Tag Archives: business

Get Hired

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In my series on Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients, I’ve talked a lot from the seller’s perspective. But before I put the final wraps on the series, I’m going to take a slight detour to discuss things from the buyer’s side of the fence. Let’s talk about how to get hired.

Over the past few days, I’ve had to post two different job opportunities; one for a full-time sales rep, and the other for some contract web work. The responses I’ve gotten have been interesting, to say the least.

One of the things I deliberately do is include both an email and my direct phone number as contact points. Which you chose may very well mean the difference between getting hired and getting ignored.

Within minutes of posting the ad for the contract position, I received a phone call. Shortly afterwards, I received a second call from another firm. Both took the time to find out my objectives and what I’m trying to accomplish before talking up their firm.

The rest sent an email with some variation of “check out my website“ and “call me back.”

Who do you suppose I’m considering?

Hiding behind Web 2.0

Recently, my son’s scoutmaster left a voice mail message about an upcoming Eagle ceremony for one of the other boys in his troop, and that his attendance was “mandatory.” The only problem was, all he gave us was the name of the church where the ceremony was being held … no address, no city, nada.

After a Google search turned up just one church with that name several cities over, I asked my son to confirm if this was indeed the right church. So on the day of the ceremony, he made phone calls and left voice mail messages, trying to find out. No one, not the scoutmaster, his patrol leader nor any of the other boys in his troop responded. Finally, out of desperation, he posted the question on Facebook.

Within 15 minutes, three boys replied. I fear this does not bode well for the future of our youth.

Too often, we use Web 2.0 tools to avoid direct interaction. For instance, it’s easy to hide behind marketing to avoid selling. Don’t fall into that trap. When I give you the choice, pick up the phone and call me.

Why would I say that? Two reasons. One: I’m really, really busy. When you call me, you get first-mover advantage, because you’ve taken a task off my all-too-busy plate—the need to follow up on all the emails responses I received. I really don’t have time to “check out your website,” and then “give you a call.” Besides, your website probably contains the same generic fluff as everyone else’s. How about you demonstrate why you’re different and why I ought to hire you? You can do that by picking up the phone and having an actual conversation with me.

Reason Number Two is: it shows me you have initiative as well as people skills. You see, if I really have a need, I’m going to want to talk with you to determine if you are someone who can fill that need. If I’m the one hiding behind web 2.0 tools, asking you to communicate with me via email or Facebook, I may not be a genuine prospect at all. I might be someone who’s merely “interested,” or not far enough along in the buying cycle to waste valuable time with. But if I’ve offered my phone number, than means I’d like to speak with a living, breathing person. That person could be you.

Here’s another tip: When I ask you to follow up if you haven’t heard back from me by such-and-such date, that might be a test. Calling me back shows me you want the gig.

What I didn’t mention is that there was a third firm that called; but he got the short straw—my voice mail—and never called back. If you have a genuine lead, keep pursuing it, even if they aren’t returning your calls. If you saw my desk, you’d know why I didn’t call you back.

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It’s not too late to get my free guide, 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling. Just follow me on Twitter and I’ll send you a link.

Proposal sent, now what?

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I’m a big fan of the SitePoint forums, and it’s not just because I write for SitePoint. In fact, I signed up a good five years before ever doing any work with SitePoint, so I’m allowed to say it. One of my favorite forums is the Business & Legal Issues one, however they have a forum for just about everything, and even better; they have a great community.

So, whilst looking through my favorite forum, I came across this questions from one of the posters. You can read the whole question here, however let me paraphrase;

Once you’ve sent the proposal what should we do? Should we wait and have the client go elsewhere, should we call back after a day or two, or wait longer. Should we not send it via email and personally hand it explaining everything to them so they are sure to know what they are getting, reducing the chance of them going elsewhere because they are not properly educated.

I’m glad you asked! There are three options available to you, and depending on the size of the deal, and what your take of the prospect is, you may want to choose the most appropriate, however here are my three suggestions, in order of importance.

Option 1: Meet and hand over the proposal in person.

This is a great way to ensure that the prospect has a good grasp of what you are offering. The important part here is try and get the actual decision maker in the room – remember, the person you may be sending your proposal to may in fact not be the person who decides, so ensure your proposal covers all the points and walk it through with the decision maker.

