18 – How to Tame the Scope Creep Monster (and Stop Projects from Dragging Out)

[00:00:00] What up y’all? Welcome to the Web Design Empire where we share stories and strategies to help you build your web design empire. From that little side gig to a giant multiple six big and beyond business. I’m John. This is Kelly. We’re full-time freelance web designers. Slash Diviners who’ve escaped the real world, broke up with our jobs, our bosses, our cubicles, our pain, and our commutes over 15 years ago, and we haven’t looked back.
We’re also course creators, web design, business coaches. Web design store owners, Kelly owns Airbnbs. I’m a touring professional musician. All that to say we are building our empires. Today we’re talking about reigning in the scope creep monster, managing client expectations and communication But first, Kelly, how are you doing?
How’s this week? Going summer, right? Summertime. It is summer. It’s hot. We [00:01:00] actually just got back from Myrtle Beach, last week. So my honeymoon there. That was fun. Did you really, I’m guessing it may have changed since then. I would not honeymoon here. It was, well, we had a lot of, we didn’t have a lot of money.
We had like no money and there’s a Best Western Plus that. Oh wow. You did not say at a Best Western That is, that we had a first floor. Room, like a bigger room. And I remember right outside our patio, you could just walk out to the beach, to the water. Oh, nice. Yeah. So it was pretty, that part was amazing.
But I remember we didn’t run a car. And so we walked everywhere or we had those little scooters and so the two of us went, oh yeah, I remember this one overpass bridge going over it with the scooter and being like, I should not be on this right now. I should not be doing this. Well, there were a couple nicknames we learned for Myrtle Beach while we were there.
Um, one is Dirty Myrtle, which. Is on point and another is Murder Beach. So yeah, there were two murders while we were there, which is great. Wow. [00:02:00] Um, ‘Cause we’re there with our whole family. Apparently it’s run, it’s like run by legit gangs.
So yeah. Good to know now that we went there. So, probably won’t be going back, but it was, I mean the beach was lovely. So I have a tan success. Tomorrow I’m going to Red Rocks for a concert of one of my most favorite albums of all time. So I’m pretty excited about that. Um, who, who, who is it?
It’s, it’s Incubus, but there’s only one album of theirs that I love and it’s Morning View. And this tour, yeah, that’s best one is just for that album. And so I am beside myself, to go and watch, listen. Yay. That morning View album’s great, and then they, I know, I believe that that was the one where they recorded it all.
Like a house right On the beach type situation. I know. Hence Morning View, I’m pretty sure. Oh, okay. And, uh, was it Myrtle Beach? That would be wild. , There’s a morning view house on, there’s an MTV Cribs episode about it.
Incubus Morning ViewHouse. How did I not know that? [00:03:00] And that’s where they recorded the album. Very cool. Um, but that was kind of the idea when we went to Colorado and spent like 10 days there recording our album was like, what if we could just wake up? Oh, nice. And you’re ready to make music every day. And it’s just this, you know, that’s what you’re doing.
So I love that. And, yeah, I think that is the best album that they have. I’m not a huge Incubus fan. Yeah. But I do like some songs off that album. I’m not either. I just, I, that, that album was introduced to me by, a former coworker. His name’s Nick. And he would just burn me CDs, this was back in the day.
And like introduced me to stuff. I would’ve never listened, you know, this was back in my nineties rap crap days. So yeah, he gave me that CD and I would listen to it, from start to finish on my way to visit my now husband in Omaha. And it was like the perfect length.
Like it would literally be ending as I would pull. So I literally listened to it a hundreds of times, so, it’s just, it’s got a special place in my heart and I can’t wait to go. I’m so excited. Yeah, it’ll be awesome. I’m old enough now, where , I won’t even entertain a concert unless I am a super fan because it’s just all the [00:04:00] shenanigans, the logistics, and like parking, we’re staying in a hotel by there.
, It’s just all the things. And so now I’m a super snob of what I will actually go to. , We’ve played a few outdoor shows here, and we got a couple more here next week. We got one. , As part of the alo. Gotta be hot, man. Oh yeah. Part of the aloe concert series. They’re doing some big thing.
