Save Money on Your Web Site – Chapter 1

We all want to save money wherever we can, that’s just a fact of life. I’m no different than anyone else in that boat so I work at saving my clients money wherever and whenever I can without scrimping on quality. My clients pay me their hard earned money to do a good job for them and I respect and value that more than I can tell you. I wouldn’t have a successful web design business if I didn’t have happy clients. If I didn’t care about their budget, you can bet they’d find a web designer who does.

One of the things that helps people save money on their web site is to send the work you want done on your site before it becomes a time crunch. One of the things I see happening, not only with me but other designers as well, are those clients that seem to think they are our only clients. What I mean by that is that they regularly send me updates to do on a rush basis and expect me to just drop everything I’m doing in order to do their work.

Now don’t get me wrong, all web designers realize and understand there are times that something does need to be done on a rush basis. Occasional rush jobs are normal and expected. What I’m referring to is the client that wants every (or almost every) single update, every single idea they brainstorm to be displayed on their site, every single everything done immediately. I can’t find a single reason this practice is healthy for their web site expenses (or their sanity) and I can only assume that the people that do this are just unorganized, at least when it comes to their web site.

Why Does It Effect Costs When I Want It Done Right Away?

It’s a common practice for web designers to charge more for rush work. Do we do this because we think you’re in a tight spot and we’re therefore going to take advantage of that? No.

Just as we have no way of knowing what’s going on in your life which might cause an occasional rush job to crop up, you have no idea the workload we may be under when you send a request for a rush job. A successful web designer doesn’t just do one site at a time,  multi-tasking is our middle name. We may be in various stages of developing multiple sites, another client may have just submitted a shopping list of updates, perhaps one of our kids just fell and broke their arm and we need to take them to the doctor, our spouse may have just been promoted and his company is throwing a huge surprise impromptu party in his honor that you need to attend. The list is endless and the point is that like you, we have lives outside of tapping our fingers on the keyboard and clicking the mouse.

When we get a rush job in, we need to reorganize our current workload which causes us to have to reschedule other client’s work. Big point here … would you want your web site work delayed because someone else is in a hurry? This isn’t always an easy task and all on it’s own, requires time and effort to accomplish. Some designers work a normal Monday through Friday work week just like most of the rest of the world and need their weekends just like anyone else. A rush job may require they give this up and work overtime. If you worked a job where you were handed a mandatory overtime shift, you’d expect to be paid a higher hourly rate for the overtime shift, wouldn’t you? Why would you expect us to be any different?

A phrase I learned from another designer who has no problem saying exactly what she feels is that “your rush is not my rush.” She’s not being rude, she’s being honest! When you send us work that you want done right now, you are in essence trying to make your rush our rush. In some cases it’s totally justified, but if it’s a regular occurrence, you need to re-think just how important each and every rush job really is. How badly do you really want to pay time and a half rates or more? If you think before you rush, you’ll  save some money. In the case of the rush-o-phobics, that can be a considerable amount of greenbacks!

Don’t You Like Making Extra Money?

Yes of course, but only if it’s warranted. I’m one who would much rather not have my scheduled workload and my life interrupted by constant rushes. I’ll bypass the extra money.  Jumping in and out of one web site after another is without a doubt, stressful on the brain. When your request comes in, I could be right in the middle of a very difficult project that requires heavy duty brain power or fixing a site that the client broke because they just had to do it themselves. Remember, every web site is different which requires any number of various coding and design layouts. I could already be stretching my multi-tasking abilities to their maximum level. Sometimes I’m down to my last nerve and one more added task can cause it to snap and website overload strikes. People, this is not pretty!

Oh, So You’re Complaining!

No folks, I’m EXplaining. It’s part of my quest to help educate web design clients and have a good working relationship with them. Probably more than you, I want to be proud of your web site. I created it after all, and as much as it reflects on you and your business, at the same time it reflects on me and my business. We both worked hard to make your site the best it can be for which we both deserve to be proud of our accomplishment.

If you want to constantly pay more for your web site services than is necessary, that’s totally up to you. I feel it’s part of my job to help you save money. Using some good old fashioned common sense, forethought and getting organized can help you do this.