Being a web worker can mean learning to handle many facets of running a small business, including dealing with difficult clients, which can often be one of the biggest frustrations that come with the territory. But how do you know if your clients are abusing you? Here are a few telltale signs and tips for how to fix and avoid these situations. The work keeps creeping in. Scope creep is the bane of many freelancers’ lives. You start with one description of what is to be done and end up doing something entirely different, or something that’s way more involved …

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Contracts can often be seen as burdensome entities that service and goods providers can do without. As long as a mutual agreement is arrived at in good faith, so the thinking goes, then a handshake or a verbal agreement should be good enough. Contracts take time, which take money, which is why some don’t want to have to deal with them. Yet, as will be explained, the effect of good IT contracts or a good consulting contract is the opposite. If done properly they will indeed save you time and money, and allow for an environment of good customer service, too.

For IT technicians in particular, the temptation to see contracts as burdensome might be considerable. As a technician, you’re hired to do a job, you show up and do it, and you get paid for your effort. This is how many technicians would like to see their job environment anyhow. If it were only that easy. The problem is that, without IT contracts, even something like an IT consulting contract, you might get lost in the maze otherwise known as the quagmire of IT contract law.

The world of information technology is particularly sensitive when concerning contract law because of the various legal issues involved with things like licensing of hardware and software, the hiring of subcontractors for particular projects, or the crossover that occurs between different fields, different projects, and even different jurisdictions. Without IT contracts that sort out the various legal issues involved, the IT technician might find themselves in a legal nightmare that simply could have been avoided.

What IT contacts do, including things like an IT consulting contract, is they detail ultimately who owns what, who is responsible for what, what jurisdictions apply with respect to licensing and ownership, and what dispute mechanisms will be used in the event of some disagreement somewhere down the line.

One of the best attributes of IT contracts is comprehensiveness and detail, without losing simplicity. In other words, something like an IT consulting contract will serve its function if it lays down as many terms as possible, while avoiding legal jargon that won’t be understood by either party of a contract.

As already mentioned, a good contract should be seen as a way of achieving customer service and satisfaction. By getting things out into the open with simple language and straightforward terms, all parties can proceed with a true sense of mutual benefit. After all, that’s what good business and service is supposed to be about, isn’t it?

On top of the customer service aspect, of course, good IT contracts should also be designed to resolve future conflicts and legal disputes. Bad intentions don’t even have to exist in order for a breach of contract to occur. Sometimes, people are of genuinely different opinions as to what their obligations are in something like an IT consulting contract. Sometimes unforeseen events occur that weren’t anticipated in the original contract which, of course, is another reason to be as comprehensive as possible when first forming and signing IT contracts.

In the end a good contract should be the IT technician’s best friend in today’s global village. Without one, the modern quagmire of international legal rights can sap away precious time, resources, and energy from your business. No smart professional wants that to happen. It’s why they fall back on things like IT contracts that cover all the bases, and then some.

Somehow in the last few years the term “Reseller” has become an insult.  It’s not enough anymore to just sell a product, now to be a true Value Added Reseller (VAR) partners must provide services.  None of this is news but many partners are promoting themselves as a VAR when they may still be just a, dare I say it, Reseller.

As an end-user it becomes even more difficult to differentiate between the partners you go to in order to simply purchase product and those partners that provide you services above and beyond.  Partners truly have to differentiate themselves in the current market and economy which becomes even more difficult if your competing partners are getting the same air time from the vendors.

Word Play

There is nothing wrong with simply selling product but is there a different level of support partners need if they are a Reseller or if they are a Value Added Reseller?

It is as important for a partner to find and promote their value proposition as it is for the vendor.  If you don’t provide services it’s okay!  Really it is!  But you better add value another way (price, speed, accessibility).  The bottom line is with more and more partners claiming to provide services the market is getting murky and customers more confused.

If you claim to be a VAR you need to have the certifications required to promote yourself.  Vendors need to make the certifications comprehensive and provide marketing support for those who have completed it such as certified logos for websites and business cards and a partner finder on the corporate site.  Vendors also need to do their part to promote the services that should be offered with the product or set of products.  If the vendor site promotes “plug and play” then the partner has a hard time adding services.

There are opportunities for both types of partners, not providing services is not a bad thing but partners must capitalize on what they do provide.  Some end users only want a “plug and play” partner or they have the capabilities in-house and want a partner to leverage their relationship with the vendor to acquire product.  There needs to be different levels of service from partners and therefore, different levels of certification from vendors.

Vendors have you seen different opportunities for both?  Partners how are you differentiating yourselves?

Effectively taking on a huge freelance project can be daunting if you don’t know where to begin. This article shows that by breaking the project down into bite-sized deliverables, combined with leveraging the experience of outsourced, professional specialists, can yield positive results in terms of both quality of output and freelancer happiness.

The most treasured of all freelance consulting gigs are the ones that offer huge pay and high prominence. Successfully implementing one or two of these types of projects can be a huge boon to your portfolio and can help garner you even bigger and better contracts in the future.

Indeed, there’s really only one caveat when it comes to taking on a $50,000+ contract — you’ve got to do approximately $50,000 worth of work.