The mayor’s gonna be there. Oh, cool. I, yeah, I’ve heard of that. Mm-hmm. And then, and then amazing. Then we’re playing this . Fancy golf course. Golf club. Yearly fundraiser deal. Well, which golf course Firethorne. Nice. Anyway, , you’ll probably like this then. We just did a funl for, uh, there’s a festival in Missouri that.
What they did was, Hey, we have six tickets, six super passes, and if you have one of these tickets, you get a park right by the stage. See, that’s baller. You get a park right by the stage. I would go, , you get a stand in front of the barrier for every band. Nice. You get a cut every meet and greet line to get [00:05:00] awesome, get whatever, and you get unlimited food truck.
Dang. Yep. So yes, that would get me to concerts. So yeah, those went for two 50 a piece. That’s where the bidding ended at. Oh dang. 250. That’s not bad. But still like still the Fest, the festival’s free.
That’s a deal. It’s free to attend it. Gotcha. And so for them to get like 1500 bucks for six people. Just to have these, you know, in fact they probably, I was telling them, Hey, get rid of the food truck thing. ’cause that’s the only thing that’s costing you money. Everything else’s true isn’t costing you any money’s.
And it’s the only, it’s the only cost that you can’t, that’s kind of variable. Right, right. You know, uh, ’cause if I was one of the ticket holders, I’d just keep going back to the food truck. Multiple times. Here’s a plate for me. Here’s my wife all. You can eat fries here. Here’s one for my kids.
You know? You guys need anything? Yeah, the whole front row. It’s got the hot dogs. Oh man. So anyway. Well, how do we get into the scope creep monster. Okay, well. I [00:06:00] think we start with, why it matters, why it’s even a topic. Managing client expectations and communication. AKA scope creep, and I would add on drag out to that, drag out.
It’s one of those things that if you know, you know, , , it’s almost like you have to endure through it a few times before you realize. How important it is to get processes in place to avoid, the scope creep and the drag out and all the things.
But yeah, what you’re trying to avoid is. The late projects, the unpaid invoices, just frustration mm-hmm. Of any kind really, but on both ends, like for you mm-hmm. As the provider and also for your clients. And the hope is that you would instead have smooth projects with happy clients and respected boundaries and on time launches and.
This is something I threw in, because of, the last couple weeks. Um, legal reasons as well. You don’t wanna get sued. So yeah, those are the reasons why it matters, why it’s important. But like I [00:07:00] already alluded to, it’s something you kind of have to go through in order to realize.
Where the holes are in your processes and every failure that comes from a communication failure or a expectation failure is a chance for you to refine your processes so that doesn’t happen in the future. We have lots of stories about that. Yeah. Every setback is an opportunity.
There you go. There you go. I wholeheartedly agree. There’s a time to grow up and account chocula and start getting your process in place because before that moment, you just wanna please everyone. You’re winging it and you just wanna, I’m just a little web designer getting my business going.
So I’m gonna do what? Oh, oh, you forgot that you needed a course on your website. That’s Oh, no. Big, big deal. I can do that as part of the, I can do that thing. Or, this is what happened to us last week. Oh, you have a new marketing consultant now at the end of the website project and they want to Oh my.
They have an opinion. That’s weird. And they want to change [00:08:00] everything. Oh yeah. Okay. Interesting. I mean, yeah. Good for you. We haven’t launched yet, so Yeah. We’ll just count that in. We’re not going to, by the way, we’re gonna charge. No, no, no, no, no. But anyway, so yeah, that was one that happened recently.
Um, That’s hilarious. Yeah. I would put scope creep right up there is the biggest frustration next to gathering content. Like it’s just that. Yes. Those, for me, those are the two. Terrible things about, and well, again, and I, I’ll throw drag out back in there. It’s drag out it’s clients that, that ghost for months at a time.
