We’ve talked about this a few times on the Blue Flavor blog, and countless times with our peers, but I want to say it once again, for the record:
If you are a potential client and want to work with us, it’s really, really helpful to know your budget!
Giving us your budget will let us know your parameters, give us a sense of your commitment to the project, and (most importantly) help us help you!
If you want a site just like Flickr but only have 2k, that tells us something. If you’ve got 90k to burn on a visual refresh, that tells us something. If you simply just want to see what you can get for 30k, that tells us something as well.
At Blue Flavor, we strive to be honest, open, and straightforward about our pricing policies. Knowing your budget up front will help us achieve that goal. And it will help us help you, too!
I understand why some clients don’t like to divulge that information. They’re scared. They’re afraid that an agency is going to see big dollar signs and try to rip them off. The problem with that thinking is that it starts the relationship off with a level if distrust and that’s never a good place to start. Clients need to feel comfortable and part of that initial dialog is to put them at ease with sharing that information.
@Jonathan - I know, I understand it too. But it’s sad because I feel like we’ve lost potentially great clients who we would have been flexible with because they made us take a shot without having all the info.
(I do know that rarely people really don’t know what their budget is, but that says to me they’re probably not ready to contact us.)
In any case I understand it too - but the fact remains, it has to come out at some point, it’s better to get that on the table, with all the other pertinent info, right at the beginning.
It’s a difficult, but important question to ask. I no longer have the question in my information-gathering survey, but I make sure to ask it on the phone.
I’ve found that even before asking clients, you can often tell who’s price shopping and looking for cheap-ass websites, and who wants quality work just by the way they interact and the level of preparation on their end. If they’ve not done their homework, it can be a budgetary warning sign.
I agree with Snook. As far as budgets go, I first talk to potential clients about business objectives and success criteria, then desired functionality and requirements, all before approaching the budget topic. That way, they feel secure knowing my company is more focused on the work to be done/outcome to achieve rather than just another cheque to deposit.
When we finally get to talking about budgets, I plainly ask them for the number. It’s then up to the client to decide whether or not the proposed offer is a fair trade for their investment. If they feel it is, then a contract gets signed. Seems to work nearly every single time.
@Jonathoon Snook. Yep, it makes complete sense why a client would be nervous; I would be a little nervous too, entering into a somewhat high stakes business relationship with a company I’ve probably never met face to face. Unless, of course, I had done a lot of research to discover how much what I want typically costs, what’s involved, etc.
I think you also make a really good point about the toxic effects of introducing distrust into the relationship early on. I think both agency and customer should assume the best while being clear and direct, early on.
and @Zach Katz. I’m finding that I, too, can kind of gauge how much due diligence a client has done (and intuit what kind of experience they’re looking for) without ever talking about budget. But I’m also constantly surprised by I can’t intuit, which is why the directness approach is so helpful.
Thanks for taking time to comment.
@ Geof Harries: Great idea. That seems like a very logical way of easing a client into the topic while avoiding dreaded sales awkwardness.
@Geof - I like that idea in the main. My biggest problem with not asking for a budget up front is that it seems like when we don’t we get many more of the “price shoppers” that Zach is talking about.
Knowing and being willing to share a budget, like it or not, is a really quick and easy way we can tell if someone is serious about our services and not just wasting our time.
Still, I think what you say has some merit.
I can understand why it would be hard for a potential client to want to release budget info. I often run into potential clients who don’t honestly know how much their project should cost - so even if they have a budget, they’re basically worried about getting taken for a ride. So they feel their only recourse is to hide the budget and do a bunch of price shopping.
I try to take it client by client and help them understand that a budget helps me make the best decisions for a project, but some are just unwilling to part with that info. Sadly, like Keith noted we’ve probably lost a few good projects ourselves by not having that basic information and adjusting our approach appropriately. I guess that’s just part of the biz.
@Jonathan Snook - The company probably has a good reason for being nervous about revealing numbers. They might have been burned in the past.
What I really like and appreciate about Blue Flavor is their being so transparent in they way they do business. In this blog they talk about all the different aspects of they way they do business. I believe that instills quite a bit of comfort in potential clients, and would encourage them to be more upfront with their confidential information.
@Keith I still ask for an approximate budget, but it’s not the kick-off question. That usually comes well into the meeting after all of the initial interview questions have been answered and I have a strong feel for where the conversation will end up. I’ve actually found this approach works very well in warding off potential duds, because all of the “serious” questions can topple their price-first agenda.
