Re:Going Solo, Successfully
by lmm on Tuesday February 19, 2019 @08:19AM
(#19198722)
> Also "not quibbling" about the difference between 39 and 40 hours means that there is an expected amount of hours you're supposed to be working -- how does that get set? Is the answer to just not talk about it? Why wouldn't a good conscientious client ask how much time you're dedicating to the project per week, if they find your per-week scopes to be lower than what they think could be done in their idea of a work-week?
One could say the same about minutes in an hour - if a conscientious client thinks you're not getting enough done in your billed hours, wouldn't they ask how much of that hour you're spending writing code versus coffee breaks / bathroom breaks / sitting thinking? And indeed bad clients will ask such things, but the clients you want will accept that an hour means only that the only work you did that hour was on their project (or at least, that if you bill n hours across your clients then that corresponds to n hours of clock time on which you worked on no projects outside their collective set) and that you made a good-faith effort to work for that hour. A good client can certainly decide that you're not getting enough done in the billed time and ask you to revise your rate, or ultimately stop working with you. But good clients won't ask e.g. whether you were taking too many short breaks during a billed hour, because that conversation can't ever go anywhere worthwhile.
> To reiterate, I think the real kernel of advice here is "charge more to weed out bad clients", and the "charge by the week" to be a red herring. Charging more is doing the hard work here, weeding out clients that might attempt to micromanage, not changing to weekly billing.
Not my experience - indeed I'd say a high rate billed hourly gives more encouragement to micromanage as the client tries to "get their money's worth". For my money you get less micromanagement when billing weekly even if you charge a (slightly) lower overall rate - how much precision you bill with sets an expectation for how much precision is appropriate in all your interactions. YMMV I guess.
> The legal profession seems to have no problem charging by the hour, why should we?
As per the other reply, it's a real headache there. The legal profession has lost a race to the bottom in how billing is done. I'm sure we will too in time, as developers reach market saturation. But make hay while the sun shines.
One could say the same about minutes in an hour - if a conscientious client thinks you're not getting enough done in your billed hours, wouldn't they ask how much of that hour you're spending writing code versus coffee breaks / bathroom breaks / sitting thinking? And indeed bad clients will ask such things, but the clients you want will accept that an hour means only that the only work you did that hour was on their project (or at least, that if you bill n hours across your clients then that corresponds to n hours of clock time on which you worked on no projects outside their collective set) and that you made a good-faith effort to work for that hour. A good client can certainly decide that you're not getting enough done in the billed time and ask you to revise your rate, or ultimately stop working with you. But good clients won't ask e.g. whether you were taking too many short breaks during a billed hour, because that conversation can't ever go anywhere worthwhile.
> To reiterate, I think the real kernel of advice here is "charge more to weed out bad clients", and the "charge by the week" to be a red herring. Charging more is doing the hard work here, weeding out clients that might attempt to micromanage, not changing to weekly billing.
Not my experience - indeed I'd say a high rate billed hourly gives more encouragement to micromanage as the client tries to "get their money's worth". For my money you get less micromanagement when billing weekly even if you charge a (slightly) lower overall rate - how much precision you bill with sets an expectation for how much precision is appropriate in all your interactions. YMMV I guess.
> The legal profession seems to have no problem charging by the hour, why should we?
As per the other reply, it's a real headache there. The legal profession has lost a race to the bottom in how billing is done. I'm sure we will too in time, as developers reach market saturation. But make hay while the sun shines.