And then they reappear and they’re like, Hey, is this site live yet? And it’s like, wait a minute, I’m still waiting on you for this, this, this, and this. Yeah. Oh, you have? You have me very well beat. But what’s the longest web design project you’ve had? Oh, six years. It was six years. Six, yeah. Years. Six years.
It’s a second grader. Six. It is, no, it’s a first grader, but six. Oh, okay. I’m, I’m, I’m not there yet, but six, six years. Six years. Six year. Well, and again, like they would ghost for [00:09:00] a year at a time. So anyway, let’s get into, how to deal with this. So how do we deal with it? I think. I think , the first thing is you start, before you even start, like you start laying those expectations and the boundaries before the project even starts.
And so you’re setting those rules, you’re explaining that process upfront. You’re repeating it often. But yeah, this is why you have processes so that you can actually, participate in this step. If you don’t have a process then and you’re winging it every time, then yeah, there are no expectations.
There are probably no boundaries either. So it’s something that if you don’t have started, at least start, writing it down and getting those processes into place so that you can have something to tweak. Mm-hmm. So yeah, you can’t explain your processes if you don’t have ’em.
You need to define things like turnaround times, response time, expectations, rounds of revisions, how delays are handled, what happens if there’s crazy drag out or ghosting. Mm-hmm. And then also the boundaries. And I think we’ll get more into [00:10:00] that, maybe next, but yeah, you start before the project starts explaining all this mm-hmm.
So that you guys can get on the same page beforehand. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Does artillery do that? I would imagine? Yeah. Everything. How does artillery do that? Everything you just said. . Is it notes It’s all you guys have like a proposals and stuff, mm-hmm. Oh yeah. With timelines for every step of the process in there.
Every step. Like one to two weeks, one week, three days. Right, right, right. We outline how many rounds of revisions, all that stuff. Yeah. And then is that all in the proposal itself? Yes. Yeah. Okay. The proposal’s long. It’s a long, it’s a long one.
And then I’ve said it before on this podcast, but when we use the building, a new custom home analogy, that seems to really help put weight on. Yes. Here’s the phases. Here’s why they’re important. Yes. Be clear when getting the site outline and features approved, that way you have ’em from day one.
That way if they do try to add a little course add on at the end, you can say, that wasn’t part of the original. Here’s part of the original. We can come back to that once this project is launched. But we’re gonna set that [00:11:00] aside right now. That was one of my tips, hey, we can do that for phase two.
Yeah. Yeah. Phase two people love phases. Mm. We got, we got the phase two and sometimes the phase two never happens, but they just feel good. True. That something was thrown out, like their idea was thrown out and it’s acknowledged and now it’s yes on a phase two somewhere that never happens. Have a clear roadmap timeline with everything listed so they know what to expect.
In the end, clear communication is best for everyone and they’ll respect your boundaries. Correct. Frustration comes when clients do not know what is included and what is not included. They, you know? Right. It’s, I mean, it’s like, that’s like with any relationship, ever, but yeah.
Especially when business is involved. , You literally have to be clear for all the reasons we’ve said, and including legal. So yeah, if they start to go beyond the original scope, quote out the additional pages or features, if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile and they’ll be confused.
If you don’t charge ’em for one page. So then they ask for another one and they’re like, well, I’m gonna have to charge you for that. That’s, well, that’s confusing. [00:12:00] Now they feel bad. Now they probably feel bad for the first page you did for free, you know? Yep. So, like, confusion is not your friend.
Don’t let ’em do that. You confuse, you lose. Okay. You lose.
I hate losing. I know you can too, but let’s park on, let’s park on the boundaries because, this is something that I struggled with for a super long time. , As people pleasers, we were just having a conversation before this. Mm-hmm. And, and John and I are both people pleasers.
I don’t know if that’s a Midwest thing or like our generation thing or what. It is what it is. And we are that, yeah, we text people back the same day. You don’t not wait until two weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Kids weirdos. But I think just coming at it from an approach of boundaries that are professional, they’re not rude.
And I think that, people pleasers have an issue with that. And when I’m talking about boundaries, for me it’s how to communicate. My clients know I’m a freelancer. They know my phone number. They know how to get ahold of [00:13:00] me.
