Entrepreneur Mom
with Aliza Sherman
If you own a business - home-based or otherwise - this is the blog where you'll find practical tips and smart ideas about entrepreneurship. I've started and run 4 different businesses so "been there, done that." I'll also invite successful entrepreneurs to share their best advice with you.
To learn more about Aliza, check out her profile on Work It, Mom! and her website, www.mediaegg.com.
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What do you do when you are just one of several consultants your client is using on a project and one of the other consultants is clearly a scam artist?
This is a situation I was confronted with recently. I was brought on to help oversee some of the Web initiatives and asked to sit in on a meeting with a Web development company. In short order, I recognized all the signs of a scam.
Having run my own Web development firm in the mid-90s, I watched other Web companies do one or more of the following things to their clients:
1. Use lots of technical jargon to confuse and intimidate.
2. Set up the bare bones minimum site then charge an arm and a leg for each and every add-on even though those things should have been in the first iteration if they had done a proper strategy.
3. Inflate all prices arbitrarily based on what the market or client would bear without any rhyme or reason - just to get as much money as possible in the short term.
4. Keep a client’s site “hostage” by not providing workable admin tools so the client can update on their own and over-charging for every small update the client needs.
As I sat through the meeting with this client, I was frustrated as I listened to the Web developers tossing jargon around and speaking to one another using technical terms.
Then I was floored to see that even after an initial “strategy” meeting with the client, they created a Web application that was so bare bones, it was embarrassing. It didn’t even have the most common features that are offered by a multitude of other companies and that are pretty much standard these days.
In the end, I wasn’t surprised that to bring the tool “up to the client’s expectations,” they were going to charge an exorbitant amount of money for features that should have been in the application in the first place.
Now I’m faced with having to tell the client that they are being ripped off. I don’t offer these services myself so I don’t think it will appear as if I’m trying to get the business, but I’m trying to figure out how to craft what I’ll say. What I want to say is:
“Get out now while you can. Just cut your losses and run. There are so many other companies out there that are actually reputable and won’t rip you off. But right now, you are being SCAMMED with a Capital S.”
Can I get away with saying that?
Have you ever had a client bring on a disreputable consultant to work with you on a project? How would you handle a situation like this?
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This dev co. may not be scamming the client, they may just be in over their heads. I say this because I was in a similar situation a year ago where our small group took on a job that seemed like a good fit, and then for various reasons the job outgrew our team’s abilities.
Even so, if it looks like this dev co can’t deliver what your client needs, I agree they should get a bid from someone else, then cut their losses and leave.
Susanna | March 6th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I have never been in this type of situation, but can certainly empathize with your situation! You obviously want to “do the right thing” for your client, without causing bad feelings/distrust among those whom you have to work with on this project.
I would recommend that you approach your client directly: state that you have prior experience in this field, and the behavior you observed is out of line with standard, reputable practices. Enumerate the issues you cited in your post. However (and here is an important part), I would not approach the client without a specific recommendation for future action…i.e., a list of possible replacement consultants. You may want to recommend a specific consultant/firm you know and trust, but offering a list in addition to your specific recommendation will diminish any perception that you are trying to get business for a friend. If the client is receptive to the idea of changing consultants, you can (at your discretion) offer to contact the new freelancer/team on their behalf to set up a meeting.
The goal here is not just to voice your concern (giving them a problem to handle), but to offer immediate solutions to the problem.
Hopefully, the client does not have a particular attachment to the scamming firm (e.g., friend of the family) and does not have their ego too deeply involved in the contractor hiring process. If the client takes offense at a well-reasoned, non-confrontational approach that will save them money and headaches long-term, you probably do not want a long-term relationship with the client yourself.
Finding a more reputable firm to work with may set the project back slightly in terms of time, but in the end, the client, you, and other contractors involved in the process should benefit.
I am sure that you will find a professional way of handling this matter! Good luck!
Anne | March 6th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I ran into this a few times in my consulting days. Instead of expressing my concerns as such, I created a list of questions to ask — things that, if the client had industry knowledge, they would be sure to clue into — and shared those questions with the client. The questions covered the project scope, including my own company’s stake, just to be fair and open that sort of open dialogue. Both clients expressed gratitude and used the questions to discover what they needed to discover.
And yes, in one case it was as Susanna suggests; the company was punting b/c they had not realized exactly what they had stepped into but still wanted to exercise the contract and grow as a group.
trishlet | March 6th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Did the client check out the previous work this web development firm has done? Also, did the client talk to any of the companies the WebDev firm worked for? You might want to ask these questions just to get the discussion going and say that you want to check out a “finished product” of the firm. It sucks that you can see these signs of a possible scam!
Grace | March 6th, 2008 at 8:25 pm