How do you land new clients?

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allspiritseve
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by allspiritseve »

Well, to be honest, I'm a poor college student and I still wouldn't take a job with a client that required an open-ended proposal. I'm pretty flexible, but I'm not going to allow somebody to walk all over me because of their own indecisiveness. The money just isn't worth it.
josh
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by josh »

Yup. I second what onion said, I've had people straight be like "sue me"
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allspiritseve
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by allspiritseve »

jshpro2 wrote:Yup. I second what onion said, I've had people straight be like "sue me"
And what did you do then? Work with them until they were happy with what you gave them?
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by josh »

No. the client wanted to build 80 web stores on http://www.volusion.com and wanted me to do some data scraping bullcrap. well volusion.com didn't support importing product attributes with different skus for different product variations, he instructed me to keep calling them on hold and such while I kept telling him it wasn't gonna work and we should change platforms. I told him I would spend more on the lawyer then the $ he owed me if he didn't pay me half, he knew I wasn't kidding.. I tried to work with him for 3 months, his solution was to keep trying the things that didn't work, and refuse to pay me for doing what he asked me to do, so I cut him off

His business partner called me up one day ( who I was also working with ) to warn me.. im like yeah I already found out lol
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allspiritseve
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by allspiritseve »

jshpro2 wrote:so I cut him off
Exactly. At least if you have a contract, you can always claim he didn't meet terms, and discontinue the project. Should he ever decide to sue, you're covered. My point wasn't that people always stay within the bounds of the contract they signed, but that you are covered if you decide to terminate the contract. If the money's worth it to sue, then the option is there. Otherwise... take your losses, write it off as a bad debt, and find a better client.
josh
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Re: How do you land new clients?

Post by josh »

I agree, I kinda got the "bad client vibe" from him, but by associating with him I learned more about my competitors as I helped him shop for a platform. I also got a first hand look into my target client's decision making process, I always try to get something more out of a project then a paycheck, whether its learning something new or taking the project with the intent of reselling the solution when it is done.

A down deposit usually goes a lot further then a contract in my experience.. Often I'll just make a verbal agreement with a list of project specs, require a down payment, and not release the code until I'm paid.

I'm always willing to enter a contract but if the client is going to give me a down payment without me signing anything, that's their decision. I'll always deliver, but if they try to justify that we agreed to something else then can't I just justify their down payment was actually just a gift, as per our agreement :P just kidding
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