@Dylan - We really do try to be transparent with our process and pricing and all that. Sometimes I think that, in of itself, puts some potential clients off. For example, we come in low and they think we don’t understand their project when it could be just that we didn’t pad our estimates as much as the next guy. Things like that. We really do just want to be paid fairly (and quickly, ha) for the work we do and to do that we need to be sure our clients understand the value of what we bring to the table.
@Geof - Right. Gotcha, and that’s kind of how we work too. We like to have a general idea going in, but, honestly budget isn’t what (in our minds anyway) makes or breaks a project. That’s one reason why it’s so frustrating when potential clients don’t want to share. We’re willing to work to accommodate someone’s budget if we like them, it’s worth our while, they’ve got something interesting going on, etc. In order to do that in estimate form, we have to know what the budget is…
There’s an old axiom about project management that goes something like: “Budget, Timeframe, and Scope: you can have two, but not all three.” The point is: something has to give.
I think the same thing is sort of true when first discussing a project with a client. If the client has a very well-defined budget and timeframe, then we can give them a good idea of what we can do, scope-wise, within that. If the client has a good idea of what they need (scope) and what they can pay, we can give them a good idea of how long it will take us to complete the project. If a client has a hard deadline and well-defined scope, we can tell them how much it’ll cost.
Things get a lot tricker when a client doesn’t have a couple of these things nailed down before talking to us. Things also get a lot tricker when a client has all three nailed down and haven’t picked one they’re at least a little bit flexible on.
A perfectly worded post; nicely done. I am going to steal some of this most certainly.
I feel like it ultimately comes down to the client thinking the agency wants to charge the most they can; so a budget of $20,000.00 magically has a project cost of $19,999.99 — gotta come in under budget.
We ask (demand) that potential clients give us at least a broad ballpark; the cost ultimately depends on the scope and some clients know both the scope and their budget. However, many clients know their “cap” but need help understanding the scope — sharing their “cap” will help us determine an appropriate scope.
The goal for us is giving the client the greatest deliverable that does them the most good at the lowest cost.
@Jeff Croft:
Over here we say “It can be Good, Cheap, or Quick - pick two.” ;)
Yep.
The main reason providing a budget sucks so much is almost everyone knows what a new car is worth and what you get for your money. Not so much with websites. What does $20,000 buy you that $2,000 doesn’t? An attractive and thoughtful design? Semantic markup? Features?
I’ve seen plenty of $20,000 sites that were the worst pieces of crap ever delivered to a client, as well as budget sites that should have granted the designer early retirement. I’m betting that if we were all to visit ten popular websites and guess how much it cost to launch each one, none of us would be remotely close, or at least none of our answers would be consistent.
I personally think most agencies need to be more transparent about what they charge and how much a typical project costs. A client should know if his money is paying for the Sport package or just pinstripes and rust-proofing.
The downside is that a lot of agencies will do exactly what the client is afraid of: that by knowing the budget, they’ll somehow come up with a proposal of same services that have been tweaked to fit the numbers. Honesty is a rare commodity among firms. Some proposals get trimmed with the idea that another client will be able to “make up for the difference”.
I’m not saying I condone it, but I am saying it happens.
What clients don’t understand (because we in the industry usually fail to explain clearly) is that getting a proposal for a project is not like getting a quote to fix the brakes on your car. Once the disconnect between value and quality and trust are cleared up, it’s likely that they’ll be much more open to divulging what they can afford.
@Roger - I’m not sure what you are seeing, with the quality of these sites, usually relates to how much money is being spent. What you are saying can certainly be true but it’s usually other factors (not budget) that cause a poor site to be delivered.
So, yeah, what you’re saying is true, but I’m not sure the point relates to budget.
Lack of vision, for example, or lack of a solid plain or a simple bad idea in the first place, can have that result. This isn’t always, or even usually, the fault of the designer. We’ve had a few clients over the years that want and need our help but are unwilling or unable to execute on their end of the partnership. We do try our best to be responsible with those clients’ budgets, but sometimes it’s hard to tell from the get go that a project is going to be a dud.
Having said all that, I can give a potential client a pretty good idea of how much they need to spend to get what they need for a great site. Assuming, of course, that they uphold their end and follow the process. There are times when it doesn’t work out, and we’re a time and materials business, so there is some risk, however we will usually work for free (thus not increasing costs) to try and make sure our clients are happy if there is something we can do to fix things.
