Okay, hello. So the second part of the survey is how web designers get paid. So the questions about charging are the most common I get in my inbox, I have to say. So here is how the web designers responded when we asked them do you typically charge clients fixed rate fees or hourly daily rates and fix rates came out on top there, as you can see quite considerably with over 60%. I would say that after you get to know a client, you're more likely to go on to an hourly or daily rate, whereas a client who's not very sure of you, they'd like to know how much a project costs before they start, typically how much as a website's and you talk About what they want from the website and you tell them what you're going to do and what you're not going to do, and you give them a fixed rate price for that.

And also smaller jobs may be charged out at hourly rates as well. So the next question is, do you typically charge clients before or after a project is completed? You see, most people charge 50% before and 50%. After that there are other ways of doing it, but usually this is the way it happens. Next question I asked was, how quickly do you expect your clients to pay you after the invoice and got back some quite good answers? Really, I found this quite surprising that a lot of them get their money within a week of invoicing, which is great.

I tend to get mine within a month I have to say and do bill manually or do you use billing software and as you can see, that's about half and half. So here's some great information again, I got from web designers around the world about charging. So as last time, there's a lot of great stuff here, you can download the PDF, of course, which has all this information in it, but here is a few of them. First of all, somebody saying here that they don't do half up front half on completion, this is just a little bit different publishing companies, I usually get paid at the end of the project within 15 to 30 days. for individual client, I get paid a third up front and remaining two thirds on completion. So a little bit different.

Somebody else says I have an access program that will create invoices as well as estimates and there's someone from the US here Who says you can use PayPal to create invoices for you and you can also send w nines and electronically next one says I charge per project on everything except for maintenance work for that I charged by the hour with a minimum charge of 15 minutes. It's a really Good point about minimum charges, I would have minimum charges for everything, maybe a minimum charge for half an hour. When it's timed by the hour and a minimum charge for jobs don't do a job for less than $100. It's a waste of time. You don't want someone finding out saying, I want you to do something for 40 $50 that's not the sort of client you want. You might think, oh, that'd be nice, nice $50 but that's not enough to run a business on you need the big jobs cannot pay thousands of dollars if you want run a web design business.

So really good point about minimum charging there and he goes on but for projects, the way I figure my fee is to calculate the number of hours and then add 50% for communication, which is another great bit of advice because you calculate the number of hours you're doing the work. You don't think about communication but writing emails or having phone conversations have Skype conversations with the client, it takes up lots of time. And he goes on to explain that he charges for emails and phone calls, but not for face to face meetings. And that's generally the established way unless a client is asking to see you every week, which is ridiculous. But you usually only meet clients once or twice, if at all. And usually you don't charge for it.

And also there are unforeseen problems that can crop up as well. So that extra 50% may sound like a lot, but it's a very good idea when you're doing estimates for fixed price jobs to add on at least as much again for communication, etc. So going on again, if the client is a new client, I asked for payment upfront hundred percent if it's a small project, or 50% up front for bigger projects and the remaining 50 once completed with my standard clients, I invoice them monthly. Okay. So that's a very normal thing and it gives you some idea about charging for new and old clients and big and small jobs. And another person goes on to say new clients or fixed rate established clients are hourly, that's quite common as well.

Lastly, there's a very good piece of advice in this one in regards to receiving payment. After billing a client, it depends on the client. My biggest client takes literally weeks to pay as all invoices are dealt with by people further up the chain, so to speak. However, for most work for regular clients, about one to two weeks appears to be the norm. I sometimes offer clients the chance to pay in full before the project starts for 5% discount. a fair few clients take this option too.

So that's great advice there. You can offer a 5% discount to get paid straightaway. I don't do that myself, but An idea there. And the first bit of the quote, really talks about some clients, maybe they're part of a very large organization, and there's more bureaucracy and it takes them longer to pay. And that can be normal as well. And if you've got a good client, that's part of a larger organization, you just might have to live with that.

However, if it's a new client, who isn't part of a large organization, and they're taking a long time to pay, then that's not good enough. And you have to pick up the phone and do something about that. So contracts, do you have contracts with your clients, always 50% sometimes 36%, never 14%. So very interesting there. The 14% never have contracts at all. So it shows you that the web designers play it by ear, whether they trust their client or not, so I won't say you should definitely 100% of contracts all the time.

I won't say that you should never have contracts as well. It's one of those things, you've got to have that up your sleeve for when you need it. Next up, and now this is about having a paper trail, it's sometimes called or having things written down in black and white. Well, in these days, it's digitally in emails. So do you have written email exchanges where the price and extent of job is discussed? Yes, a lot of them do and always do.

