No, you can’t fix it. Clients don’t go for maintenance contracts any longer. Most of them don’t even want to pay you for hosting, let alone support.

95% of my clients host with me. I build support (for the hosting) into the price – which I generally bill annually. Bigger clients get an SLA (and pay much more), which basically gives them priority access to me. This is a strategy I developed over the years in running my business.

As for fixing stuff – this is a give and take. There are times when I will go back and continue improving a site – long after its delivered, just because I’m unhappy with it. Other times, especially if the project ran long and ate into my profit, I will just let it go. Sometimes you have to know when to hold them and when to fold them.

But there is one thing we can both agree on… if you aren’t giving it your all – quit. More times than not its because you aren’t inspired about the project which means you took on the wrong project. This may be the one thing that has carried me through my 12 years of web development – I will never work on a project that I hate for more than I have to (approx. 2 mos).

Great post!

Totally resonate on multiple levels. Two years ago I walked into a 4 month gig with a client for what was meant to be the “all singing all dancing guitar retail website of the world”. 6 months later, I walked away embraced to show any one what ended up happening. Why?

Unclear expectations from the client, unclear vision of brand, poor boundaries etc. I blamed the client for MONTHS, but then one day I woke up and realized, “oh wait, I never insisted on defined goals and objectives for the product, I never insisted that he know what he wanted to accomplish before I start pounding PS and code for him.” Never made that mistake again. You are there to make a product that will advocate on behalf of your client on some level, you have to know them and what they’re “story” is first.

And yeah, it’s about knowing what your strengths are, not compromising on them, and putting in the hours… and showing up on time and making delivery dates with out being a jerk. That’s what makes the world go round.

I think there are a lot of 20s developers/designers/2.0 strategists is because it sounds cool and looks easy. I think the reason most of them drop out is because they can’t do that last paragraph on some level.

Sorry for the rant. The post hit close to home.