract back, you can only hope he actually read it and that something in it won’t bite you in the butt a month from now.
6. By the time this is over, you’re exhausted (and you haven’t even begun the actual project). You wonder how you got into this, when all you wanted to do was build websites.

In two previous articles, Don’t Just “Propose” … Sell! and Proposals are for Wimps, I called this the “prepare a proposal and hope” method of gaining new business. If this sounds all-too-familiar and you’re ready for a change, then fear not. The key to turning this around is Action Step #3.

Action Step #3: Ask for the Sale Instead of Offering a Proposal

What this Solves:

Preparing endless proposals and never hearing back

Believe it or not, it’s entirely possible to close the deal on a verbal agreement, and then write a proposal to finalize that agreement. I know because I’ve done it, more than once. And in every case, the client was more than happy to do it my way.

At the risk of tastelessly quoting myself, here’s what I said in Proposals are for Wimps:

Closing the deal is when the client agrees to hire you. Finalizing the sale is when the client actually signs on the dotted line and gives you a check. What most of us do is write a detailed proposal in hopes that the client, once he reads it, will agree to hire us and we’ll have closed the deal.

The simple solution is to turn that on its head. Ask for the sale first.

You see, there comes a point in every meeting where you’ve learned enough about the client, the project’s scope, and his objectives, and he’s learned enough about you and your capabilities to decide whether you are moving forward or not. I came to realize that, when this happened, I would be the one who suggested a proposal, not the prospect. So I simply stopped offering and started asking.

I’ll let you read the other articles for the details, but I know you’re just dying to ask: “How can I get a prospect to agree to hire me if he doesn’t know the price? And how can I quote a price without some type of detailed proposal?” It’s a classic Catch-22.

If you followed my advice in Action Step #2, then you sold the prospect on the basis of WHY: why he wants a website and why he should hire you. In case you missed it, let me recap. You can get a prospect’s verbal commitment to do business with you if the two of you establish and agree upon the following:

1. What he’s trying to accomplish, his “big picture” objective
2. That you’re the one to help him accomplish it

If both of these are firmly established, price is merely an incidental. The verbal agreement to hire you is conditional. He’s agreeing that, if the price is right, there’s nothing else preventing him from hiring you and moving the project forward.

Here’s where Action Step #1: Attempt to “Disqualify” Prospects Early-On set you up for success. Remember how you disqualified anyone who didn’t have a budget or who thought $300 was “too expensive” for a website? Assuming your prospect made that cut, he ought to have a ballpark idea where your prices start. Now that you’ve spent some time with him and have a feel for the scope of his project, you’ll need to have a more in-depth price discussion.

The nature of that conversation will depend on the project scope. For a basic 5-10 page static website, I already had an established base price, so I could quote him right then and there. For larger projects, I’d tell the prospect it’s going to be more than the starter price we spoke about over the phone.

I’m watching his reaction. It’s either going to be, “no problem, I figured it would be higher,” or a worried, “how much higher do you think?” Remember, the more time you invest, the harder it is to cut your losses and walk away; so if you’re going to lose on price, now’s the time … rather than a 10-page proposal and three follow-up phone calls later.

Assuming that doesn’t happen and you need time to prepare a quote, how do you go about it without giving away all your best-kept secrets? I’m glad you asked. We’ll be covering that next week.

Next week: Action Step #4: How to Quote a Price without Giving away the Farm

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This is Part 5 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

I don’t know about you, but once I start discussing a project and discover the prospect’s dreams, goals, and objectives, I begin to develop a certain emotional investment … I get excited about how I can help him bring it about. I think that’s one of my strongest assets.

But it’s also my greatest weakness. Bring all that excitement and passion to bear at the wrong time, or with the wrong person, and I end up giving away the farm. I offer too much information, too freely, without expecting anything in return. That’s fine for Twitter or my blog; but that’s marketing. Once I’m face-to-face with someone who’s represented himself as a prospect, marketing’s over. It’s time to close a deal.

In this installment of ending abusive client behavior, I’m going to address the one place we stub our toe most often: giving away too much free information in order to close that deal.

Action Step #2: Sell the WHY, Agree upon the WHAT, Ignore the HOW

I believe that the majority of us who sell our web design/development or SEO services are primarily technical in nature. Sure, you might be an awesome visual designer, but you also know your HTML and CSS in order to pull that design off inside multiple browsers, don’t you? Because of that bent, most of us love talking about technical things. So a typical conversation might go like this:

Prospect: I have a website that I’d like to sell my products from on a national level.

