spend more time questioning your techniques than providing information to assist you in making their project successful?

I answered his all questions to make him happy till the ending date of the contract then never renew it

ahhh... the beauty of a contract

spend more time questioning your techniques

Fire the client.

I let them know up front that I know the Internet but they know more about their business than anyone else.

They know more about "bed knob spindles" than anyone else. Its my job to present it to the public.

That gets them warmed up. Then I ask, "What exactly makes your 'bed knob spindles' better than the ones from Texas?"

Suddenly I have 6 paragraphs of content I can work with and Optimize.

I assure them that the techniques being used are ethical and they don't need to worry about any black hat techniques being used.

That is usually enough.

edit - wrong tab

I am glad this topic got bumped... there was a hilarious post about this very topic just a few days ago... [link]

Thanks for sharing the 'Web Guy' blog posting.


Every company has a 'web guy', and I'm currently working my way through one of those situations right now.

I have a potential client with a current 'web guy'.

The web site is a total failure. You know the site, the title tag is "welcome to my site" on every page of the site.

Ha Ha... and so many other issues. So, they bring me in to fix it.

This client also has a board of advisors/directors who approved the current site and need to approve me.

So, they told me to send them 10 websites that they could review to see my work.

I sent them nothing, it would be a waste of my time.

The client asked me why.

I asked him, "Are these the same people that approved your current site and your 'web guy'?".

Their reply: "Yes! They think the current site looks fantastic and they love the 'web guy'. They just don't understand why no one uses the site, and it can't be found on the search engines."

My reply: "I will not be sending the links to my sites for your people to review as they are not qualified."

Reply: "WHAAATT?"

My reply: "Did they not approve the web guy and the current site?"

Reply: "Yes."

My reply: "Isn't the current site which they approved a failure? ..."

Reply: "Yes."

My reply: "... Then they are not qualified because they don't know what to look for. You need to rethink your position and call me when you're ready to move forward. If they were qualified they would not have approve your current site or your 'web guy'."

"See Ya!"




Two months pass, and I get a call:

"Can you make a list of what needs to be done to fix the site?"

My reply: "No, you will take the list and present it to the 'web guy' who will say I am wrong. He will do this because he needs to protect himself and his own limited knowledge base."

"He will not use it to learn, and I am not your educator. If you believe I can provide you with a site analysis, than you can believe I can do the work."

"Have you ever heard the term 'You don't know what you don't know!'?"

"That's your 'web guy'."

"Well, then why does he only get $20.00 an hour and you get 3 to 4 times that?"

"... because I know what he doesn't know... ha ha ha."

"Bye."





[ Message was edited by: JimBot 02/26/2008 08:31 am ... Reason: Fixed post layout. ]

What Bill said - fire the client.

I've done this before - I finish the work to a point, then cancel the rest of the contract based on a clause in my usual contract.

I try not to waste my time.

Bottom line when consulting is you should be getting good returns on your time, not wasting time.

"Web Guy" is the bane of my life! he makes baby Jesus cry, and I love the "accounting guy" counter. Cheers for the read G1

Things get sticky when the client says his Web Guy insists the key is Meta Tags. The client doesn't realize that even talking to you proclaims the Web Guy's theory is false.

More on a related topic. Getting management buy-in to new ideas:
[link]

[link]

mj, you only posted half a link

they changed it

what they had before was even better

it went to a page that said your connection to the database has failed and some other things, it was not the standard page but it was pretty funny,

this is good to, I'll post again
9 Signs You Shouldn't Hire THAT Web Guy

[link]

Don't you think that part of the problem is that some consultants are just too desperate to get the work at all costs that they refuse to tell the client the cold truth?

that could be the case for some...
but sorry - no - no desperation around my neck of the wood.
Truth is that my client have to go through a pretty strict entry examination before they are even considered for the privilege of experiencing my services. Then, if they don't behave themselves really well they are fired (like others have said). I originally posted because sometimes on the way to firing them it can become a little exasperating...