Upside Downturn

I want to share with you something that I’ve realised recently, that allowed me to make my family home mortgage payment, that allowed me to pay my tax bill and ultimately enabled by business to continue and to not fail. It’s a pretty simple business lesson, ask for more money when a project over runs. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

It started in September, I had a client’s project that seemed good. It was worth £7,000, three times the size of my average website project. So, I thought I was quids in and got on with it.

However, cracks started to occur. The freelancers I was using just wern’t delivering the quality that I wanted. I had to dump them, and yet still pay a proportion of the bill. The new team I got in to develop the project were more expensive. I had to lay off the project manager this side who was working on it and do his work. The upshot was that I personally did two months work on it. And then I got stung on the pound crashing against the dollar, the new freelancers were now a 3rd more expensive. Meaning, I did two months work for nothing.  Zip. Nada. How soul destroying is that, when I could have been working on decent paying projects? Not a recommend business strategy you can afford to do with an employee, a forthcoming tax bill, a young family and  a mortgage.

Normally, I’d have bitten the bullet and taken the hit, learnt a project management lesson or two, be grateful that it hadn’t cost me money. But, I was in such a position where I wouldn’t have been able to make my mortgage payment, nor pay my tax bill, or pay my staff. I was up against the wall. I had no choice but to ask for more money from the client, I didn’t want my family on the street.

My carefully worded (begging) email to the client detailed the items that we did that were extra to the original proposal. In this case there was 1 extra Flash game (We created 8 not 7 games), and 4 extra interface pages.

I then detailed that the communication that was out of the ordinary for this project, in that we dealt with 3 different contacts rather than 1 gateway adding to project management time.We also carried out 3 sets of amendments rather than the traditional 1. And content was handed over in formats that required re-jigging.

I also was ‘humble’ enough to additionally write that we had inefficiencies our side, and these added to our internal timspan for the project, and  that “of course you shouldn’t be expected to pay for these”. I think by mentioning this I made sure they knew I my  goal was to produce the best possible work for them, rather than just a best-to-budget project. I care! I hope that was the sentiment they got from my communication.

I then put a time on this extra work, let’s say 20 days, and said to the client “that any financial gesture towards this would be appreciated”. This was important, rather than demanding £x money, I put the decision on them, and of course added “I want this to be the start of an ongoing relationship, where we produce ongoing brilliant work for you”.

That was that. I sent the email, and instantly felt better. I didn’t want my business to go under, and was taking active steps.

Like anything that requires persuasion, I got on the phone the next day to suss the client out and see how my email sat. “We’re going to have a discussion and see if there is any more in the budget”, was their response.  I was optimistic. And sure enough 4 days later, I got an email saying that they were prepard to pay an extra 20% of the project total. Brillant! A positive result. Not all the money I’d asked for but enough to make the project profitable,  pay the mortgage, restore my faith in myself and want to work with the client again. Tadah!

It got me thinking, all the times that a project has run over, why haven’t I asked for more money? Why have I taken the hit and not the client for their scope-creep, dilly-dallying or unending amendments? I asked my freelance illustrator buddy, and another web design agency. They all do this! It seems it’s bred into perfectionist small agencies or one-man-bands. And it’s enough to either ruin you, or make sure you are working to the wee hours to finish what should have been straight forward.

So let me tell you what I did next. On another project that had run over I told the client where we were (20% finished), and what was left (80%) of the work, and how this situation had arised. And again I got another 100% of the original budget!

I hate to say it, but you don’t get if you don’t ask. If you APOB (A Project that Overruns Badly), you need to communicate with the client, and ask for more in a caring, detailed manner, followed up by a call explaining and discussion.  In my case, asking was enough to save my business. And in future I certainly am going to communicate with the client any overruns, and if necessary ask for more money. For now the stakes are real, I don’t want to be the one moving my family out my house.

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Paolo strategy