Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You charge her $3,000 as originally quoted.
This is the real-life decision of Charles Green. He is a desktop publisher,
designer and writer.
"You need to prepare yourself before you ever get into that situation.
You need to have policies that determine what you do. Then you publish those
decisions. In other words, you have a policy stating whether you will bill
by your estimate or bill by the hour," he says.
"You tell the client up front, I bill by the job, not by the hour. In my
proposal letter, I say I am going to charge $3,000. This is not an estimate
of how long it is going to take."
Green says it's very time-consuming to keep track of time, especially when
many phone calls or site visits take place. Do you charge for your driving
time? Do you charge for your gas? If a phone call takes eight minutes, do
you charge for 15 minutes, or do you charge nothing?
Green prefers to charge an overall price. "If, as in this case, you finish
early, you don't want the client coming back later and saying, 'Boy, you got
that done quickly, does that mean I have to pay less?' No, it
doesn't mean you have to pay less. It just means that we got it done quicker
and that's to your advantage."