We’re actually in the process of working out a guide to typical pricing. It’s a bit hard because every project is different. We do have a general idea, based on our successful projects, of how much things cost when a client hires us. Our estimates are usually pretty accurate and most of our projects are successful, so there is a pretty solid basis of knowledge there.
Why don’t designer take a completely different approach.
Tell a potential client, if you want 5 pages (re)designed - the minimum cost will be $7,000.
Then say, my billable rate is $100/hr. When I exceed my minimum cost, I’ll start charging my hourly rate.
This allows clients to get a sense of what it might cost just to do the minimum amount of work. And if they want more enhancements, which many will - they know how much it will cost.
Of course, my figures are all fictitious.
How it relates to budget is this: no one walks into a car dealership and says, “Hi, I need a luxury sedan with leather seats and a V-12 — I have a budget of $1,000 so let’s do this.” Why? Because people have a general idea of what a luxury sedan costs, so they can budget accordingly.
Let’s say I am — what I perceive to be, anyway — a typical client with a small company and I need a new website. I have a meeting with my partners, one says the kid down the street with Dreamweaver will build us a new site for $300, the other says this agency downtown will build us a new site for $30,000. The kid’s portfolio looks attractive and seems to do the job, as well as the agency’s. What’s my budget supposed to be at this point? How much do I earmark for something I don’t know the intrinsic value of?
Put another way — it’s my experience that clients don’t provide budget not because they are unwilling to divulge how much their website budget is, but because they have no freakin’ idea what a “typical” website costs or what the price difference provides between agencies.
@ Roger Wilco (and everyone else) — Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
I agree that clients often have no frame of reference for what they’re asking for or getting. And what’s just as difficult — we often have no real reference for what they want, because they have a difficult time explaining it (“Like Flickr! Make it Web 2.0!”).
As Keith mentioned and Dylan complimented, we try to be really transparent with our pricing policies.
That said, I think some kind of ‘how we decide what to charge you’ rundown is in order. We’ll see.
Thanks everyone for some really good points.
@Roger - the biggest problem with your example is that when you go in to buy a car, you, the buyer aren’t involved in the design or manufacturing of that car. Relating the design process to buying a car doesn’t really make sense.
I think you’re focusing on the product and not the process to get to that product, which is what we sell.
Now, in regards to the kid down the street analogy: the bottomline there is you can play much less to have a kid down the street build a site. (The gap, if the kid was good would be much less than $300 to $30k, but whatever.) This is an age old, and in our case, irrelevant argument. If a client can’t see the value in what we do as compared to “the kid down the street” then we likely won’t be working with them regardless of their budget.
It’s our job to show our value, and we do that for prospective clients. Then it’s their job to decide if it’s worth it to them. In order to do that they need to have put some thinking into how much they’re willing to spend.
We sell services and process, not a product. Sure, those services do usually result in something tangible, but our clients pay us for the services and the process and the “product” is a byproduct of those services. It’s true some of our clients don’t understand this and maybe that’s where the confusion you’re talking about lies.
In general though, the people who approach us have a pretty good idea what they want, the value we bring to the table and what their budget is. Those clients that don’t, well, we usually ask them to take a step back and think about that stuff before talking to us.
I’ve heard it that way, too. I try to avoid saying those words, though, for just one reason: we (Blue Flavor) are unwilling to budge on quality. In other words, if we tell potential clients “It can be Good, Cheap, or Quick - pick two,” we set ourselves up for them responding, “it’s gotta be cheap and quick, so just do the best you can with the time and budget.”
We don’t ever want to provide a lousy end product, so I prefer not to give the client an opportunity to ask for one. If I reframe it as “scope,” instead of “quality,” then it’s something we can budge on. If they say, “it’s gotta be quick and cheap, so do the best you can with the time and budget,” we can respond with, “okay, then you’re only going to get four comps, instead of the eight you wanted.” We can live with doing four great comps, but we can’t live with doing eight mediocre ones — so I prefer to just not give them that option.
That having been said, I think the way you say it is more clever, fun, and to the point. :)
For me, the honest reality is that I simply don’t want to waste the time writing a proposal or even setting up an initial conference call with someone who is talking a $20,000.00 game (of a project requiring that budget) but ultimately only has a $2,000.00 budget.
Problems only exist in the human mind :)