I have people text me late at night sometimes, I’ve even had people call late at night, like on a weekend and I’m like, unless your site is down, that is unacceptable. I have a lot of ’em text me now and I realize . That is a perfectly acceptable method of communication for most of the world.
However, that is my hard boundary where texting is personal for me. I get so many texts a day from my kids and my husband that it’s your business stuff is gonna get lost in there. So that’s what I tell ’em. I’m like, if you want me to get to something, you have to send it through email.
Mm-hmm. But then I have clients who don’t really use email. Which blows my mind. I don’t know how people can’t be using email for business purposes. But that’s my biggest boundary issue is just how to communicate and do not text me. And then I go so far as if clients will call me out of the blue.
I won’t answer it. I’m never going to answer that unless we have a scheduled call or unless like we’re in the middle of something where I’m expecting something. But I’m not gonna answer an out of the blue call, from a [00:14:00] client.
I have a Calendly link that I will send people. Oh, you wanna do a call with me? Fine. Here’s my link. You can get on my calendar. Which I realize annoys people, but. That’s a boundary for me. Yeah. If you are willing to take calls at any time of the day, then, make that clear.
But that’s been my biggest thing with boundaries is just setting those very clear expectations of how to best get ahold of me, and how to not get ahold of me. And that was hard for me to put my foot down with that stuff. And that’s the beauty of freelance is you get a pick, you get to set all that, you make the rules.
Just make sure you stick to ’em so that your clients don’t get confused. Yeah, I’m with you. And listening to you just now, I’m like, this is why Basecamp is nice. ’cause all the communication is done in there. Yeah. Yeah. We’ll get to tools next, but I, I have a story about this quick that I have to throw out there.
This goes back to just people pleasing 1 0 1, this is still when I did it as kind of a side gig. And I , had a client [00:15:00] who wanted to meet, once a week, ah, at a restaurant, at a nice, that terrible, a nice restaurant, and she would like, pay for my meal.
And we would discuss the project and I would update her, whatever. And this was early two thousands, y’all, this was a very long, this was before. We need some, we need more info on this. The demo demographic of this client, please. Oh no, it’s exactly who you think It’s okay.
You nailed it. I know exactly what’s in his head. It was an older lady. Yeah. So anyway, she wanted to keep meeting, , and she would pay for my meal and it was lovely. And she was a great. Human being. I didn’t mind this. And it was right across the street from where I worked at the time.
So it wasn’t a big deal. I’m just getting like a free meal and great, I go back to work. And then once the project launched, I specifically remember her being like, okay, so then I’ll just see you Tuesday. And I was like, come again. The project is over. I had to actually say the words out loud, I’m gonna have to start charging you if you want to continue to.
She just [00:16:00] thought we were. We were buds, we were pals, and that we just had this ongoing lunch date. Anyway, , that was hard deal, deal, what heartbreaker you are. But that was my own fault for letting that, go on as long as it did. And now that will never happen again. I have one client,
she’s a writer and she’s very sweet. She was a teacher, LPS forever. And now she’s written several books her and her writing partner, Becky and Lucy, and Becky has bought my kids’ clothes. Oh. You know, um, they gave us, she gave us a zoo pass this last year because wow.
I out, that’s a great gift. I helped her out with how to post a blog post. And she’s my last client that I’m actually like servicing the last one because I can’t, I don’t want Jake to deal with this, so just can’t give her up. That’s hilarious. So, yeah. I love it. Okay, let’s get into the tools and kind of the tactical piece, because during projects it turns into this kind of update game and I heard this phrase and I like it.
[00:17:00] When it comes to these types of projects, I think it’s important to over communicate, but to do it efficiently. And I think something that I generally try to do is a weekly update or a check-in, even if nothing major happened. Granted when projects drag on for, you know, months, the weekly check-in becomes a bit obnoxious.
