Flavert Media Lab {The Blog}

Peace be upon you mobile warriors. Now, for Officekami Friday Sermon ( much alike Islamic Friday Prayer, before they pray, have to listen to sermon ) I’m going to talk about…. Who needs who ?

Actually regarding this topic, I’ve been thinking about it weeks ago. Just didn’t have time to wrote about it. Then today, comes a wake up call for me.

If you didn’t understand malay, Noktahhitam, ranting about Web Dev problem in Malaysia, late payments.

I do agree with him.

From my perspective, web industry is an underpaid industry. Now I don’t want to talk about big shot agency who house 20++ developers that may range from Information Architects or Bug Tester, or just CSS designer or copywriter. These big shot agency usually doesn’t face this problem because they have high capitals and high turn overs. They may only deal with industry or brands.

I’m talking from freelancer and SME ( Small Medium Enterprise ) point of view, who may house less than 10 workers full time or, small freelance team. Talk to them, and you’ll see the various pricing range and style. At this part, portfolios plays a big role in securing a job. And when this small players meet the clients, the clients usually asking for lower price. It is understandable to negotiate the price, always, but I can’t comprehend when I get the offer of only RM2K for comprehensive web solutions for a company that has a turnover of tenth of millions, Ringgit Malaysia (RM)

Hello, I’m a Sdn Bhd/ Private Limited. And he said that “it’s a win-win situation for both of us”

“But I didn’t win for this” - I replied with a straight face and a straight tone, to appear seriously serious with him.

And when you pay just perhaps a RM1-2k for your websites that later pull RM100k ++ per month, that isn’t justice.

Unless you/the client offered a share for the developers, which I saw some developers get the best of it, I didn’t see the same for most of the other unlucky developers. Often, sorry, always, young developers attracted with false promises from clients, that will say sorta like below

• come on man my business will be boom! consider lower the price for the turnover later on
• when you do my website, people will know your portfolio. I’m a big guy mind you.
• You’ll get more clients after you did my website, I’m sure of it.

So it’s important for developers to not fall into this trick. Experience may tell you which promises might be better.

At this point, I usually apply Who needs who rules. It may sound hugely egoistic, but to protect the best of my pocket interest, I have to do it.

picture of course from famous Freelance Freedom – Freelanceswitch.com

Who needs who?

So, this is the point why I think we, developers, may should have Who needs who perspective. When clients looking for developers, it is clearly clients need developers. Then, after initial discussion/briefing about client’s requirement, usually client will said the following words:

• you submit the design first / how about you show us a proof of concept. I want to see your capabilities
• give me your quotation based on my briefing

After that question, you’ll need to take the role of ‘who needs who’

1. do we need a portfolio/money/experience?
2. do we need to establish a long-term relationship with the client? ( if we do believe that they wants a long term contract )
3. do we really need this client ? do we have time to accomplish it?

While point 1 or point 2 might be straightforward, we might fumble for point 3. Being a human, we can’t deny that sympathy or the urge to ‘okayla I did it’ can sometimes made a problem. The problem with point no 3 is that when we put some emotions inside, we make a poor judgment. We might jeopardize the whole project. The client might be begging us to reduce the price or wanted us to it no matter what, but when it comes to payment, they’re stingy. And then we suffer

Sounds familiar?

Now,  we need to have a constant reminder for the client that they need us. Some things that you can do to keep them needing you

1. for all submission, never ever give them the source code/ raw files, unless they’re paying premium for it.
2. if you need to give, then by all means, put watermarks. If they happen to give to other developers to do it, other developers knew it’s your work.
3. always hold submission if they didn’t pay you according to the schedules/milestones agreed.
4. for 3D architecture/montage – give in low quality before giving the end product in high quality.
5. for webhosting/purchase – always keep their user access, before giving it to them.
6. If only they made full payment and paid you following the schedule, treat them nicely.

And in case they suddenly ‘don’t need you’, and you did all your best as agreed, then it’s okay, for you have the rights for their deposited money for your project. For me, it might sound inhuman but trust me, you don’t want to suffer. As much as the clients need to get it done, that’s the same for we need the money and portfolio. Make sure every submission to the client is worth for it. Don’t break their trust to you. As ego you can be, you need to be humble at the same time. Deliver for what you promise.

Because if you, developers, didn’t deliver of what you’ve promised to the client, the client has their right to stop payment and badmouthing you thus, bring bad reputation to you. Of course developers can do vice versa if the clients didn’t pay the money. The point is to maintain the business relationship of two parties. Collaboration for the win. Discuss for any uprising issues and don’t simply keep it in your heart, and assuming things on your own. Let it out, speak yourself. If the client isn’t comfortable with your payment schemes or deadlines, come up with reasonable reasons.

For me, my usual payment scheme is 30%-40%-30% = deposit – progress – completion.

So that’s end of my friday sermon. Don’t worry to be an egoistic for this matter. You just need to protect your pocket, and your life, and don’t forget to be humble

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 9:11 PM and is filed under Article, English. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.