I'm meeting with my first client here in a few hours. He is looking for mainly design work, a service I will be outsourcing. Any tips or pointers in meeting with a client, getting their thoughts and ideas? Any thoughts are appreciated! -Jeff
If you will be outsourcing the work, tell the client this upfront. If you have a problem later with the freelancers, you will be held accountable with the client.
I have heard to not let them know I will be outsourcing work. I mean really what matter would it make if I had an issue with the freelancers? My client is still going to be upset with me, I cant pass the blame.
I agree. Definately tell the client you are outsourcing the designwork. Because if he finds out later on, and you didn't tell him. He could equate this with dishonesty and there goes your first client
1. Don't tell him that he is your first client. 2. Do tell him that you will not be doing the work yourself. Whether you tell him its "outsourced" or not, is up to you, but he needs to know that you won't personally be doing it. If you do it correctly, then your outsourced resource should be just like one of your employees and the client wouldn't see them any differently. So its all a matter of how you run your business. I have worked for one of the largest IT service companies in the world for many years and this industry outsources positions all the time... its practically impossible for any IT service business to survive without it. But the client doesn't care because they are holding us responsible for the work and they know our pockets are deep enough to handle that responsibility. Are your pockets deep enough to cover anything your outsourced resource messes up... including schedule delays if they disappear on you. That's the kind of stuff you need to worry about.
I outsource part of my work. Depending on their requirements, I may say "I might outsource some of that, but I'll look after it all for you" Honesty is the best policy
If you have a contract and they are of any reasonable size, they will likely include language about subcontractors. Being upfront with people is best. If they find out later and it's an issue for them, you have a problem. As convergent said, outsourcing isn't unusual. I too have worked for very large consulting companies. While not popular with regular employees, consultants/outsourced people are often cheaper for companies because they can hire them for a short period, get rid of them at the end of the project, and they don't have to pay benefits to them.
I agree. Don't offer any info about your experience if they don't ask (in terms of this being your first job). But do make sure they know who is doing the work and know you are responsible.
LOL what world do you live in? You think if you tell someone your the middle man it's going to make them happy.
The risk of not telling them though is that you may miss represent yourself and thus the client have legal routes to claim for breach of contract. You dont have to tell them but you have to be damned careful that you do not give the client any impression that the work is being done by you/ your company which can be very difficult to do in any real time conversations be it face to face, telephone or IM where you dont have time to carefully consider every possible interpretation of your wording. If you are upfront about the outsourcing and include in your contract wording that outsourcing may occur then you protect yourself from miss representation in conversation. General pointers, turn up on time, look smart, it is better to say you will come back to them on something you dont immediately know the answer to rather than bluff and get yourself into problems and especially as you are going to be outsourcing, know exactly what the process is going to be.... clients often want to know how their requirements/ preferences are to be gathered and one of the challenges of outsourcing unless you have established networks is that different companies may require different information/ have different processes for these things
it looks like I am a little late to help you with this one, but maybe some pointers for the next time around. 1. Be Relaxed 2. Listen to them 3. Ask them questions 4. Encourage them to ask questions 5. Don't be afraid to say no 6. If you don't know, tell them you will have to get back with them about it 7. Sell... sell... sell... emphasize the value you add over others if no deals have been made yet
8. You're selling the "service" or "product", no matter whether out-sourced or not. Stand behind it... (but I don't think that you have to advertise it - LOL) ECS Dave