So obviously, use your best judgment. But I think that’s a good starting point. And, the tool that I use for that is Boomerang. Once I reach out to a client and if they do not respond to me, I have it come back, , in a week. That’s my very, very watered down simple tool that I use for that.
Does Basecamp have anything like that built in, like the prompts or check-ins? I don’t know, but I do know that they have a nice little meter thing that kind of shows where you are and I’m sure Hailey. It has a to do that’s assigned to her because she’s the like project manager. She’s the director, director [00:18:00] of traffic, you know. Oh, that’s a fun way to say it. So here’s my thing with tools, because I have very intentionally used. Watered down. Like I use Trello for myself, y’all. Mm-hmm. Great. Excellent. I use Google Drive. Mm-hmm. For clients almost exclusively.
Mm-hmm. Because it’s a very small ask if they don’t, but most of the time they already have a Google account. And so the reason that I have stuck with my watered down basic, basic tools is because I have had clients. Try to get me on their own platforms. I’ve had clients want me to join their WhatsApp.
I’ve had clients want me to join , their company Slack channels. Oh. I’ve had clients want me to join like their own project. Like Asana or whatever. Asana. Yeah. Okay. And I have to immediately say. Absolutely not. That’s another boundary. I used to be like, sure, put me on it.
But the number of, you know, [00:19:00] I, you know, managing almost 200 websites. Can you imagine if you’re on 200 people’s Slack channel, like companies, it would be a billion notifications a day. So the reason that I don’t use like a software, this is in my head. I have tried them all. The caveat is I’ve tried ’em all and I hated ’em all.
And so the reason I tell myself that I don’t use them. Is because I don’t wanna ask my clients to do that. The thing that I’m not willing to do, which is, well, you don’t have to with base my platform, they don’t have to. But yeah, that’s what I wanted to get into. Because, because Base can, like you can just do it all over email, correct?
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah, they don’t have to. That is so smart way to go base camp. But again, for a solopreneur, I still don’t think it makes sense for, me to have that for the projects unless, well, I would say, I agree with you. If I was freelancing, I would, use Trello , and I was using Dropbox, but I was using Trello and Dropbox. Yeah. But [00:20:00] Trello, Google Drive. That’s great. I will say, the only projects that seem to get in trouble with that Yeah. That I’m thankful for Basecamp, is when there’s multiple decision makers. Yes. And now you’re trying to, you have several people emailing you and you’re just like, oh my gosh, this would be so great if there was like one thread, one that, you know, and that’s what Basecamp, you mean you mean multiple decision makers on the client side?
Correct. Yep. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. That, that can get a little, and yeah, even unwielding, even when you, when you say I need one contact, sometimes they’re just, there’s more. I had like 13 people in a recent project that was. Which I knew it was gonna be a nightmare, but it was for a ski resort, so I really wanted to do it.
So, that’s a risk and I took it and it was a crappy project and what sucks is that , I’m so like, disgusted with how the website turned out. It’s not even going on my portfolio. So that was kind of a lose lose all the way around, but it did make a lot of money.
So I guess, I guess there was the win. The other thing I was gonna say, with the weekly check-ins, assuming your director of traffic does [00:21:00] such a thing, what you’re doing there is, letting ’em know what you’ve done on your end and what you’re waiting for on their end. And staying in front of them, over communicating, but doing it efficiently.
I have a project right now that’s been going on, I think probably over a year. And when I say it’s been going on, there’s only been a few weeks of actual activity in there. Mm-hmm. But this particular gal, it’s a big e-commerce site, she has to do a bunch of photos of her products.
And so that’s what’s been the holdup. And she has redone them three times now, and she just got them back again this week. And she says they’re unusable and so she has to redo it. Anyway, in that case, I am not bugging her every week. I would just be annoying at that point. So I have a monthly, boomerang for her where, you know, I just like, how can I help?
Or how’s the photos? Are we scheduled? You know, stuff like that. Are there any other tools that you use besides Basecamp or is that basically like a one-stop shop for everything you guys need? That’s the one-stop shop. ’cause they have files, they have unlimited file storage too. So all the files are in there.