At the end of the conversation, don’t be afraid to ask for the business; something along the lines of ‘Do you have any further questions, or shall we discuss when we can get started?’ works best for me.

This option obviously isn’t the solution if the client is remote, or indeed the work is only small in value.

Option 2: Send proposal over by email and call immediately.

This is a great way to make sure that your prospect understands that you are keen to work with him/her. It also means you can ask them for a suitable time in the next 24 hours, so you can chat again on the phone (if they don’t have the time right then) to walk through your offering over the phone. This helps answer any questions and avoid any roadblocks, as does the above.

Option 3: Send proposal and call back a day or two later.

This should be the absolute last straw approach. If you don’t get through straight away, send them an email asking if they had any questions, and let them know you’ll try calling again in another two days. Keep this up for a handful of calls, or an answer either positive or negative. It reflects you are keen, and ensures you come across helpful as well.

Now you’ll note I haven’t offered the sales losers approach. I used to do this regularly years ago, and it’s definitely not the way to handle a proposal follow up; this one is don’t follow up. If you don’t follow up, you are demonstrating you don’t are about the work.

In this instance, you’d be just as better off writing a figure on the back of your business card and leaving it with the prospect at your initial meeting; it doesn’t say anything more about your professionalism or keenness to work with that prospect. Don’t be that sales loser – pick one of the first three options!

Good luck with that next sale!

Stop Making Endless Design Changes

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Last week, I talked about the slippery slope of scope creep, which can begin with something as insidious the client making last-minute changes to your already approved design.

When a client has second thoughts about your design that far down the production road, chances are they were never fully-satisfied in the first place. Or perhaps some mysterious third party has suggested a different layout, color scheme, or functionality not originally discussed.

The trick to limiting the amount of changes is to nail the initial design as closely as possible to the client’s vision. That means you’ll need to ask questions. Lots of questions.

The first question I always asked was, “Do you have a particular design or layout in mind?” If a client had a pre-conceived notion of how they wanted the site to look, I wanted to know beforehand. Whether they did or not, I asked for examples of other sites they like and why they liked them. If they had an existing site, I asked what they liked and disliked about it.

The next thing I asked was about their competitors’ sites—which they liked, which they didn’t, and why.

One technique that helped was to ask the client to list a number of adjectives describing the look and feel they wanted for the new site, such as “corporate,” “conservative,” “artsy,” or “elegant.” Then I listed about 100 different words and asked the client to circle the ones that best described their company.

I hear a lot of designers complain about “not being a mind-reader” when they don’t come up with what the client had in mind. But you don’t have to be clairvoyant; just ask the right questions.

Only once did I create a design that was completely different from what the client wanted. She expected “artsy,” and I gave her “corporate.” But it was my fault; I wasn’t thorough enough with my design brief questions.

Now comes the time to present your mockup to the client. Assuming you nailed the design, any changes should be minor. It’s fine if the client wants his logo “3 pixels to the left,” but how many times will you allow that?

If you read my 27.5 Must-Ask Question for Consultative Selling, then you know it’s important that you identify all the decision-makers and ask the right questions. Well, now you’re going to repeat that process to “close the deal” on the design of the site. Just like you gained agreement about doing business together, now’s the time to go back and forth until you gain agreement on the design.

And you thought the “selling” portion of this project was over.

Regardless of whether you allow two or twenty design changes, make sure your client knows your limit long before this stage of the process. Regardless of what number you choose, setting a limit doesn’t mean you have to strictly enforce it. We all want our client to be pleased; setting limits lets you rein in those who never seem to be.

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It’s not too late to get my free guide, 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling. Just follow me on Twitter and I’ll send you a link.

This is part 10 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

  1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
  2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
  3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
  4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
  5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
  6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
  7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
  8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already
  9. Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep

Stop the Slippery Slope of Scope Creep

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Last week I suggested you treat your clients like children. Studies have shown that children are happier and feel more secure when they know what their boundaries are and what’s expected of them. Your clients will too.

scope creep /skōp krēp/ noun

  1. changes in a project’s scope after the work has started
  2. a creep of a client who keeps asking for free changes

Scope creep often starts out as small and seemingly insignificant changes or additions to an already approved design or feature. Sometimes, the changes become so numerous that the project becomes a former shadow of what it was originally intended to be. If you’ve never read Matthew Inman’s comic, How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell, take a few moments to have a good laugh (or cry), and we’ll continue.

