I’m working on a large e-commerce website build for two weeks now. I thought I was set to move forward with the project and I hit a huge brick wall. This site was one of the biggest builds to date for Creative Soup, so I took what I normally paid a programmer and multiplied it by 4 to give an estimate. I got the business and went to the most professional looking programming firm in town to discuss the details. They verbally agreed that working within my budget shouldn’t be an issue. So I designed my site according to their shopping cart. The day I sent over the design my account rep writes me back that they want DOUBLE what they had originally talked about!! WHY is it that when it comes to money people lose all common sense? They want to charge me for just programming MORE than I’ve charged customers for entire site builds and then some. Needless to say I wrote back telling them that they were indeed crazy, and now I’m on the frantic hunt for a new programmer.

I hope to find one this weekend, but I am going to let the client know up front about the situation. That way if there happens to be a delay in the site launch he can at least have expected it a month in advance.

Lesson Applied: Be 100% up front and honest with the client

Lesson Learned: Always have a back up plan, no matter how much money you feel you’re throwing at someone to do things right.