And of [00:22:00] course it’s got the threaded conversations. It’s got And do you ever get pushback from clients? Like, I don’t like base camp, like, you know, I don’t, I don’t. Does that ever happen? I don’t know that answer. I’m sure Jake probably does though. But it’s just like, well, okay then I guess you’re not a good fit for us.
But again, if they can do it all through email, then they can do it all through email too. Yeah. You don’t have to sign up for a basic camp account. You don’t have to do that. That’s, that’s awesome. But yeah, I, I am with you. Do not join some other slack. No, absolutely not. Yeah. It’s a hard pass.
Absolutely zero. Interest in that. I did, I did do it a couple times and I was just like, this is insanity. Yeah. I’ve, I’ve joined the Asana thing for a client and it’s like, this is no great. It’s almost like people just love the tools and Yeah. You know, and then they end up going away, like envision, right?
Like, oh, you could send your client, your mockup and envision, they can mock up, they can write things on there. Worst idea ever. Why would I want them to do that? You know? Terrible idea. Great for, great for like, if you’re, you know what that’s great for. I’ll [00:23:00] tell you. If you’re like a designer at Spotify and you design something.
And your manager wants to mark something up on it. Perfect use for that. But yeah. But for client work, absolutely not. No way. Don’t give them that power. Nope. Nope. No. I, I love, I love Trello. It’s what we’re using for Funl. For Funl. It’s, we’re using a Trello board. It’s amazing. I love it. And Trello, for those who don’t know, for whatever reason, it’s basically a checklist of checklists.
It’s just a list of lists. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, you can use it however you see fit, fun, and it’s very simple. A lot of fun. It’s, it is fun. You can drag and drop cool. So then, okay. What happens when things go sideways, when there is confusion, when there is ghosting or misunderstandings. What’s the process? Then? What do we do when a client disappears or they are unhappy or confused?
Or, you need to come in and reset expectations perhaps, do you guys have a, I guess, a process for that and or, [00:24:00] I mean, the whole point of having processes is to avoid what we’re talking about here, but, sometimes when stuff does go wrong, that is that time to kind of look back at the processes and tweak as needed so that whatever that is doesn’t happen again in the future.
So how do you guys handle when things go sideways? Well, when I was handling it and it, when I was freelancing. I would hop on the phone, you’re like, I don’t, halfway true. I have pay people for that. I would get on the phone with the client and I would talk to them and I’d usually compromise and I would figure out a solution with them and I’d usually, end up doing the thing that they wanted.
But at least then we are back on track and it’s like, I hope they don’t do this again. Yeah. Jake does it better than I do. Jake will hop on the phone with them or zoom with them and he’ll bring up the proposal and show them, here’s what’s in the proposal. Yeah, this is not in there, blah, blah, blah.
Or talk about that. We, phase two, we will launch a site without pages if we don’t have [00:25:00] content for them. Like it’s happening. Whoa, it’s happening. After so long, like it’s launch day, 3, 2, 1, after a publish, like after I don’t know how many warnings, but after a time, it’s like we’re launching the site. You know what we’re doing.
That’s hilarious. We’re good. See, I wouldn’t do that, but I would start charging ’em hosting before it ever got to that point. So that’s, we do charge, I guess that’s why. Oh, we should talk about that. Okay. We, this is a learning process thing that, that changed the process because of drag out.
Yeah. We start charging hosting when the project starts up. We don’t launch the site without the permission, but we do say, Hey, we can launch the site and work on these pages later. Because usually it’s pages they don’t have on their current site. And so it’s like, Hey, look, this is holding us up.
Why don’t we just launch what we have? And then we can, you know. But I do know there was an eye website company in town here that would launch sites with Lorem text on them. They would, they just do it. Would you? And that would be an eye company. They build , optometry [00:26:00] websites. And they would launch the website with Lorem Ipsum if, the client wasn’t giving content.
Geez. Yeah. That’s crazy. And , that’s a pretty strong motivator to get your content in. I mean, yeah. But that’s also messed up. Again, that’s, that to me becomes a legal issue. I still don’t like, I still don’t like you. Was that in the contract? The, the rash?