In a perfect world, clients would approve your first design without asking their mother’s opinion of it, never request a single revision during the course of the development, and send you an expensive gift basket when the project’s finished. They would never ask you to keep adjusting the size of the header graphic until it became so gargantuan and ugly that you considered putting your worse competitor’s name in the footer instead of your own. Nor would they request you make all their product shots into animated gifs, or that you “fill up all the empty spaces” on the site (whatever that means).

If only we’d all listened to Wikipedia, perhaps we wouldn’t be in this mess:

This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled.

That’s what I’ve been trying to convey throughout this entire Putting a Stop to Abusive Clients series, except I’ve added one more step, so the process look like this: define, document, discuss, and control. Here are some things to define.

What’s Included; What’s Not

Make sure your client knows exactly what is and isn’t included. Are you providing SEO services? If not, be sure the client understands that you are not guaranteeing he rank well in the search engines. Otherwise be prepared to have that awkward “I’m not on the first page of Google” conversation a week after you’ve launched the site.

What about copy writing, site updating, technical support, and training? How about copyrights—that is, who owns the website once it’s done? Remember, what seems like an unreasonable expectation to you and me may seem perfectly reasonable to the client. Just as children don’t fully understand the world around them, neither does your client fully understand the world of web design and development. Help them do so, by setting clearly-defined boundaries and expectations.

Eleventh-Hour Design or Programming Changes

An all-too-common scenario is a client who approves your mock-up, then wants changes after you’ve built the site.

If you fail to manage this expectation up-front, you become the “bad guy” when your client demands to know why you won’t comply with his request. You’ll find yourself explaining how the process of converting a Photoshop design mockup into a working “HTML” site means starting from scratch—none of which will he understand or even care (nor should he have to). All he’ll understand is that you’re being unreasonable.

The simple, two-part solution is to first break the project down into phases and require a sign-off for each, like so:

  1. Design Phase
  2. HTML Coding Phase
  3. Programming Phase

Then, discuss the Photoshop-to-HTML conversion problem before the project begins, not when he wants after-the-fact changes:

Mr. Soon-to-be-Client, let me explain how the development process works. It’s broken down into three phases: a Design phase, a Coding phase, and a Programming phase.

Due to the nature of web development, it becomes very difficult to make changes to a previous phase once the project’s moved into the next one. For example, once you’ve approved the design I’ll create, it’s very difficult to make changes once I’ve began the coding portion. It’s almost like starting the project from scratch. Does that make sense?

So here’s how it works. I create an initial design. We’ll go through three round of revisions. That should be more than enough to nail down what you want. Once you approve that design, I can’t go back and change it, unless you’re willing to pay for the extra time involved. The same applies to each phase.

This gives you the opportunity be the hero instead of the bad guy. Let’s say the client does ask for some after-the-fact changes, and agrees to pay for them. You get to decide whether or not you’ll charge him. When the project’s over and you’ve been paid in full, you decide that the changes you made were insignificant, so you send him a refund check in the mail. Remember that expensive gift basket you wanted? Well, guess what you’re getting next Christmas.

It’s not too late to get my free guide, 27.5 Must-Ask Questions for Consultative Selling. Just follow me on Twitter and I’ll send you a link.

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This is part 9 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

  1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
  2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
  3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
  4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
  5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
  6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
  7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays
  8. Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already

Challenge: More Profits in Less Time

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Do you ever feel like no matter how many hours you work, there’s always more to do? It’s very true for many of us. I’ve worked 70 or 80 hour weeks before, and felt like I still have more to do, the same feeling I get when I work only 40 hours.

Part of this is because we always have low importance items on our ‘to do’ lists. Another part is that we, and particularly entrepreneurial types who freelance or own our own businesses, like to be kept busy all the time.

The problem with that, is when you are working 60 hours every week, much of your time may not be as productive as it could be – you may be tired, there’s too many tasks in the air, or you are distracted with other pressures. If you take a look at any one of those sixty hours, you probably weren’t as productive as you would have been if you had only worked 40 hours that week.

