The Ruby Freelancers Show 054 – Red Flags with Potential or Current Clients with Ashe Dryden

Summary: Panel Ashe Dryden (twitter github blog) Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Jeff Schoolcraft (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Rails Ramp Up) Discussion 00:48 - Ashe Dryden Introduction Indie Developer and Conference Organizer from Madison, Wisconsin 02:39 - Contracts Signing yours vs theirs Having a contract The Ruby Freelancers Show 049 - Contracts with Attorney Jared Richards 09:08 - Working with Down Payments and Deposits 10:35 - Clients asking you to reduce your hourly rate or paying you in something other than money 13:26 - Discovery (DaaS - Discovery as a Service) 19:35 - Referral-based Work 20:58 - Business Hours & Availability Poor Project Management Needy Clients Setting clients up to work in a way that works well for you 26:28 - Clients treating consultants and contractors as employees Points of contact 31:49 - Clients not knowing what they want 33:58 - Signing unreasonable non-compete agreements 37:57 - Timelines and Deliverables Asking clients for what you need to do your work/keep deadlines Setting expectations before work begins 45:05 - Communication Meeting in the middle Has the client worked with a freelancer before? 48:02 - Deal Breakers Expertise Conflicts Emergency Deadlines 55:20 - Managing Non-Payment Non-refundable Deposits One strike, two strike approach Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me.  (Video, NSFW/language) Freelance Contracts That Anyone Can Understand: Ashe Dryden ashedryden / freelance-contract 58:53 - Client Respect Disappearing Clients Punctuality Meeting Agendas Meetings Picks Arduino (Eric) amperka / ino (Eric) Block Fortress (Evan) Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra Star Trek TNG Shirt | eBay (Evan) Sevabot (Jeff) Google Calendar (Chuck) Amazon S3 (Chuck) graze (Ashe) Gittip (Ashe) DAYTUM (Ashe) Next Week Better Communications with Clients, Prospects, and other Contractors with Jenn Swanson (Communication Diva) Transcript CHUCK: That's true. I have pretty high tolerance for a lot of things. EVAN: Well, you work with Dave Brady, right? [Hosting and bandwidth provided by the Blue Box Group. Check them out at bluebox.net] CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode 54 of The Ruby Freelancers Show. This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis. ERIC: Hello! CHUCK: Evan Light. EVAN: It's really episode 42.. CHUCK: Jeff Schoolcraft. JEFF: What's up! CHUCK: I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv. We have a special guest this week, Ashe Dryden. ASHE: Hi there! CHUCK: Do you want to introduce yourself really quickly since you haven't been on the show? ASHE: Yeah, that's fine. My name is Ashe Dryden, obviously. I live in Madison, Wisconsin; I'm an indie developer and conference organizer, and generally, community harasser. CHUCK: [laughs] Yes. EVAN: It fits in the one who are troublemaker. [laughter] CHUCK: Yup. We're learning from the best. [Evan laughs] CHUCK: Anyway, this week we're going to be talking about "Red Flags" with potential and current clients. It was interesting the way it came about. I had been fighting with -- I don't want to use the word 'fighting' -- but I had been emailing former client who hadn't paid me for probably like 7 or 8 months. And so there was this whole discussion that we had on Twitter about deposits and things like that, and Ashe mentioned that she has this list -- I don't know if it's a formal list or kind of a mental list -- of red flags that she watches for. So we thought we'd get her on the show to see what red flags she has for current client, some potential clients. I'm sure we all have things to add and experience that we've had with clients that can tell you that some -- EVAN: Oh, no! All my clients have been saints, so I don't know what you're talking about. [silence]