You: I can do that. First, I’d optimize your existing site with the proper keywords by doing some keyword research. Then I’ll increase traffic by building quality backlinks through various methods, such as article submissions and press releases.

Prospect: Could you put all of that into a proposal for me?

You: Ummm, sure …

Showcasing our expertise is necessary to land an engagement. But what this approach fails to do is discover WHY he wants to sell his products nationally. You haven’t addressed his pain, need, or desire. Instead, you’ve offered him a free white paper and called it a proposal. Remember how I’ve been hammering home the issue of mutual commitments? Why should a prospect benefit from all that knowledge and expertise without making you a commitment in return?

If you followed the advice in my last article, then at some point, you determined whether the person on the other end of the phone or across the desk was a viable prospect or not. The entire sales process boils down to a series of “yes-es.” He or she must say “yes” to your solution, “yes” to your process, “yes” to your price, and more importantly, “yes” to you—your ability, likability, and perceived trustworthiness. “No” is a potential show-stopper, unless it can be negotiated and resolved. (And you ought to know beforehand what you consider negotiable and what’s non-negotiable.) A successful conclusion is when the other person “yes-es” his way from suspect to prospect to client.

But our technically-minded natures tend to make this process more complicated than it need be. Getting a prospect’s commitment to do business with you requires that you establish and agree upon just two things:

1. What he’s trying to accomplish, his “big picture” objective
2. That you’re the one to help him accomplish it

Until those two things happen, don’t discuss the technical details (HOWs) or offer to write a detailed proposal. Doing so without a commitment to hire you is how we wind up giving away too much free information. So stop, already!

When you refrain from discussing technical details, and instead start asking about goals, objectives, and buying motives, a strange thing happens—you’ll quickly realize when your prospect doesn’t have any. You see, serious prospects may not always know WHAT they want, but they have no trouble articulating WHY they want it. For that reason, they also have the intention to buy. Prospects who aren’t serious, have ulterior motives, or are playing you will have none of these. You’ll be able to tell when they don’t want to answer your questions, or give non-committal or vague responses.

Remember, the time to discuss technical details is after you’ve won the engagement, not before. Talk about WHAT he wants and WHY he wants it, but save the in-depth technical discussion until after he agrees that you’re the man or woman for the job.

Next week: Action Step #3: How to Win Business without Writing a Proposal 

In case you missed last week’s article, you can still get my free guide, 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling. Just follow me on Twitter and I’ll send you a link.

This is Part 4 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

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Over the past two weeks, I’ve written about how we allow clients and prospects to mistreat us and shared my seven steps to a having well-trained client. During that time, I’ve read well over a hundred comments from web designers and developers eager to share their experiences. While some didn’t have a problem saying “no” to clients who pushed the boundaries, others found themselves caving into unreasonable demands, agreeing to do additional work free of charge, or waiting indefinitely to receive payment because of clients who never sent content. Many feel justifiably mistreated or abused.

Yet, focusing exclusively on how frustrating or upsetting this is only serves to keep you victimized. If things are to change, you first must take responsibility for allowing clients treat you this way, and then take the necessary action steps to stop it. After all, if you continue doing what you’ve always done, and you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got. Here are some actionable steps you can put in place tomorrow that will change your situation immediately.

Action Step #1: Attempt to “Disqualify” Prospects Early-On

What this Solves:

Wasting time with prospects aren’t serious, have no budget, or expect a lot of work for minimal money

It happens all the time. You get a hot lead or a referral, so you pick up the phone, set an appointment, then drive across town to meet him … only to find out he’s not so hot after all.

My top pet peeve is ‘prospects’ who want to talk web design with me for what seems like hours on end but don’t actually have a budget. I don’t mind talking about how I do things or advising people without a budget how to get a good web presence for free. What I don’t like is prospects who tell me they want me to create them the best website possible, perfectly tailored to their business, and are then shocked that I want to charge them more than the price of a pizza. If the whole process is over quickly then it’s no big loss, but those who need to make sure you understand their whole vision for their business before they get to the bit where they don’t want to pay, those people waste time and energy I don’t have to spare. – Richard Coates, owner of web firm Anatomy of Restlessness

Save yourself that 45 minute drive and a fruitless two hour meeting by having a preliminary telephone conversation first, to determine if there’s even a reason to meet.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but actively attempt to “disqualify” him as a potential client by looking for show-stoppers—reasons why you can’t do business together. What qualifies as a show-stopper? Discovering the prospect thinks $300 is a lot of money for a website when your base price starts at five times that amount. Or someone who pretends to be a buyer but only wants a price quote to reassure themselves that their current developer isn’t overcharging. I can go on and on.

