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Websites forever in progress

Hi Aaron, I'm far from being a web designer but I do have a good bit of general business experience. It isn't anything you're doing, and it reflects on the people you're dealing with and not on you. You are on the right path by making sure to point out contractual obligations to them. But what you may want to do is make sure up front that they understand they need to contribute to the development process and have to provide content ASAP. If they know at the beginning they won't be offended when you push for it later.

Nope.. Its not you.. Its all of us! When we take on contract work... if it is less then $5000 worth of work, they must pay for 100% up front.. non refundable .. The contract clearly goes thru what needs done on both parties... and in what order.. it gives them a specific time frame.. if they do not deliver in that time frame we stop all work on that site until they do... Thankfully because of the money they pay out they tend to do their part.. If the contract is more then 5k.. we require 50% non refundable up front.. and include the same above contract.. None of the work is given to the client (other then under viewable but protected code) without full payment received. I have one client whom pays monthly, and whether or not he gets the products/information I need to me.. he still has to pay... I just don't do any work on it till he does send whats needed... The more you require them to pay up front, the more likely you will have cooperative people... On the other hand.. I've had people pay 300+ for a custom template that they still havn't used 6+ months later... A few clients that we've taken on for our hosting, pay a good chunk of change for a years worth of hosting (non refundable), still don't have sites up 10 months later .. *shrug*

That phenomenom is also what makes these types of customers sort of unreliable concerning recurring charges, etc. If they have no commitment to the project you have to wonder why they started it to begin with.

Thats why we tend to not take on large projects with a deposit... and usually just go for the ones where they pay 100% up front.. Reoccuring transactions are very difficult .. and people lose interest... (how someone can just throw money around and not care is beyond me) .. People are impulse buyers by nature.. they see something cool and pay it for the least amount possible then forget it... The impulse never lasts forever, except on those wonderful rare occassions when you have a dream customer.. I love those occassions..

I think many people start websites with the intention of doing nothing with them. That is a problem. When you are doing "nothing" with a website, it becomes more of an unneccessary expense, if you know what I mean. Some people just use it for domain mail, and never even bother putting up a page. Some just wander off and no one knows what ever happened. That is why it always the best idea to get paid up front. That way you know whether they "are with you or not" It isn't you at all..

MM ALL Content for a web site is hard . with my site its for a org. and becase people are bissy doing the groud work they sumtimes dont have time to write meup stuff . here the problem lies. as a web master i want people keep coming back to the site alot to look at the work and theanimals we have always needing homes. one thing i have found quite intresting is to put more local content inand internal news streams with sum refrance to the sort of work we do . here is content on the web mostly beut you have to be carefullhow and who u link too .

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