[HUH?!?] - Somehow she just assumes I'm a photographer too?!?...

It may not be in your case, but most people here hawk shit to people. Anything they can to turn a dime.

They're desperate. They do everything to supplicate themselves to try to win approval from the client to score a few hundred dollars.

A business owner can sense this low-worth behavior and take advantage.

I don't know what you should do in this instance. But for future reference I would ask myself why I'm getting customers like that. Because it's mostly the fault of the seller.

Pain in the ass. Send her away, now ;-)

I don't think the mess it is in now, is her fault.

It doesn't matter what you are selling be it online or offline, virtual or physical products, this is a sure warning sign that you are on the back foot.

I have repeated problems with staff who get caught in "similar" type traps.

Usually it is due to the "FEAR of REJECTION"

Everyone at some point for whatever reason bows to pressure from someone that are doing business with.

What happens is you think that you really need the business because it is just helping fill up the bucket but what is really happening is you are losing money due to leeching.

Fortunately for me we are always in a higher bracket but the same scenarios still present themselves....just like when a big client assumes you can fix some sh*t that they had done at a low price.

It is important to "Take a position of authority" on this issue and any similar type situations you find yourself in.

You definitely don't need the hassle of working for nothing.

Because I've got resources and people with abilities far beyond my own personal capabilities I find it easy to say to a client that I can arrange to handle the various requests but I explain for the service we use Expert X and he is charged out at $Y per hour.

The typical job like your's take usually 3-4 hours and costs XXX.

Do you want me to arrange it and bill you in our regular monthly billing cycle or would you prefer to pay Expert X directly?

99% of the time they want you to bill them.

Keep a short leash.

Get them to sign off on extra work and if they don't pay restrict service and explain that you are not a bank and they should understand as they need their clients to pay just as you require payment.

Personally when I'm confronted by a situation when clients require discounts of any sort I say that we only offer incentives for 100% upfront payments and then I restrict any reduction to 5% but that also depends on the method of payment.

I make it clear we can accommodate clients cash flow needs but then there are no discounts and very usually there are additional charges to cover risks of non payment.

In regards to photography you can always refer the client to look at what IStock Photo charges for an image and explain that "good photos cost money but a picture tells a thousand words"

Cue Kenny Rogers - "Know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em"


JMO = small, local biz do require some hand holding = I think that comes with the territory. However, when someone starts out this badly you might reconsider everything with all these red flags.

Let this be the lesson: Raise your prices & don't discount.

Burn that into your neuronetwork my friend. You now know from experience that cheap customers are the biggest pain in the ass.

She is doing exactly as you have trained her to do.
You have taught her that:
You will commit to a project without even a deposit.
You do not value your service enough to price it properly.
When pressed you will drop your already low price.
When asked you will jump and do as asked.

She is not assuming anything. She is a keen observer and has simply followed your lead.

She will likely never pay you, if she does it will likely not be as much as agreed upon.
She will be a member of the 5% group of clients that take up 80% of your time.

If the next question is how can you fix it you probably can't.
It will be too shocking an experience to the system for her to be re-educated to a completely different you.

The most alarming thing I see in your post is: "She Says" and "I Do"

That is just the beginning of a very long period of extreme misery, my friend.

You'll want to go back and revisit your contract with her and all future relationships. Make sure that:

1) All of your jobs have contracts with clearly stated boundaries. Also state in the contract something like, This contract represents the entirety of the work that will be done. We don't make verbal promises. If it isn't in this contract, it isn't in the deal.

2) Small business owners are typically not trained in the details of your business. So they don't know what to expect and what not to expect...so they will default to expect whatever they want willy nilly. For every client that comes up, there will be new exclusions that you need to add to your agreements. Just be careful not to punish future clients for the sins and stupidity of previous clients.

3) Small business owners are conditioned to push every button and expecting a tasty treat to pop out. If you don't resist dropping the reward, then expect on being the path of least resistance every single time.

Tell them clearly up front what TO expect and what NOT to expect. Then stick to those boundaries (including payment terms...ESPECIALLY payment terms), otherwise there are no boundaries at all.

It's time to pick her up and put her back in her place.

UPDATE...

I dropped her after I needed to chase her all around for days, for the 1/2 deposit.
She wanted me to do most of the work FIRST, before giving me the 1/2 deposit.

I told her to find someone else.

-- TW

Not trying to be mean (ok, maybe a little) I set her domain name to lead to google.com.
As you may recall, I saved her butt by buying "her" domain name which she THOUGHT someone had already bought for her long ago.

Whomever she gets to do her site will very quickly come knocking on my door, for the domain name. I wonder how the rest. owner's attitude toward me will change, once she realizes that she NEEDS me to hand over control of the name (that's already printed on all her fancy menus, and is in all the radio ads, etc.)??

Hhhmmm.

ALSO, I wonder who she's gonna get to do the site? -- especially with her "conditions" being, "I don't wanna pay anything up front, AND I want an incredibly LOW price for the whole project -- which includes putting my entire menu up on the site -- 100+ menu items, many with pics), AND I want it done RIGHT AWAY!!"

-- TW

If you don't want to end up doing this project for free, cancel it now. Otherwise she won't pay you agreed price. She will say that you should have warned her that you're not doing photography before accepting the job and blah-blah-blah.
Never have a deal with such cheap people who heavily insist on lowering your price. Never!

Once you have good portfolio, start raising your prices, this way you will get rid of clients of this kind. You'll have less clients, who will pay you much more, and who don't require you to do extra for free.

That's tough!!! Walking the fine line between being there for the customer and being abused by the customer. I'd say if she gives you any more criticism on the website, cut her loose. I can only imagine it going downhill from here.

Her domain name (which I bought for her a few days ago, after I found out her "friend" never did buy it for her months ago) is now set to go to google (I figured that was a neutral website).

I COULD set it so it leads to one of her COMPETITOR'S websites!
Then her menus and radio campaign would lead everyone to ANOTHER Thai restaurant in town!

-- TW

I'm surprised you'd be sweating this type of stuff since all of your clients come to you via 'magic'...

Why are you offering photography, when you do websites. To many hats my friends, be good at one and stay with it.
Good photography cost good money period.
$10,000.00 in gear at least.
www,schlechtsphotography.com
Best

Having dealt with plenty of clients(few thousands) i clearly tell them everything upfront, like what we are going to deliver and time frame. The problem which you described generally happens when you promise the moon, so they have very high expectations from you which you sometimes fail to deliver.