Ask Probing Questions to Uncover Needs and Wants

You need to have a sales process in place, one that includes asking the right questions. I have a list of questions I ask during the initial phone conversation, and a set of more detailed ones for the face-to-face meeting. One of those initial questions is:

“A basic site starts at $XXXX. Are you prepared to spend that much?”

Follow me on Twitter and I’ll send you my free guide, 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling.

Overcoming Obstacles

When it comes to selling your services, there are two things you can’t overcome: ignorance and poverty. A preliminary phone conversation should weed out both, so by the time you actually meet with the prospect, you’ll already know what he’s trying to accomplish, and that he wants it, needs it, and can afford it.

Inquiring about both want and need may seem redundant, but they’re not the same thing. He may want it, but he may not need it badly enough to be willing to pay a fair price for it. He may need it, but not want the type of solution you provide. Or, he can need it and want it, but if he can’t pay for it … well, we both know how that’s going to end.

I’ve found that a preliminary conversation before a face-to-face meeting helps get the process “over quickly.” Remember, if you’re going to lose, lose early. Once you do actually meet, continue looking for show-stoppers. Once all of these have been eliminated, there’s no reason not to do business together, is there?

Yes, it really is that simple.

Next week: Action Step #2: How to stop giving away too much free information

This is Part 3 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

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In my last article, I wrote about how we allow clients and prospects to mistreat us. Such treatment can range from the merely annoying, to unprofessional, disrespectful, or outright abusive. Regardless of how you label it, or whether it’s deliberate or not, the bottom line is: do you want to be treated that way? Of course you don’t!

Train or be Trained, That is the Question

Dr. Phil says that you either teach people to treat you with dignity and respect, or you don’t. But respect doesn’t come by demanding that others treat you right. Talk is cheap; you’ll gain more respect from your actions rather than your words … actions rooted in the right attitude, that is. Here are seven practical attitude and action steps to take.

Play Hard to Get

I found that playing hard to get works well in both dating and buying a car. (I discovered both by chance.) In the latter situation, I found myself held captive in the back office of a car dealership, as two different salesmen tag-team pressured me to buy the car I’d just test-driven … a slightly-used Ford Mustang in mint condition with low mileage.

The problem was, I’d walked into the dealership on a whim, not really knowing what I could afford or how much I’d pay for insurance. As I kept resisting their advances, the price of the car kept getting lower, and the value of my trade-in kept getting higher.

And as far as dating goes, why is it that, when you realize the person you went out with last week is crazy for you, he or she suddenly becomes slightly less interesting?

Sales is a lot like dating, so when scheduling appointments with clients or prospects, don’t be too available. If you say, “When’s good for you? I’m wide open the next three weeks,” what the client hears is, “I’m not much in demand. How high would you like me to jump?” Instead try this: “I’m available Tuesday or Thursday afternoon. Which works best for you?”

It may seem like a small thing, but doing so sets the stage to prevent unreasonable demands on your time, like clients continually canceling and rescheduling meetings; or expecting you to meet twice a week at the drop of a hat anytime they have a question or concern. You can avoid much of this if you send the signal, early and often, that your time is valuable and that there’s a demand for your services.

Expect to be Treated as an Equal

This may seem difficult at times, especially when your prospect is a well-dressed attorney sitting behind a mahogany desk in her posh downtown office with eight-plus years of Law school under her belt … and you learned to design websites over the Internet, in the spare bedroom you call your office, from which you just came, wearing the only suit you own.

Yet, establishing a peer-to-peer relationship is important if you want to be treated as an equal, and not like a lowly sales person or freelancer desperate to close a deal. If that’s how you’re feeling, the next two steps will help you overcome this.

Remember Who Benefits Most

Keep in mind which one of you will benefit most from your business relationship. One new client may mean thousands or millions of dollars in fees for that attorney. And you’re making … what, a few thousand? Your attitude ought to be: If I can successfully accomplish her business objectives, this client will profit ten-times above and beyond the paltry fee I’ll earn from this project.

