How Having Project Boundaries Increases Your Value
Want more pricing help? This is day five of our five part series on pricing clients. You can find the rest of the articles on the Pricing Bootcamp splash page
In the final day of the Pricing Bootcamp series, we’ll take a look at how setting boundaries on a project can ultimately increase your value as a designer and keep stress at a minimum.
Prevent Scope Creep
Once you’ve settled on a price, it’s also assumed that you’ve settled on the project definition as well. Scope creep is the slow introduction of “little changes” by the client that don’t fall under the original agreement. It comes in the form of “one quick page”, “also updating this other piece”, and other seemingly small requests. The result is always the same though — more work than agreed on for the designer.
With an hourly pricing model, this isn’t so much of an issue because additional time is still billable. However in a fixed price project model, scope creep can rapidly devalue the time spent on a project.
Don’t Settle, Adapt!
If a client wishes to add more work to the project, be careful before accepting it. If a budget does not support the work required, it does not mean that the designer should take the hit and do the work anyways. Just like a client can choose to spend more money, a designer can choose what work they will provide for the current price tag.
No matter how much money is put into a project, two things will always be true:
- There will be services that are covered by the current price
- There will be services that exceed the current budget
This may sound obvious, but these are the points that scope creep overlooks. This is also overlooked more frequently when larger sums of money are involved. To better illustrate this point, let’s take a look at a common investment for American families.
A Collegiate Example
For many households, college tuition is one of the largest single investments made. At an average $40,000/year, it is a large sum of money to have to pay. But still, this price has limits. The $40,000 invested goes towards many different smaller funds within the college. It’s easy to say “I’m paying $40,000 for my son or daughter to come here”, but in context it’s more like “I’m paying a series of departments within the institution varying sums of money for my son or daughter to come here.”
Why does this matter? In this example the lump sum gets divided into smaller bundles. The “project price” of $40,000 is actually paying a few hundred for dorm stock, a few thousand for classes, and continues on for each component of a college year. It’s a matter of perspective! As a result it’s often the job of the designer to help a client understand just where the money is going, and why adding that “one extra page” isn’t covered already.
This is why your project prices should never just be arbitrary — they reflect smaller components bundled together, and you may need to know the value of those pieces if a project starts to expand.
Part of pricing like you’re worth it involves standing up to a client when the work required starts exceeding what was agreed upon. This is especially relevant when using the fixed project payment model, because additional hours will only devalue your overall time.
Get it on Paper
Having a contract for the deliverables should not be a frightening idea. A contract does not have to be miles of legal vocabulary and fine print. It can be as simple as a mutually accepted statement defining the expectations of both client and designer. Make it readable, clear, and direct. A contract or written agreement will help insure that both you and the client know your responsibilities and limits.
Do you have advice for setting project boundaries from past experience? Share your stories in the comments!
Want more pricing help? This is day five of our five part series on pricing clients. You can find the rest of the articles on the Pricing Bootcamp splash page
