To rent or to buy?
I recently had an enquiry from a potential client who were looking to have their site updated. By updated I mean alteration to their existing site and not a redesign (yet). The client does have the aspirations to one day spend time and money on their site as they recognised that 99% of their business is brought in through their existing web presence and understand it's a strong marketing tool. In our various communications they have outlined their immediate requirements and went on to describe their hopes for the future and how they'd like their site to work for them one day. This immediately said to me that they have the right idea but will need guidance on how to acheive it so I set up a meeting. Dead money.
So, in a quaint little pub in a nice little village we begin to talk over the requirements and it becomes all too apparent that their business is growing at a rate their current site can't keep up with. My suggestion was to map out what they would like the site to do (in a dream situation) and allow me to cost that out with them. The reason I chose to do this is that all too often people just don't know what web development should cost and only seem to imagine it costs nothing or way more than they can afford. My aim was to demonstrate to them that if they continue to spend money on frequently updating their site over the period of a few years that this was in effect 'dead money', as they would ultimately be doing a full overhaul at some point anyway. My suggestion was to consider the idea of getting their ultimate goal costed, breaking that into a phased approach and seeing if this scenario was more beneficial and more affordable. This option would enable them to make the changes they want make when they want to make them (obviously through a CMS), thus giving them total control over their end product. After reading a recent blog post by @robynslingsby about the pitfalls of shared ownership and the arguments for renting versus buying, this all got me thinking... There are some similarities to be drawn here. I am the property owner in this scenario and the prospective client is the buyer. Their choices are to either rent my services on an on going bases or alternatively they can take the leap and buy outright. A moral argument.
In my mind I would consider it immoral of me to not make these suggestions to a client. To simply take their money to update their site now and then pitch a rebuild to them later on would be entirely unethical. Of course if they choose to take that option then it is there for them but at least they have made an educated decision and I can take the client on with a clear conscience. My question is...
Which side of the fence should we sit, should we take the clients money and do what they asked without question or should we attempt to better educate the client in the hope they do the right thing for themselves whether you get the business or not?
So, in a quaint little pub in a nice little village we begin to talk over the requirements and it becomes all too apparent that their business is growing at a rate their current site can't keep up with. My suggestion was to map out what they would like the site to do (in a dream situation) and allow me to cost that out with them. The reason I chose to do this is that all too often people just don't know what web development should cost and only seem to imagine it costs nothing or way more than they can afford. My aim was to demonstrate to them that if they continue to spend money on frequently updating their site over the period of a few years that this was in effect 'dead money', as they would ultimately be doing a full overhaul at some point anyway. My suggestion was to consider the idea of getting their ultimate goal costed, breaking that into a phased approach and seeing if this scenario was more beneficial and more affordable. This option would enable them to make the changes they want make when they want to make them (obviously through a CMS), thus giving them total control over their end product. After reading a recent blog post by @robynslingsby about the pitfalls of shared ownership and the arguments for renting versus buying, this all got me thinking... There are some similarities to be drawn here. I am the property owner in this scenario and the prospective client is the buyer. Their choices are to either rent my services on an on going bases or alternatively they can take the leap and buy outright. A moral argument.
In my mind I would consider it immoral of me to not make these suggestions to a client. To simply take their money to update their site now and then pitch a rebuild to them later on would be entirely unethical. Of course if they choose to take that option then it is there for them but at least they have made an educated decision and I can take the client on with a clear conscience. My question is...
Which side of the fence should we sit, should we take the clients money and do what they asked without question or should we attempt to better educate the client in the hope they do the right thing for themselves whether you get the business or not?
