Need Feedback on #5 and #6 in this email from a potential client.
I would be building his website for free and not sure I agree with number 5 or number 6. I'd appreciate any thoughts or feedback.
My initial thoughts though not detailed are as follows:
1. The customer would have to mention you by name or that the website initiated the RFQ.
2. Leads that led to a completed job(s) would award you a 2-3% finder’s fee dependent on job size. For example you lead me to a job that has a total revenue of $100,000.00 your fee would be $3,000.00. Just an FYI standard rep fees for work of this type vary between 5-7% but it is the representatives responsibility to follow the work through assisting in project management. This requires a lot of experience in the type of work that I do. You would not have those responsibilities, that part would be my responsibility.
3. I would copy you on all correspondence between myself and the customer up to the purchase order.
4. Finders fee’s would only be paid after the customer has paid for the job in full.
5. No job, company or fees will be perpetual. For example: If you or the web page leads me to a job with customer (XYZ) and we complete the job, then later XYZ calls me up and says I need you to come in and look at another job for us. The second job would not pay a rep fee or finder’s fee. This is a difficult area and requires some discussion and needs to be completely clear so that we can reach an agreement. We will discuss this in further detail and I am open to other ideas.
6. You would have to maintain the website and assist me in marketing. This also would have to be discussed in further detail.
Again, these are only thoughts at this point, I’d like to create a win/win situation for both of us. For me it would keep you promoting my business and for you it would generate money. Let me know if this is something you are interested in?
Recent Comments
3
My thoughts:
I can understand #5, because that would then be an existing customer. Get a higher % fee upfront for the first time, like 3%
I wouldn't build the site for free, Offer to host it on WA which is free for you but charge the business the equivalent of your annual WA fee for building the site, hosting the site, maintaining the site with modifications, submitting to search engines, analytics tracking, etc. So if you are paying the $359 annual rate, charge the company $30 a month to maintain the site, and only give a certain number of hours per month to help market the site with additional hours at a specific hourly rate; charge for creating online advertising ads; plus settle on the finders fee for jobs. Also, tell the client if you have to purchase pro versions of the theme he wants or plugins that provide the functionality he wants, or pay a theme developer to add features, you would bill him for those. Same goes for logo creation if he needs a logo (I get folks on fiverr.com to create logos for my clients) at a cost of $10-20. They usually provide me with 3 choices which I present to the business owner.
Tell him he must provide all the text for the pages of the site(which you will wordsmith and format) and if he wants business photos, he has to provide them. You can provide stock photos from the WA hosting. You can offer to show him what similar businesses say on their websites and the number of pages they tend to use. Most businesses want more of a static site rather than a "blog" site, so they don't have to provide content frequently. Depends on the business - food business or store with products may want to show new products or food dishes they have to offer.
I give my website clients a choice of two "looks" or themes, ask them if they want a logo created and how many pages they want on the site. Typically the following:
Home
About
Services/Products
Contact
Privacy Policy
Some kind of gallery of completed or sold products/services perhaps
maybe Client testimonials
I send them links of similar businesses websites (make sure you can build a site that would look like the ones you show them)
-Shirley
#5 I would think that you should receive compensation on future jobs for (xyz) maybe at a lesser rate.
#6 When you have completed the job and have been paid in full, your job is finished! If they want you to continue maintaining the website and assisting with marketing you would need to agree on a fee for that as well.
Great answers here. I agree with Shirley & Frances (the only 2 responses so far:)
For #5, you could come to an agreement concerning future work... from the client. This is fair, as you are expected to invest and be involved quite a bit in this overall arrangement. That minimal finder's fee rate is too low. The baseline is around 5%
#6 A big "No!" as is but a big "Yes" if a retainer or maintenance fee is paid for such. This is almost a partnership or is speaking to a consistent contractural or employer-employee relationship.
David