I know I’m suppose to be talking about web designer risks but this does cover that at the same time. How many of you have ever hired a freelance web designer? How many of you have hired me as a freelance designer? Ignore the last question, I ain’t one of those in demand people anyway. So did most of you approach a company or a normal friend good in graphics to revamp your website?
A-ha! Bet the numbers are higher in that question.
Anyway, being a web designer the biggest issue you’d hear from everyone is dealing with the estimate price. Normally, this automatically leads to designers either under pricing or over pricing their value. They under price because they need clients. They over price because they are afraid of having another instance of client acting like a beggar. Some designers are so desperate they don’t mind charging really low so they get more jobs. Humiliating and down right degrading. The over price ones play with luck and would suffer in frustration when no one approaches them. They like being stubborn people who only think money is the most important thing when taking a project.
Other than money, web designers need to learn and assess risks. They need to sharpen their senses in evaluating when to take a step or hop to advance themselves. What kinda risk am I speaking about? Recently, I just charged a client for a fees lower then what should’ve been charged. I did it out of faith and goodwill because I was willing to take a risk. I could’ve just quoted the maximum budget the client had since I asked about it but instead just asked for less. And to those who’re calling me a fool now, ever thought about where some risks lead you? If you’re only saying failure or thinking negatively, I just wonder how do you continue what you love doing or would expand your business?
This risk that I took is to bridge and solidify my connection with this client. The client didn’t really have full approval of the board to develop the website but was willing to take the risk. The client was willing to risk it so I shared the risk and in return, it gave them more confidence in me and hopefully a better bond. At the end of the project, I’m hoping this client would be one of the referrals in future. You can’t say that I did it by my own will because I work with a partner and we both agreed to take on the risk and together we’re hoping for fruitful benefits.
The other weakness web designers have is not being able to discuss a project with clients thoroughly. Details as to how much work is to be done, the estimate cost, the clients budget, the expectations, terms and conditions, and other much needed clarifying before the start of the project. Bad enough that clients sometimes don’t know what they want, you can’t expect a client to have all necessary details prepared for you too. However, I feel sometimes that the client needs to be helpful and friendly when communicating the project over with the freelancer.
The client doesn’t have to teach the freelancer how to do things but just mention certain areas that they need done in detail. If the freelancer isn’t able to handle simple explainations, clients should be cautioned. The ones that just take a project without requesting any further details are somewhat the worst. They might misinterpret your project aim entirely and just provide you the aesthetic wonder that won’t accomplish your visitors demands. End up, you’ll be paying for a wannabe custom made template.
Still speaking about communication; web designers have a tendency of not updating the client on the project until at the very end. Again this is done sometimes in self defense, so radical changes won’t be demanded by the client. Some do it because they’ve no idea how to work with a client in an organized process. And when do they panic if they haven’t shown the client anything? When the client gets in touch with them and fires them through their a**es. Always keep the client constantly updated so they’d feel they’re paying you for a reason. A designers could easily lift their worries of total changes by briefing the client the T&C requirements or note it down in the proposal later.
Sometimes when a web designer already has a pile of work on him, he tries to go for a homerun and take in more than he can chew. Bad idea to me, because then you’d be overworking yourself and end up not being able to provide the maximum results you normally do. I can understand how some do it because they try and meet a huge quota every month but becoming a workaholic and losing sleep isn’t exactly the idea either. The reason why I freelance is so that I don’t get exploited when being one of the workers that people just toss work on you or you’re new or some other crap reason. Overworking could progressively lead to burnout or even worst slow deterioration of idea generating that would cost you when you need it most.
I might’ve missed out a couple of weaknesses and can’t go on with this right now because my brains dead. So do feel free to mention them in the comments. Cheers. :)