And the reason for this is, that's almost as good as a contract. If you have an email, I will do this for this much it's admissible in courts. And of course, you're not going to go to court, but it's good to have these things written down in emails. So I also asked, Do you discuss the price verbally, and the extent of the job with the client and leave it at that? No, never. Of course, it's never a good idea unless you really trust the client.

So for me leaving a paper trail of exchanges between you and client can be even more important than a contract briefs can change during the job. So in order that everyone understands the extent of the job and the payments, it's advisable that conversations are recorded textually. Okay, so we're going to have some more quotes now from web designers that talk about just this, you have specified the outline of a job. And as time progresses, the outline of the job changes. And this is necessary. This happens.

It's real life, things get complicated. And this is sometimes referred to as project creep, because it creeps forward and bigger. And you get asked to do more things. Can you just do this, can you do this and the price is never mentioned. And this can go on to a nightmare scenario where you feel like you're working too much for the client, and you're not getting paid. And so when this happens, you have to, unfortunately pick up the phone and say to the client, stuff here that we didn't talk about, we're going to have to renegotiate.

So here one web designer says, I've only once had difficulty with Project creep, the project really got off the tracks and took far too long to complete. However, I was compensated fairly for the extra time, but it drove me crazy. So it's always a good idea to mention project creep, as soon as it happens to the client. The next one says I've never had a payment problem. I work a lot on referral these days. If I have a new client, I always get 50% upfront, especially if it's a large project, but otherwise, I'll let that slide with someone I've worked with before.

So same again, we've heard quotes like that before. Next up for new clients and larger projects, I'll use a project agreement, and this web designer doesn't like using the word contract, and in the project's agreement, they spell out the scope of the project. deliverables timetable and payment schedule, I sign it and have the client sign it and return it with their deposit. Once I get to know a client well, and we work on many projects together, I generally use written agreements via email for small jobs and maintenance work, I always make sure to have something written an email that we've both agreed on, just in case I need to go back and reference it. I've been very fortunate to work with some great people. And I've never had a problem with clients not paying.

So you get the impression that this web designer really knows his stuff. He's got a system whereby he sends over a contract and insists on it coming back with the deposit which is a great idea there for you. And one you could use because you can just say right, you sign the contract, you give me the deposit is a great way of getting paid. Next up, I used to have a lot of clients But it became too much to manage and some of them weren't good with paying on time, I withhold my client base down to a select few clients, which I've worked with for many years and have a good relationship with, although I don't have standard contracts with some of them. Everything that's discussed, is recorded in some fashion in chat logs or emails. So a good way of saying that all clients are a lot of clients aren't necessarily a good thing.

It can be better to have a few good clients rather than a load of bad clients. And another way of recording conversation, of course, that we haven't mentioned his chat logs. So if you're chatting via Skype, or Instant Messenger, or even via Google these days, make sure these chat logs are recorded. Most of them already are but just keep an eye out for that. Next up, moderate to light detail contracts, but lots of email trail. You don't want to refer to contract To resolve the problem when referring to a simple email does the trick and gets the project moving again, in the end, you want to get paid not to go to court.

So this is a good point saying that really what you're saying in the email is just as good as a contract. And that's going to solve a lot of problems. And you don't want to refer back to a contract because some people could take offense with that they might think that you're inferring that they're dishonest. So emails are probably better than contracts in that way. Somebody else says, I've learned the hard way. So for now, I will get everything written down.

Next one job specifications are recorded through email exchanges. I haven't had payment problems for sometimes now because my work commences upon receipt of 50 and the remaining 50 is received prior to the supply of digital artwork. So there's obviously a print designer there but same as story 50 upfront 50 on completion and lastly, Have a contract attached to the quotation they have to pay 50 up front and the rest when the project's finished, what causes payment problems when the client doesn't check his or her email after I've sent them the invoice. So there's another very organized web designer there and a contract attached to a quotation, again, that tying in the contracts, and quotation and first 50% invoice all in together there, which is another good piece of advice from our web designers. So I hope you enjoyed that. I really think this is a very valuable part of the course.

Because it's not just me talking. It's over 40 different web designers who are business owners all over the world. And you can see a lot of them the same, but there are some very interesting differences in the way they do things. But all in all, I hope you've got great value from this survey. I know I did. And thank you very much for listening to this lecture.

Goodbye.