Consulting 101: Researching a New Client or Do I Want to Do Business With these Hosers

When you are a small consulting group, it can be scary to even take on a new client.  How do you know if they are ok to work with?  How do you know if they will pay you?  How do you know if they're just an asshole?  Here are some techniques to protect yourself from new clients.

Technique 1: Get 20% Up Front for Custom Code

As I outlined in my essay on professionalism, getting money upfront is part of being professional.  If a client won't pay you a percentage up front then this is a serious warning sign.

Technique 2: Charge a Setup Fee if You Are Hosting It

A lot of us consultants also host applications for clients.  And we usually forget the first rule of hosting: CHARGE A SETUP FEE.  Hosting companies got into this because its so damn hard to get people up and running with just the basics (ever had to troubleshoot a client's email problems with Entourage on the Mac when your Mac keyboard, which you don't use regularly, turns out to have about 50% of the keys not working).  Your general setup fee is 1 or 2 months hosting and it doesn't really cover your costs but it helps.

Technique 3: Bill for Hosting at the START of the Period, Not After

There are two basic billing techniques: Before the customer gets the service and After the customer gets the service.  If you always bill before then you are out less money if the customer just doesn't pay.

Technique 4: Research, Research, Research

I never, ever take on a client until I've done the basic "Is this customer an idiot" queries on the Internet.  Here's what to do.

1. Use three search engines.  I use www.google.com (big surprise I know).  I also use my old meta search engine, www.queryserver.com/web.htm.  Since Google is awesome and Query Server searches 10 or so search engines this does a very good job of covering the bulk of the public web.  Finally I use www.daypop.com to check current stuff in the weblogging community.
2. Use the following search queries:
1. client_name
2. client_domain_name
3. client_name sucks
4. client_name complaint
5. client_name rant
6. client_name flame
7. client_name "better business bureau"
8. client_name problem
9. client_name bastards
10. client_name "better business burearu" (spelling error intentional -- people get it wrong) 
3. Look at Query Server's search results groupings carefully.  Query Server, since 1997, has done "search clustering" (i.e. generating groups of search results not just a ranked result list -- take that www.visivimo.com !).  These search clusters can tell you a lot about your client since Query Server retrieves about 200 results per engine (if my memory is correct) and then builds clusters from N engines (you can control this) * X results or 2,000 results.  And it's blindingly fast.

Conclusion

Checking out a new client can be a lot of work.  I actually keep a checklist of queries that I run.  At some point I guess I should actually build a "Is X a Hoser Application?".  Sigh.  So much to code, so little time.  Anyone want to help?

Acknowledgements

Thanks go out to Dewayne for asking the questions that led to this essay.  See: Reader Driven.  Don't be shy.  It may take a bit to wrap around to your query but I generally will.  And, just to plug my own stuff for a bit, Dewayne changed his signature based on my email essay and that's how I found the link to him that I you see above on his name.

© Copyright 2002 The FuzzyStuff. Last update: 5/19/2002; 7:36:28 AM.