Finances are always an awkward subject. It seems that no matter the situation (aside from speaking with your spouse, for example) it feels taboo to be speaking directly about money. That translates from personal finance all the way to contract negotiation with clients. Our culture and society has some interesting views on money, how it should be handled, what it represents, and what it means as a whole, but there’s a lot to be said about the correlation of money and the quality of what’s to be purchased.
Our industry (like many others I imagine) deals with a wide spectrum of businesses providing [arguably] the same service. Unfortunately there are times when clients are comparing what they view as apples to apples when in fact it’s not nearly the case. We can’t fault them for not understanding the intricacies of what we do though. After all, they just want a website.
I don’t mean to oversimplify what we do and what clients want, in fact I spend a large portion of my time explaining just that during business development discussions. It’s just important to stand behind what you do and understand that there’s more to the end product at stake, there’s the process of getting to that finish line that often accounts for associated project costs. Don’t pay attention to what other people are charging and don’t be derailed by potential clients saying they can get the work done cheaper elsewhere. If all it comes down to is getting the most bang for their buck, they’re better off going to a different shop.
While I like this article for it’s core intention (that really has nothing to do with Web design or development) I like how it outlines the overlap of American culture and couldn’t help but realize how that often bleeds into other industries as a whole.