How Many Clients do you work with at one time?

DeadlyByDesign

Hi guys

Abouy to make the scary leap into being self employed. Trying to wouk out living costs at the mo and the most important one is rent obviously. AT the moment I only ever work on one client at a time but I am reckoning that I may need to take 2 on at a go to make ends meet. Is this adviseable?

smash

If you have maintenance agreements in place then you can handle as many clients as there are hours in a day. Depending on how demanding they are though.

DeadlyByDesign

When you say maintenance agreements I presume you mean an agreed start and finish date? Or am I being thick here?:)

Seachmall

It really depends on your situation and capabilities.


Can you work on two, or more, projects simultaneously without compromising quality or efficiency?

If you hit a roadblock with one will that have a negative impact on the other?

Do you work fast enough to be doubling your work load?

Are you willing to sacrifice some social/family life?


Some people are capable of working on multiple projects at the same time, others (myself included) lose focus when trying to do so and/or produce sub-par work (although I'm not self employed so rarely have to endure it).

Of course, that doesn't mean producing sub-par work should stop you in your tracks. Your sub-par work could be better than my best. As long as the clients are happy with the results, you're happy to work on different projects at the same time, and you're making ends there's no reason you shouldn't go down that route.

smash

DeadlyByDesign wrote: »

When you say maintenance agreements I presume you mean an agreed start and finish date? Or am I being thick here?:)

Site goes live, you get paid and then you have an agreed amount they pay each month to cover any required maintenance.

DeadlyByDesign

smash wrote: »

Site goes live, you get paid and then you have an agreed amount they pay each month to cover any required maintenance.

Got ya. Thats a good point actually.

Feathers

I think of it like a chef in a kitchen — you might have 50 covers, but you don't want them all sitting down to the main course at the same time.

You could work with multiple clients, but try to keep work at different stages — when you're scoping out the information architecture of one site, you could be designing another; while waiting on feedback for the designs, you could be start cutting code or getting a CMS installed. (Obviously this depends on the scope of the work you do, presuming here it's the whole hog & not just design, but same applies to a degree)

You just don't want to leave yourself in the position where either

a) work is due for 5 clients, all on Tuesday
b) you're waiting on client feedback from all your clients & are twiddling your thumbs.

pixeldesign

I usually take 2-3 projects at a time and give longer deadlines. I like to work on more than one project because I get bored working on the same project everyday.

Feathers

pixeldesign wrote: »

I usually take 2-3 projects at a time and give longer deadlines. I like to work on more than one project because I get bored working on the same project everyday.

That's another thing about freelancing — boredom (& the inevitable procrastination it causes) or just a creative block costs you money, rather than your company & being able to switch what you're working on but still doable chargeable work is a great situation.

DeadlyByDesign

Great advice guys thanks a million

Hollister11

smash wrote: »

Site goes live, you get paid and then you have an agreed amount they pay each month to cover any required maintenance.

I know this is an old thread, but don't close it.

By maintenance would that be small changes like a colour sheme or updating information, that wouldn't cover major re-designs.

Graham

Hollister11 wrote: »

I know this is an old thread, but don't close it.

By maintenance would that be small changes like a colour sheme or updating information, that wouldn't cover major re-designs.

Ultimately support & maintenance are whatever you and the client agree.

It could be a simple monthly charge for answering questions, responding if the site goes down etc. It could be a monthly/quarterly/annual number of hours that the client can draw down as required for whatever type of work you agree.

If you've just completed a €300 site for Bob the plumber, I wouldn't hold out much hope of selling a support & maintenance contract. If you've sold a business critical web app to a business, you'd be nuts not to include provision for ongoing support & maintenance.

Web Graphic Designer

Also set a 'minimum block' of anywhere from 30mins to 2hr billing per update.
This will be taken off the monthly time/budget allowance.

Even changing a telephone number may run to 20mins+, after all comms, ftp, log, admin & testing.

Speedwell

The firm I worked for had to "invite" a client to "find another provider" recently. They were taking a hugely disproportionate amount of support time, refusing to meet their contractual payment obligation for work we agreed was done and dusted, siding with staff who were skiving off work by lying that their software wasn't working and we refused to help, claiming that the provided training and documentation that was more than adequate for 99 percent of our other clients was "rubbish" and asking that we rewrite it and provide multimedia tutorials for free "because we can't use the software without it". I'm actually shocked the company let them have so much rope. But it was costing us time and resources we need for clients who aren't actively committing self-sabotage.

As a design person, you too will have clients that start to eat you alive. They will request reasonable changes, then request unreasonable ones, then request to change them back. They will reject all of your proposals because someone's niece in art school said something art-schooly and impractical. They will fail to pay for work already done. These people are cancer to your business. They keep you from doing your best work for other clients. Don't stand for it.

EIREHotspur

Graham wrote: »

Ultimately support & maintenance are whatever you and the client agree.

It could be a simple monthly charge for answering questions, responding if the site goes down etc. It could be a monthly/quarterly/annual number of hours that the client can draw down as required for whatever type of work you agree.

If you've just completed a €300 site for Bob the plumber, I wouldn't hold out much hope of selling a support & maintenance contract. If you've sold a business critical web app to a business, you'd be nuts not to include provision for ongoing support & maintenance.

I agree with everything here except "if site goes down" which in my case I insist on doing hosting because of Wordpress & Techniques I use..I find it much less of a headache being familiar with my own hosting setup.

Also ensures I get paid because if I don't I can close things down quickly.

Therefore if site goes down it is my responsibility to ensure it goes back up with no charge to the client.

Graham

EIREHotspur wrote: »

Therefore if site goes down it is my responsibility to ensure it goes back up with no charge to the client.

I would assume you've built in the support & maintenance costs for your hosting into the ongoing hosting charges so ultimately still being paid by your customers.

If not, feel free to slap yourself a few times while you work out how to add those costs in

EIREHotspur

Graham wrote: »

I would assume you've built in the support & maintenance costs for your hosting into the ongoing hosting charges so ultimately still being paid by your customers.

Yeah...You assume right.

But I choose great service providers because I am a great service provider.

experiMental

DeadlyByDesign wrote: »

Hi guys

Abouy to make the scary leap into being self employed. Trying to wouk out living costs at the mo and the most important one is rent obviously. AT the moment I only ever work on one client at a time but I am reckoning that I may need to take 2 on at a go to make ends meet. Is this adviseable?

It is possible to take on more than two clients but you will need to satisfy their deadlines first and foremost.

Another thing is that there are a limited amount of clients that can provide the sort of work that you can do. How about looking for short term contract roles in this site, for example? http://www.prosperity.ie/all_jobs.html

You get to do one project at a time for a fixed duration - for example, three months. Once you are finished with that project, you may be referred to another one or you will have to look for it yourself.

This is another idea, just in case freelancing becomes challenging and time consuming.

Trojan

A different type of consulting, but one of my favourite business authors, Alan Weiss, says you should never turn away business, instead find a way to meet the demands. In principle, I agree with this. In practice, it is difficult.

But overall, I think you need to have serious volume before it becomes a good idea to turn away work. Doing the work is 50% of any service business. Finding the work is the other 50%.