Aug 02, 2008
Never Underestimate Cheapness
My brother was philosophizing about cheap clients on his blog. He is spot on with his commentary. I’m writing this as unfortunate proof that the sickness in not unique to the animation industry.
How is it that people can be this stupid?
Check out this advertisement for a web design job.
What the heck is his person thinking? Hmm. Let’s see. I have to come to their office, train their sorry butt (because that’s really what they mean by “work with me on this”), and then I have to make 500 pages for their website.
OK. Project understood. Now, how much do they want to pay me for this? UNDER $100!!!!!!!
UNDER $100. Not even a hundred. Under that. Because, at $100, we’d be talking $0.20 a page, which is clearly too much to pay for my services.
Wow.
For anyone wondering, a half way decent website is going to cost you several thousand dollars. Throw in e-commerce, and it is going to be more. If you are flexible and willing to use open source stuff and are not a crazy design Nazi, you might be able to get it done for $5-7K. If you want something that looks unique and professional, it will cost more.
If you want it based on a Content Management System so that you can update it yourself, it will cost even more.
If your site is worth having (financially), then its worth spending money on. You don’t open a store and expect to do it with $500. Why would anyone think that they can do it on the web? ESPECIALLY if you are selling something! At least with a store, people can come in and look at what you have, see who you are and make a decision to buy from you or not. On the web, all they have to go by is your site.
Which site would you trust with your personal information? This one:
or this one:
Design matters. Professionalism matters. A look of legitimacy matters. And, all of these are going to cost money.
Oh, and please don’t take this rant as evidence that I think I’m the best web specialist in the world. Clearly I’m not. I can’t design worth crap. Yet, even I’m $250 an hour at my rack rate. Do I do a lot of web work? Yup, going on 15 years now. Why would anyone expect to spend less on their online “entity” than they did on legally setting up their business? Many lawyers are way more expensive than $250 an hour. Find a web specialist than can command the same rate, and you won’t be sorry. If you don’t, your site may look like this:
Anyway, I’m off my soapbox. Sorry for all the suds. 
Haha! So true!
But sadly, I see more and more people every day encourage a society where everyone believes the only way you can afford anything, is to have someone slave away for peanuts to produce it.
Then in the next breath, the same folk complain how nobody is willing to pay a decent wage for anything any more.
Errr??? Maybe the two things are related? Ya think?
Nah!
I’m not really that surprised at it all to tell the truth. People are idiots. Especially these type of people. But I have to say I don’t think this is directed at anyone in the states. this is an ad for someone in a 3rd world country trying to make ends meet. Where $100 is still major bucks.
You could make more selling lemonade on the corner… provided of course that the gangs didn’t force you to give them a cut. I think you’d still make out better than taking this gig.
The ad says they want someone that can come into the office, and he wants local designers. I’d assume that since the client is in FL, that we’re talking in the US?
Yeah, I’d love to think there was a culture / exchange rate issue here, but I think we can chalk it up to simple stupidity.
Well perhaps…. but then again FL. is so close to Cuba and there are so many Cubans there that it almost qualifies for out of the country.
Wow, I’m not going to touch that one…