Once you and the client have passed the preliminaries, you’re ready to find out more information about the project itself. Ask the client to prepare this information for your next meeting. If the client seems completely indecisive or unsure, you should still proceed with your next meeting or next set of questions, but be warned. The exact answers don’t matter as much as the client’s ability to address them. For longer projects, if he or she can have an outline of the anticipated deliverable milestones ready at your next meeting.If there is a specific timeline or deadline for the project.Whether he or she believes that the project is well-defined.One of the biggest challenges contractors face is that of shifting or poorly defined project scope. Similarly, consider whether you want to take on extended-term projects.
Minimum or maximum contract period: If you don’t take on projects for less than a certain amount of time, such as two weeks, find out how long the client anticipates needing you.Point out that this is simply a range, and you will be able to prepare an exact bid only after you learn more about the project. Instead, specify a range for the type of project the client is proposing. You don’t have to specify your bottom dollar, or the client will probably aim for that. Minimum payment: If you won’t work for less than $X for any project, make that clear.You should always keep in mind the following general rules that you apply to every project: Use your best discretion as to the timing of broaching these issues. The client may be able to answer these questions over the phone even before your first face-to-face meeting. If the client and project check out fine on preliminary research, you can move on to the details of the project itself.īefore you even get into the details of the project, make the client aware of your basic requirements, and find out whether they will be met. If your client can’t satisfy those, you don’t have a deal, and you don’t want to waste any more of the client’s time or yours. I’ve divided the information you’ll want to have before you sign a contract into minimum requirements and then into questions to ask once the project appears to meet your baseline criteria.
If a client is evasive, indecisive, or simply doesn’t seem to know much about the project, that’s a good sign that you can expect such problems as feature creep, disorganization, inability to access necessary resources, or even late payments. The more detail you can obtain about the project upon your first meeting with your potential client, the better able you’ll be to estimate the project scope, prepare a bid, and write a contract that accounts for any situations that may arise.Īn added bonus is that these questions can also help you weed out nightmare clients. In part two of this series, Little will detail questions that will help you quickly come up to speed once you begin the project. This article focuses on the preliminary questions you should ask before accepting a project and presents checklists of several that you should pose to every client to acquire the necessary background information upon your initial meeting or meetings. Similarly, once you take on a project, you need to know as much as possible about it so you can hit the ground running.
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Whenever you meet with a potential client about a project, you need to obtain certain information up front to help you learn more about the project, determine whether you and the client are a good match, and understand how to prepare your bid and draw up your contract. Use this list of questions in your initial meetings to ensure that you're getting the whole story. Questions you should ask your clients before you take on a projectīefore you create a proposal for a potential client, you need to ask a lot of questions to find out what you're getting into.
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