Hell Client
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- mikotondria20
those magic words...
"Whats your budget ?"...
classic.. Clients dont want to sound poor of course, so you assumptively close on that amount. Half up front, of course, just under-promise and over-deliver, dont back down on arguables and you'll get a trail of respectful paying customers lined up. Be nicer than they thought you were, and nastier than they thought you were and you've got em.
- Visia0
I had a client once that was like that. He owed me money but it was only about 1500 so I wasn't really all over him about it.
About six months went by and I had kinda forgotten about it until one day I'm watching CNN at lunch and who do I see sitting there talking to Wolf Blitzer but my client.
He was going off about his book and shit and how great it was acting like a bigshot and all this shit.
I damn near plottzed.
Anyway, I finished my lunch and put in a call to him. I got his "secretary" (read: girlfriend) and mentioned how he had an outstanding invoice.
She gave me the typical "right away / in the mail" response.
I responded that the invoice was six months overdue and that I was going to pull the plug on the site unless I heard from him within the hour. This being the website that he was just on CNN telling everyone to go visit.
Needless to say I got a call ten minutes later from my client asking me if I'd accept a credit card. I dont' but I told him if he sent a certified cheque via courier that day and emailed me a tracking number by the end of the day then it would all be cool.
He must have run around like a sonofabitch because 2 hours later I had a tracking number in my email and the next day a certified cheque showed up at my door.
In the end it was kinda cruel of me because I had honestly forgotten about the invoice until I saw him on CNN but in the end, like the Goodfella's say: Fuck you, pay me.
- Visia0
To add to some of the other responses:
ALWAYS get 50% upfront and then the remainder BEFORE you release the site.
I didn't once, and as you can see from my post above it fucked me.
The only exceptions I ever make are for long-term clients that have fulfilled at least six or seven invoices for me before with no issues.
Or, as you said, that rare client that you really like and want to help out. I have an unadvertised installment plan for those clients that I really like that make my heart bleed.
But, I also don't have discounts anymore. I literally have a 20% friends discount. Meaning that even if it's my closest friend, or even if I've slept with her it's still 20% and no more. It's the only way I can keep the project on my production schedule without kicking it to the end of the list everyday and people that tell you doing their gig will get you more work are full of shit. They tell everyone that for everything.
- jonandress0
I think it is best to have a couple of approaches worked out to fit the client and the situation.....ususally either
50% upfront %50 on completion, 3 thirds, or monthly retainer.Usually I develop on my server and dont migrate it to their server until the check clears.
Also I created a component that I drop into flash files that checks the date and causes various behaviors to occur depending on how late the client is. 30 days it has javascript alerts that say "please contact your devloper concerning your account", @ 45 days it says "The balance for this website is significantly past due. Please contact your developer" and the last straw just redirects the browser to :
http://www.totalbankruptcy.com/You just have to make sure people know and agree to up front what measures you take to ensure getting paid.