I don’t know, but . The rationale of, well, if they’re paying for hosting, what do you care? Because the longer a site sits Unlaunched, the more out of date and changes they’re gonna want and crap like that. That’s true. And the more time they, the more time they have to bring in some marketing person at the last minute, a consultant, it’s like, Hey,
we need to launch this website. You know? Or we’re gonna start over and that’s gonna be. A whole new set of charges. We can’t just hold the site in offline mode while WordPress updates and plugins update. And now, we’re six months later and, like that’s not acceptable, you know?
That’s, that’s true. Very true. I have a story about, something going sideways. I [00:27:00] had this client, this is something again, all these stories that we tell today, whatever failure occurred, to create these stories. Had a direct effect on how our processes change for the future.
So you gotta go few through a few of these so that you can make those calls and evolve your processes. But yeah, this is the client, I don’t even like bringing up ’cause it, it literally makes. My heart. Start pounding. If you have one of those. Deep breath, deep breath.
Pick all the deep breaths. So this, yeah, here we go. This guy, it’s over. It’s not gonna happen again. You’re safe. This? Yeah. Yeah. And the only reason I took this guy on was because, I mean, he had red flags just flying all over the place, but he was a good friend of, a very good client of mine and so I felt like I should probably do this.
And, uh, didn’t respect any boundary. He would call at any time he felt like it and then he would just like talk in circles. You know, nothing actually was established over the, you know, he just wanted to talk, [00:28:00] to talk and then he would hang up and, I mean, he was pure chaos this human.
But, he talked me into you know what, can we just launch this? I’m getting paid next week and, can we just launch this and your payment will be in the mail next week? And I just couldn’t wait for this project to be over, so I was like, fine. Done. It’s launched.
And the kicker was where? Where was it launched to? The kicker was he was staying on his own hosting with GoDaddy. So when I didn’t get paid next week, that’s my new work with GoDaddy. Go, Maddy. Go. Go. Maddy, when I didn’t get paid the next week or the week after, or the month after I wasn’t GoDaddy, so it wa it wasn’t on my hosting plan, so I couldn’t in good. I mean, I could have, I could’ve literally, no leverage just gone and wiped out the site. But like, I, I’ve lost that leverage. However, the little leverage I did have was, it was using Divi, which was on my license, right?
And the gravity Forms, which ran the entire website, was on [00:29:00] my license. So I removed my license key, so it didn’t work anymore. The theme still looked fine, but the gravity forms just turned into short codes.
And so that was the only leverage I had to, and again, was that legally, messy probably. But when he hasn’t paid me. Like, come on. Yeah. I had to do what I had to do. What made me even mad was he never paid my, contract. My copywriter contractor who did a lot of work on that site too, so.
You know, what’s a good way to lesson learned? You know, what’s probably the best strategy to not deal with scope creep is to not take on sites that it’s probably gonna happen. So check this out. Yeah. Last night, well, exactly last night I went out with Jake and he showed me this new lead that we got from, it’s a Catholic organization and they seem to be flush with cash and there’s a new marketing gal that spent 10 months.
Gathering information on what are we spending on our website per month, and why are we spending so much per month? [00:30:00] Wait, it took her 10 months to figure that out? Yep. I want you to guess. Okay. I want you to guess how now, to be fair, it’s hosting the website, maintaining the website plugins, stuff like that.
Gravity form. Is this a WordPress site? It’s a WordPress site. Oh, okay. Um, it’s, it’s a. Creating landing pages as as needed. Okay. Okay. And, I think up to 50 new pages a month, up to 50 new pages a month. 5 0 5 0. Five zero. Good God. Who needs that many pages a month? Graphic creation as needed.
Okay. Uh, uh. All right. We’re getting up there. Build an email newsletter once a month. And send it out. Okay. I mean, that takes a second. Okay. All right. What are we thinking? Well, the up to 50 landing pages and unlimited graphic design. Uh, it would have to be in the thousands, I would think.