Remind Yourself Who the Expert Is

Those eight-plus years of Law school makes that attorney an expert in one thing—practicing the law. If she was some type of web-designing, SEO-ing attorney, she wouldn’t be meeting you to discuss hiring you, would she? You are an expert in your own right, and you’ll use all your expertise and knowledge to benefit her business—just like she does for her clients. Never forget that.

Expect Mutual Commitments

Some people think closing a deal means jumping through any hoop your prospect holds up, no matter how high. There’s nothing wrong with a little hoop-jumping, but it’s not unreasonable to expect a commitment in return.

A few years ago, I needed a new vehicle. This time, however, I walked into the dealership knowing exactly what I wanted and how much I had to spend. When we were ready to take it on a test drive, the sales person reconfirmed that the vehicle was within our budget. Then she asked the commitment question: “If you like the vehicle you’re about to test-drive, what will you do when you get back?”

There are many ways that could’ve been answered, but we responded with, “We’ll buy it.” If your prospect wants you to write a proposal, consider asking something similar. It’s perfectly okay to establish your prospect’s buying intentions before agreeing to his request. At the very least, I’d want him to commit to a day and time he’ll get back to me with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

Establish Expectations Up-Front

It’s impossible to manage your client’s expectations if you never defined them in the first place. Here’s a simple way to solve most problems before they ever become problems:

1. Have clearly-defined expectations that you both agree upon beforehand
2. Write them down

Congratulations! Now you have a contract. Just be sure it clearly stipulates how each situation will be handled and resolved.

As nerve-racking as it might sound, I strongly suggest you sit down, face-to-face, and discuss each point of the contract with your prospect before he signs. (In my next article, I’ll tell you exactly how to pull this off.) Emailing the contract only guarantees he’ll never read it. So when the unexpected pops up, who do you suppose will get the blame?

Rid Yourself of Low-End Clients

Choosing the right clients is crucial, yet it’s hard to be choosy when you first start out. So it’s not uncommon to end up with more than your share of low-end, cheapskates in your client base.

Once you’re established, however, consider ridding yourself of the lower 15 percent of your client base. This 2001 article, Clients or Grinders: Understanding the Three Market Types, is as relevant today as it was over 10 years ago when I first read it. The author describes the lowest 15 percent of the market as “grinders” who …

… will grind you and demand that you treat them like the people in the Top 15% category—and they will expect that treatment from you as they push and push to get things below your cost. They’ll promise you more jobs down the road and that just this one job needs a deal—the others will make you some money. Yeah, right!

The truth is: they’ll never let you make a dime off them while you suffer through insults, mistrust, constant changes and arguments over what you agreed to or didn’t—and no matter how well you do, nine times out of ten there will almost always be something wrong with the job you did. They will never be happy. They do not recommend you to their associates and this is probably due to the fact that they know themselves quite well and think that everyone is like that creep they see in the mirror every morning. If they need to invent a reason not to pay you, they can get incredibly creative! The Net is full of stories of people trying to collect on debts made by these people.

Regardless of whether your lower 15 percent consist of these types of clients, consultant Alan Weiss recommends you rid yourself of them on a yearly basis for the sake of growth. Doing so frees you to pursue clients in the top 15 percent. Failing to do so only serves to drag you down.

This last step won’t cause existing clients to treat you better, but it will give you peace-of-mind, as you shed yourself of very the clients who cause the most grief.

Keep in mind that there’s a way to fire a client who’s been a low-end but generally good one. And then there’s ways to fire an abusive client. Be sure to use the appropriate method for each.

Keep it Together, Man

Judging by some of the discussions I’ve witnessed online, this is a hot topic for most of us. But remember: it’s just business. Letting a client know how much he’s frustrated you is not professional. Keep cool as you implement each of these steps in your sales and production methodology, and watch as chronic client problems become a thing of the past.

This is Part 2 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

Image credit

Would you like to be treated like a commodity, have a high cancellation rate, no client loyalty, and get paid the lowest price possible? (I know you do!) Then just follow my simple four-step plan:

1. Offer a valuable service to your clients.
2. Whenever a client cancels or switches to another provider, offer them your same service at a cheaper rate. (Other incentives, such as “first two months free,” are also effective.)
3. Act like a victim by constantly complaining that your clients are cheapskates, and bemoan the fact that you can’t seem to make any money.
4. Rinse and repeat.

This plan was enthusiastically embraced by AT&T Yellow Pages during my tenure there. (Step 3, however, was delegated to the sales reps.) They called it “reworking an account,” and it went like this: When the directory was ready to be published, we’d have a “fire sale”—everyone who had canceled during the nine-month sales canvass would be offered the same advertising at a reduced rate. Some $300-a-month ads were now just $100.