Of course, with big money comes big responsibility, and I know many freelancers who would balk at the thought of owing a cranky client $50,000 in outstanding work.

The following tips include some of the wisdom I’ve acquired working on high-dollar contracts with high-anxiety clients. I hope these tips help you avoid the potholes that bent my rims the first time I tried to drive through them.

“The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

My small consulting company was recently charged with the task of re-thinking an entire business from scratch, including completely redesigning the company’s website, logo, sales pitches, brochure material, proposals, business cards, letterheads and overall brand image.

Where do you start when there are so many conceivable starting points?

The answer is by creating a realistic milestone delivery sheet. Here’s what I mean:

Your milestone delivery chart is your best friend when it comes to high-dollar web projects. Not only does it help you as a freelancer see when certain elements will be due, but it also gives the client some visibility as to what work is actually being performed on their site.

Make your client feel like you care about their peace of mind with a presentation.

For projects which take more than a couple weeks to deliver, it’s good to set aside at least one day every few weeks where you present to your client some finalized deliverable. A “presentation meeting” ensures that a) everyone’s happy with the design and direction of the current work, and b) placates the concerns of your client who’s almost certain you’ve taken their overly generous 50% up-front fee and fled to a penthouse at the Bellagio where you’re currently sipping on Absinthe with fifteen of your closest friends and the cast of The Girls Next Door. Letting your client see small, finalized chunks of your work along the way gets them excited about the end results and eager to work with you again.

Get it right, then get it in writing.

The milestone delivery sheet should be signed the same day as the contract, so it’s important that you put some initial thought in creating a delivery schedule that is both fair to the client and realistic to yourself. Always make sure to double or triple your initial delivery estimates if you’re working on a large project for the first time, or using unfamiliar software/technology. In addition, schedule presentation and due dates for the client (have revisions due two days after initial presentation) and make sure to include a note at the bottom of the delivery sheet that won’t hold you liable to make deliveries if the requirements are changed mid-project or if the client can’t make the scheduled presentation dates.

Outsource the things you aren’t great at to specialists.

Chances are that if you scored a huge web contract, you probably sold more than just yourself. You probably sold a team of people. Now, that’s great and is almost always a good strategy for a single freelancer looking to pick up a huge deal. However, when it comes time to actually doing the work, make sure you’re using your team to the best of your advantage.

Only do what you’re absolutely awesome at, let specialists do the rest.

Many freelancers are “do-it-alls” who are very proficient in many different fields. This is a good thing, don’t get me wrong and I consider myself to be such a freelancer. But when it comes to large, ultra-premium projects, it really pays to get quality people to help you over-deliver to your customer.

For example, if you’re the web development specialist, don’t try to “improve” on the art director’s user interface, even if you think you’re much better than average at web design. The art director should have final say on every website comp, logo design, color change or font variation (all should be delivered to the pixel). If you don’t have total trust in the vision of your art director, you should find one that you’re more confident with and subcontract out.

See, when a client drops five or six digits on some web work to outside consultants, they expect to receive only the highest quality work in return. This excludes a web designer acting as an online copywriter or the sales guy as the marketer.

Using the specialties of outside professionals to help you isn’t cheating — it’s smart business.

Personally, I’m passable as a web content writer but absolutely horrendous when it comes to all other aspects of web work (UI design, sitemap creation, wire frames, CMS implementation, code upkeep, security updates, maintenance, etc). So when I land a large project, the only hard deliverable I’m actually going to do myself is the writing part (and even then, I pay for at least one professional editor to clean up my mistakes). The rest of the project I outsource to a professional quality team I know and trust. (In fact, I’ve outsourced with the same team so frequently that we all recently got together and formed a consulting company!)

Outsourcing projects in this way leads to many desirable outcomes. I free up my time to find new contracts, work on other businesses, hang out with my friends, take a mini-retirement or anything else that seems interesting. Additionally, I create a huge network of talented, professional, and specialized contacts just like me that love what they do and are amazingly cool to work with. It’s not what you know, but who you know.

Now the only tricky part about this whole bit is getting the $50,000 project…

In summary, break down high-dollar, high-work projects into their deliverable elements, ordered by date. Be realistic, but fair. Include presentation and customer due dates in bold. Break down each step and outsource to your network of professional, specialized contacts. Over-deliver and politely ask for a short testimonial and permission to use their materials in your portfolio.

Bonus Tip: Template to deal with incessant e-mails and phone calls asking for a “status update”from a high-dollar, high-anxiety client

“Dear Pesky Client,

Thank you for your (presumably drunken) e-mail sent at 3:30 AM on Saturday morning asking for a “prgress reprot”. We are currently on schedule to meet our July 1 deadline, and we are looking forward to showing you all of the progress we have made during our presentation meeting on July 10th. In fact, we are diligently working on the X, Y & Z functionality as I type this.

I understand your concerns on a project of this magnitude, and I can assure you that you’ll be quite pleased with the materials we’ll be presenting during our meeting.

Sincerely,

Your Overworked and Under-appreciated Freelancer

Source:  http://freelanceswitch.com/freelancing-essentials/how-to-effectively-tackle-a-50000-freelance-project/