Like 5K, triple it, 15 KA month, 17. 17 [00:31:00] KA month thousand a month is what they’re spending. Wow, man. We’re doing it wrong. What the heck? Well, but I look at the whole thing and I told Jake, I said, dude, if it was me, I wouldn’t do it. Yeah. No, that’s just a giant red flag. That’s too much.
They’re gonna be the most high maintenance client. So it’s like, Hey, if a company comes to us and there are more than 50 employees and they have all these features. It’s like, you know, you know, you know right away you’re not a good thing.
Yeah. You know? Yeah. So anyway, if you read built a Sale , there’s a project in there that the guy gets the proposal for. After he decided to only work on logos, and it’s not just logos, it’s all this other stuff, and he ends up making the right call and walking away from it, even though it paid a lot.
And that’s right. In fact, the largest site we’ve ever done, it’s a six figure website, is over a year. Over a year now. And it’s not launched because why Content and scope creep. Those are the two main things that’s been happening because, and how many contacts are [00:32:00] there on that side?
A lot and check this out. The longer the development of a website is open, however many weeks that months that is, it just gives them more time to be like, oh, we saw this other, wouldn’t it be cool if we had a AI chat bot on our website too? Hey Kelly.
All we need is. We just need just a simple little, a simple little AI chatbot. Can’t you just install that for us? You know? Like, no, I can’t, but I can give you a quote on how much it’s going to be. You’re right. That’s on phase two. That’s way more on phase two. That’s way more professional than being like, yeah, I can do that.
Well now, now they’re just gonna ask you for something else, and then you’re gonna say, and then it never ends. Yeah, no, I can’t do that. And they’re gonna be like, well, why not? You did the other thing. I asked you did this. Why? Why did you, because I’m nice. Person. Now we’re awkward. Yeah. Now we’re an awkward, but no, that’s a, that’s a good point.
The way to avoid a lot of this is to see the red flags up front. But again, you have to, you gotta go through it before you see the red flags. Hey, [00:33:00] ex-fiance of mine. Why did you write me love letters when I was gone? And then when I came back, you tell me you’re cheating on. Why are the letters?
Damn, you just went, don’t went deep. Don’t do that to your clients. Don’t give ’em love letters and then be like, oh, I can’t do that anymore. Like, oh, I was wondering where you were going with that. Okay, got it. Yes. I mean, it’s the same thing. It’s the same thing. Not really. Your analogies got stick in the car.
Analogies I got, stick in the car. We say fine. Bye. Analogy in the car analogy. Ugh. That’s funny. Okay, so the last little chunk I had was like post-launch, right? How to kind of wrap up a project strong with guess what? A clear off-boarding checklist for wrap up and moving forward.
Because at that point you’re transitioning from the project piece, right? To hopefully the ongoing maintenance piece. And again, whatever boundaries and expectations need to be made clear with that piece moving forward and when they’re still in a really good mood and pumped about their website, that’s when you [00:34:00] request that review too.
That’s part of that offboarding? Where, where could someone get a checklist like this? I know. Could get one from break into web.com. Get web or become one of our coaching students and we’ll give you our checklist for off-boarding clients successfully. Amen. Yeah. Long story short, just like a website is never finished, right? Your processes are never finished.
It should be constantly evolving as needed, especially as new technology arises and AI and who knows what else. It’s something that, you should be constantly auditing and when stuff arises, like scope creep or drag out or whatever, adjust your processes as needed. You can never go wrong with setting boundaries.
People will respect you more. I know. Yes. For that boundary’s. Without that boundary, there’s no, no respect. Yep. All right, y’all Well, with that in mind. Thanks for tuning in [00:35:00] today and joining us on the Web Design Empire. Be sure to check out Break into Web, check out our mentoring section to learn how you can break away from your daily grind.
Become a freelance web designer like us, create the empire you’ve been dreaming of. And yes, check out that mentoring tab. If you’re at six figures and you want to golden multi six figures like we’ve done, we’ll talk to you next time y’all. Cheers. Peace.