They come in various shapes and sizes:
1. ‘Barney Stinson suit man’: This is the impressive corporate guy. He’s always wearing expensive formals. There’s the formal jacket, irrespective of how hot the weather is.
He has the price quotes from three of your competitors (or so he claims) and he can make you feel like a tiny rat with his big words and hoity-toity-ness.
2. ‘Hollow man’: This is the client you have Skyped with and heard, but never seen. He definitely exists though, and you know this as you have snooped around and found his profile on LinkedIn and other social media websites. There’s a dissonance between how hard he thinks you work and the amount of effort you actually put in..
3. The ‘foreign’ client: This is the extremely professional client. There’s a confusion regarding the timezone calculations but he sticks to timelines and is bang on time for calls. He knows what he wants and you like the aura of working around this prized client.
4. ‘Desi’ bhaiya: This is your traditional businessmen who’s loaded, drives a fancy car, carries an expensive phone. He wants you to do some work for him, but does not have a proposal. He needs x, will ask for y, and post submission will claim he needs z.
That’s all good and wonderful. But if you run a startup long enough you will realize one thing, that ‘Everyone lies and everyone wants to get the most out of you; by paying the least (or nothing)’.
They know you need them more than they need you and the have no qualms about squeezing more than their money’s worth out of you.
Things you may have heard:
- ‘But wasn’t that included in the pricing that you gave us’.
You are thinking: Ummm no. That was not written anywhere. Why would you think that it was?
Underlying learning: Lay it out for them. Point by point. Detail by detail, about what services you owe them. Yes, it’s a Paris Hilton at the other end of the table (Mind you, she’s a brilliant businesswoman)
- ‘Please make a proposal for us’.
You do that and submit a budget worth x.
You hear back “Hey we only have 0.2x. Sorry”
You are thinking: Dude if you already knew your budget, you might as well have told us before hand and not wasted 10 man-hours of our lives.
Underlying learning: Ask the client their budgetary constraints on day 1.
- ‘We’ll sign a contract next week. Until then, can you quickly do a, b and c for us. We have a tight deadline’
You are thinking: Hey, I just spent one week working for that guy, and I haven’t received a penny
Underlying learning: Never do worth more than a few hours of work for someone unless they give you an advance payment.
Trust me, if you don’t think your services are worth a certain amount, the other party won’t either. Working on a ‘good faith basis’ means squat. It does not matter whether it’s a high profile corporate client, or an academic with a Wikipedia entry, or your extended family members’ business partner, you will get cheated if you don’t smarten up. Also, handing out freebies to clients will make him take you for granted. It's like a personal relationship, there has to be a give and take.
At no point, since you are a small or an upcoming organization, should you put yourself up for exploitation. The client approached you because they think you are worth their time, no one’s doing you a favor. Your services are worth your intellectual property i.e. your brain-time.
Hopium (State of ‘hope’ and feeling the ‘high’ of what you’re doing) is a good thing but please be realistic!
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