What to expect before starting a project

The first step to working with you is what I call my New Client Consultation. This is a 30 minute phone call where we talk about the project and your business. I want to find out if I can help you and if it looks like there will be a good fit between us.

After the consultation call, a trial project is in order. The thing that's being tested is our relationship.

• Can we work together?
• Is communication easy or does it feel problematic?
• Can I actually deliver value for you?

I hope to answer these sorts of questions in the trial project. And I'm sure you're have your own questions and objections that you'll be looking for answers to.

The trial project is a one week block where I work on part of the main project or something complementary to it. At the end of the week, we review what happened and decide if we want to continue or part ways.

Hopefully we'll decide to continue. At this point a longer-term contract is used. Typically a 6-12 month contract is used but this depends on your specific needs.

In the contract we'll decide how many week blocks you'll need each month. Depending on the project, this could be from one to four. Some projects might even have a staggered amount. 4 weeks per month for the first few months during the major development phase and then scaling down to 1 week per month for maintenance and upkeep.

Once that's finalized and executed, I schedule the project to start and...

... well, the project starts. Not much of a surprise there is it?

Eric Davis

P.S. Near the end of the contract we'll start talking about renewals. They're basically the same process but due to how my contracts are setup, the negotiation is much, much easier.