You are undoubtedly correct in saying that “Most people hire a web designer because they don’t know how to go about building a website.”

And people do change their minds all the time, but it’s not doing your business any good to allow them to make huge changes, many times, after you have started work on their design. Obviously I only know the small amount you have shared but the client you mention seems not to know what they want. Before you start work on their web design, you need to know that the client DOES know what they want. They may need your help to do this!

Again, I cannot disagree with you when you say, “It’s very hard to get someone to look at their business from the outside in,” except to insert the word ‘sometimes’ into your statement, but my contention is that you must get them to do so.

I don’t know you personally of course, but I suspect that many web designers and developers of other software have a tendency to want to get on with the designing too soon, in a similar way that it is a common mistake in sales conversations to quote too early.

In a case such as you illustrate, it strikes me that it would be hugely beneficial to both parties to engage in a (paid) preliminary project to help the client become clear on what they want the project to achieve. You may also ask them for thoughts on other sites that they like. Then, both agreeing an understanding of where you want to get to, you can set up a fixed-fee project to actually design the site. This would be on the understanding that any work outside the scope is a separate, separately chargeable, project whose relative priority would also have to be agreed.

But, as you say, they have called you in because they don’t know how to do it themselves, so they must let you get on with doing what you know how to do.

You can do without clients who aren’t clear on what they want to get out of a project, or who take ‘constructive collaboration’ to the extreme of ‘annoying interference’. Either you help them to become clear on what they want – charge them if this takes more than an hour or so – and clearly set their expectations of the level of input required from them during the project, or you politely decline their work. The Pareto principle works here too. 20% of your clients probably cause you 80% of the grief, so removing them will free up your time to find and work with more of the good ones.

David

Changes in projects happen almost 90% of the time. People change there minds all the time thats what makes then human.

Most people hire a web designer because they don’t know how to go about building a website.
I have one client who wants a website, no matter what the conversation we have with him he always sites there showing us hundreds and hundreds of sites saying he likes this and that.

Its very hard to get someone to look at there business from the outside in. To see what his client SHOULD see. This in itself can make it very dangerous to give a fixed price.

How long you actually spend doing the work doesn’t matter to the client as long as it’s within their elapsed time requirement. The client wants the result – End of story.

If the client gets the result sooner, they have the benefit of its value for longer, so it could be argued that you should be paid more if you finish sooner. Reducing your overheads is for you to take advantage of, not the client.

Scope creep only happens if you let it. If you and the client agree a fixed scope – in writing – before work starts, it is easy to see whether or not any “Can you just …” work is within the scope and therefore within the fee.

If the scope cannot be fully described, documented and agreed at the outset, then a preliminary project to gather the necessary information to allow this needs to happen (and get paid for) first.

By telling the customer they can have more if they pay more in the way @jetpack101 suggests is making a rod for your own back! The clients will ask for more and then try to argue that they shouldn’t have to pay for it.

The biggest part of billing is not hourly or set price but honesty. If I tell a customer he is looking at 30 hours work and it only takes me 25 then he only gets billed for 25. At the start of the job I will give him an estimated price that we can both agree on.

Customers can really drag a project out with delays in content or constantly changing there mind and having you do the work over and over. By letting a customer know from the start that the more they add the more it will cost. This is not just in web design its in every walk of life.

You agree a price for a set project, you get half way in and then it starts “O… I thought we agreed to add that” or “Can you just add this little thing” before you know it the client had get a much bigger project then was first agreed on.

The price to charge should be relative to the value the client tells you they will derive from you doing whatever you do.