I’m currently enjoying the fourth week of four day weeks in a row. In Australia, we’ve just had three public holidays over three weeks, and the other week I took a day off. Did the world stop spinning because I was at the office less? No. Did the amount of work I had to do in less time increase? Yes.

In fact, I’d go to the point of saying that the 35 or so hours I did in the other days were more valuable, because I had to make more decisions about what to do, and what not to do. I still managed to complete all the very important parts of my role, and crossed off all the less important yet still needed tasks too. Sure, I didn’t get around to all of the low priority items; however I can delegate a number of these to others, or just not do them.

I remember reading about Parkinson’s Law a few years ago. In 1955, Cyril Parkinson started an essay he wrote for The Economist which begins ‘Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’ Wow, he must have known the Internet and other technological interruptions were on their way!

Now, I’m not suggesting you should immediately reduce your hours to four days per week, however, I am suggesting you find ways to reduce your hours. It could be that you work a number of hours more than you probably need to. Start by reducing your week by a few hours, and see what the effect is. Those of you who freelance will probably find this actually easier than those of us with employees or bosses to consider.

If you’re still not convinced, consider 37signals. They went from being a small web team working on client projects, to being a very profitable and well known web software company through working part time on their projects. The founders often speak of working part time to do meaningful work. Embrace Constraints, an article from their book, Getting Real, covers this well.

So here’s my challenge to you for the next week. Set yourself three hours to do that task that usually took you four. At the end of three hours, stop and assess. Is the result from your three hours of efforts still good enough? Maybe instead of four hours, it’s that important one hour task that you can resolve to complete in 40 minutes, or perhaps squeeze an entire day down to just six hours. The point is, if we reduce the available hours we have for a task, amazingly the majority of the time it will still get done.

Imagine doing that to a number of tasks each week – you get more work done in less time, meaning more profits for less effort. You’ll be more focused, you’ll certainly be better at determining the importance of tasks and you’ll have more time to enjoy life away from your desk. Sound good? Take the challenge, and let me know how it went.

Your timer starts now – good luck!

Coinstack Image via Shutterstock

Stop Getting Walked on and Set Some Boundaries Already

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As the father of two boys, I’m continually amazed and confounded by the difference in their personalities. My oldest tends to go with the flow, but my youngest always feels the need to push the boundaries. One day, he’ll grow up and become your client.

How are you going to handle him, when he does? As parent, it’s my job to define the boundaries and let them play within them. Your job, as a web consultant, is not so different.

Am I suggesting you treat your clients like children? To a certain degree, yes. Children do not have a complete understanding of the world around them. When left to their own devices, they tend to make foolish choices. Likewise, when a client steps into the world of web design and development, they have an incomplete picture of how that world works and may have unrealistic expectations. Bill Cosby once said that with 200 active two-year-olds, he could conquer the world. A single over-active client can overrun yours. It’s time to set some boundaries.

Don’t Assume Your Client will Read the Contract

Boundaries and expectations live or die by a written contact. Don’t assume the client will read yours.

Signing the contract without reading it? Seriously! You are legally obligating yourself to my terms here. Make sure you understand them. It’s great that you trust me, but we’re still going to have an awkward conversation when you do something not allowed by the agreement.

- Michelle Gower, author of How to Fire a Client

You can avoid “that awkward conversation” by sitting down with the prospect, face-to-face if possible, and discussing each point of the contract before he signs.

It’s not as nerve-racking as it sounds. Let’s take the issue of getting paid even though your client delays sending you content. You accomplish that by setting up a payment schedule, rather than attaching payments to production milestones. Here’s how to have that conversation with your client.

First, discuss the project timetable and let the client see that the projected completion time is 60 days (or whatever time frame you’ve agreed upon). From here, it’s easy to transition into the reasons why a project can get behind schedule:

Mr. Prospect, one of the problems I often encounter is busy clients who end up delaying completion of their site because they take too long to send me written copy and images. It’s usually not intentional, but I end up waiting weeks or even months to get paid when that happens.

To prevent it, my contract stipulates that final payment is due in 60 days. That means, if you don’t send me the content I need by then, and your site’s not finished because of it, you’re still agreeing to pay me. Did I explain that clearly?

