Hey Steve,
Sorry you're in such a situation.
Working for yourself, either full- or part-time can be incredibly rewarding. However, there are times like this when it is no fun at all.
Before the meeting, I'd be certain to be aware of the terms of the contact and how well each of you have met your obligations. Then, determine what you need to feel like you want to proceed with this client. Go in, be honest, humble, and even-tempered.
Most customers I've met prefer flat-rate, however that potentially puts the developer on the hook for putting in much more time than is initially expected. It sounds like you've already spent at least 8.5 of your 13 estimated hours and may have a lot more development to do. Depending on the terms you agreed to, that might mean you earn less per hour than you intended to. As least the way I read this short post, it seems to be a separate issue than their inability to provide content.
It's always best to try, as best as you can, to see the situation from the other person's viewpoint. Obviously, they wanted a site enough to contract with you but not enough to follow through. Try and find causality; cashflow, disorganization, technophobia, change in focus, conflicting desires between the owner and the nephew, frustrations with you? Then, try to craft a solution which could make everyone happy. Perhaps you populate with dummy content and let them fix it whenever they get around to it. Or maybe they pay additional fees and supply the information so you can finish. Maybe it means you stick to your guns, cancel the contract and expect them to pay in full. But however it goes down, try your best to remain honest, humble, and even-tempered. This stuff is no fun.
Let us know how it goes!
Any of you who have been doing professional (or at least "for-fee") web design for any length of time can probably relate to this.
I have a small business customer who contacted me 10 months ago about helping him "do something" about their website. It had been created by a coder who was contracted by the business owner's wife and brother-in-law (also an employee) and had been online for a few years. The owner didn't like the colors, the content, or the photos. The coder had moved out of state and still had his info all over the .com registrations.
I told the owner the first priority was to archive the site (they hadn't paid for it in a couple of years and didn't have a copy) and get the domain name. They got me the current contact info and I arranged a transfer after I used capture software to download the entire site.
Then I met with them and told them what I would recommend for the new site. Simple, five pages with contact form. They had a low budget, and I'm a part-timer, so I felt I could get into their range. I gave them a package price, got the deposit and a signed contract. Their obligations in the contract include writing down what they want to say on the pages (I'll handle grammatical issues, but I can't write about their business) and they provide digital photos for the site. The owner's nephew was tasked with collecting that info for me.
I provided them with a full-color 1024 X 768 PNG of the proposed layout, which they apporved. Since then it has been an uncomfortable dance. The nephew asks what we need, I tell him, he doesn't send it, and a few weeks later, the owner asks for a status. I tell him we haven't received anything we require to complete the site, and he asks for another meeting.
On package jobs of this size, I typically estimate 5 hours for the first page, and then 1 hour for the other pages, plus a couple of hours for incidentals. This was quoted as a 13 hour job at $45/hour. To date, I have spent 3.5 in their offices answering and re-answering the same questions, at least 2 hours on the phone, and 3 hours on the template. In exchange, they have sent me five small paragraphs of text and a single photo. We are 5 months past the estimated completion date and no closer to completion than we were two weeks into the project.
This week, after another request for a status update, I sent the owner a lengthy message documenting what I had received and reminding him of the contract terms. Those terms include our ability (though not our desire) to cancel the contract if we don't have the text and photos 3 days after the contract was signed, billing them for actual time spent and our option to add a 10% extension fee per month if we agree to stay on the project. I received a "you need to call us" reply.
I know that is no other web designer in our (rural) county. The bigger towns have some shops that charge much more per hour for HTML work. I don't rely on this business to keep us in food and shelter, but I can't give work away for free, and the economy makes my time more valuable to me.
I need some counsel on this one. How would you proceed, and how would you have done it differently?
Thanks,
Steve