Another true believer in this “race to the bottom” was a national lawn care company for which I once worked. Cancel your lawn service? No problem! How about two free lawn treatments to change your mind? It continues to astound me. Don’t they understand that this only teaches customers to cancel, knowing they’ll get offered a better deal a few months (or hours) later? And once your customers become accustomed to paying lower prices, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to get them to pay full cost.

How Clients Mistreat Us: Let Me Count the Ways

My story serves to make a point, that if clients and prospects mistreat us, it’s because we allow it. And there are so many ways we can let them to do so. Digging deep into my anguished past, I sought to unearth every sordid detail of the gut-wrenching abuse I suffered at the hands of my clients over the years. Unfortunately, I have few horror stories to share (but I do have a few). So in the spirit of crowd-sourcing, I asked a number of colleagues for theirs.

Jochen Daum of Automatem LTD says his firm has “had issues” with buyers who just want a quote “to beat down [your] competitor.” Companies are often required to obtain multiple bids; but deliberately using yours as pricing leverage against another provider goes beyond company policy—it’s a matter of the prospect taking advantage of you.

Another web firm (who asked to remain anonymous) met with one of their existing clients. After seeing a site demo, the client changed the requirements, which meant researching alternative solutions and making recommendations (for which the firm did not charge). Ultimately, the client opted to go elsewhere; but the firm later discovered that the client incorporated their recommendations into their new site.

They weren’t sure whether a competitor was involved or not, but “proposal-jacking” is an all-too-common occurrence. That’s when a prospect hands off your detailed proposal to a cheaper competitor—one who can charge less because, thanks to you, he doesn’t have to come up with his own ideas. In their words, “The lessons learned from this project will last a lifetime.”

Angelos Evangelou of PricklyPear Media had what he calls “one of my worse experiences” when he allowed a client to make continual changes beyond what his proposal had specified. This only encouraged the client to become more demanding, who alternated between loving and hating the design, insisted on several on-site meetings, then refused to pay the full amount upon completion, to “insure” Angelos would provide technical support.

Stephanie Wells of Strategy11 says her worst client experience was when she and her husband “killed ourselves” to meet the client’s deadline, only to have the client delay final payment by taking weeks to review and test the site. “Of course, clients should review and test,” Stephanie asserts, “but when they use it as a stalling tactic and take weeks to actually look at the site is when it gets irritating.”

I promised to share one of mine. I had a prospect meet with me at a desk in the middle of a chaotic furniture showroom floor. Between constant interruptions from his sales staff, he grilled me with questions about why he should hire me. After what seemed like an eternity, I was finally managed to get a question in, only to discover that he was not the actual decision-maker. The two owners would make the final decision—and he refused to allow me to meet with them. I believe the “John-sized hole” I left in the wall during my hasty retreat remains there to this day.

Here are other ways prospects and clients can mistreat, abuse, or otherwise take advantage of you:

• Doesn’t set enough time aside to thoroughly discuss the project, then expects you to return another day to finish the conversation
• Isn’t willing to discuss the project in detail; just wants to know how much it will cost
• Won’t allow you to meet with other decision-makers, but “promises” to pass along your information to his partner
• Expects a detailed proposal, yet won’t commit to when—or even if—they’ll get back to you
• Avoids your follow-up calls when all you want to know is whether they’ve accepted your bid or not
• Sends content at the last minute, then insists the site still be completed on schedule
• Habitually cancels and reschedules meetings
• Breaks a page while updating it, then expects you to fix it, free of charge
• Waits until the absolute last minute to pay you

And let’s not forget the granddaddy of all disrespectful treatment, the Big Kahuna Himself:

The client opens your design in Photoshop and starts revising it himself

A word of caution: don’t let this list allow you to become jaded. We tend to get what we expect. If you always expect clients to treat you like this, you’ll most likely get treated like this. A good rule-of-thumb is, expect the best, but be prepared for the worst.

Stop the Abuse!

I know you want to learn how to prevent further mistreatment, but my article was too big and it spilled over into next week’s. Meanwhile, feel free to post any abusive client behavior that I missed, and next week, I’ll talk about how to deal with it. See you then.

This is Part 1 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep
10. Stop Making Endless Design Changes
11. Stopping Abusive Clients: The Complete Process

Image credit