2by4 - 3:43 am on Apr 11, 2005 (gmt 0)

When I describe to non web types what the hardest single thing to get clients to do is, the first thing I mention is the fantasy world some clients live in regarding where their site's content comes from, they seem to believe that there is some good website content fairy who will wave her wand and make the content appear.

I had a similar, although different, problem with one client. The problem? I had asked him for clarification on a request. He took this personally to mean that I was saying that he was speaking unclearly... it went downhill from there, after many emails, not one of which ever contained the answer I had asked for, we parted ways since he absolutely refused to give me the information I needed, and took my request as a personal insult.

I think most people have had similar experiences, for some reason it's incredibly hard to get people to actually sit down and write, organize, whatever, they just can't do it. I don't think it's a question of won't in many cases, I'm more and more starting to suspect that they actually can't do it, which accounts for those weird cases of denial you see, where even though it's in the contract that they provide the content, they refuse to see the words.

I'm increasingly adopting claus's strategy, pay by the day/hour/week, forget any other way, it works really well, and weeds out the cheapskates and penny pinchers. my billing is always honest, so at some point we have to learn to trust each other, I trust that they will pay me, and they trust that I won't rip them off by mistating my hours, never have, never will.