Each and every aspect of a site design has the potential to be miscommunicated, misunderstood, or assumed by your client. Here’s an example of a client who assumed that something I left undiscussed was included: setting up all the domain email accounts on his office computers. He didn’t know how and, after all, I registered the domain for him. (What a pain; I hate doing that stuff, especially when I get stuck doing it for free.)

But where some see problems, others see opportunity. From that point forward, I asked each client whether or not they could handle this internally. For those who needed help, I sub-contracted to my cousin’s networking business (marking up his fee slightly). After that, he got to keep them as a client, if they needed more work.

And, as an aside, when I started asking the same question about copy writing, I found that clients would pay extra to have me provide this service.

Consider some of the “abusive” behavior we’ve discussed throughout this series: scope creep, endless design revisions or technical support, clients deliberately stalling to delay payment, client site modifications after-the-fact. What parameters can you set to minimize or prevent these, while still providing the client with enough latitude to accomplish what he wants? Draft a policy for each and write down what you will say to the client. Sitting down and explaining each of these points has never been anything but a positive experience. I’ve found that the other person appreciates this and understands completely. Besides, you just saved him or her 45 minutes of reading and translating your legalese gobbledygook.

In my next (and possibly final) installment of this series, I’ll discuss some of these behaviors and give you suggestions on how to address each one.

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This is part 8 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

  1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
  2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
  3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
  4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
  5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
  6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results
  7. Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays

Stop Waiting to Get Paid! How to Collect Even when Your Client Delays

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In January of this year, I traveled to our New York sales office to conduct a week-long sales training session. Mid-week, one of the newly-hired reps made a follow-up call to a client she’d sold adverting to the week before, reminding him to send the ad content.

Not only did her client eagerly email his logo and photos, he also sent her a text message, letting her know he’d done so, because he knew she was out of the office all week.

Is that a common scenario for you, clients enthusiastically sending content in a timely manner? I didn’t think so. Her off-handed comment after she’d read his text message was: “I train my clients.”

The advantage to newspaper or Yellow Page adverting is that there’s a deadline. Clients know if they delay, they risking missing the publication date. With the Internet, no such urgency exists. But you can create a sense of urgency by implementing Action Step #5.

Action Step #5: Stop Attaching Payments to Production Milestones

What this Solves:

Waiting to get paid because of client delays

Our industry has fallen into the trap of attaching payment schedules to production milestones. I once waited seven months to get paid for a site that was 95 percent complete, sans content—all because I didn’t require a deposit and foolishly stipulated “payment upon completion.” It took some time to figure out a better way, but once I gained some experience, I knew I could produce a custom site within 60 days, tops. So here’s what I did.

First, whatever document my client signed (i.e., contact, proposal) included a project time table:

  • Apr 1: Client provides all content
  • Apr 10: Developer presents site mockup for client review
  • Apr 10-30: Client reviews design, requests changes; developer submits revised mockups
  • May 1: Client approves final design
  • May 15: Designer presents working site for client review
  • May 15-30: Client reviews site, requests changes; developer makes revisions
  • Jun 1: Client approves site

Next, I structured by payment schedule like so: one third up-front, one third in 30 days, and final payment in 60 days. If all goes well, you’ll notice that the client will be approving the final design approximately the same time payment #2 is due; but, again, it’s not a milestone. Dragging his feet on approving the mockup doesn’t mean he gets to drag his feet sending me a check.

Perhaps the client still hasn’t sent the content; but I used stock photography to create a design, so I’m still good. I’ll use the 30-day payment benchmark to remind him I’ll need content very soon.

At the 60-day final payment benchmark, if I’m the one who’s behind schedule, I can choose not to invoice him just yet. But if the site’s incomplete due to his inaction, he’s getting a bill.

Most clients delay because they’re busy, but some delay intentionally. One developer had a client who purposely delayed final payment by taking weeks to review the site. Another had a client who refused to pay the full amount upon completion to insure the developer would provide technical support. If you’ve not been paid a dime at this point, you’re in a poor position to demand payment, because you risk losing it all. If, however, you used my three-step payment method, you already have two-thirds of your money. If things go south at this point, you have a lot less to lose.

Remember my story of how I waited months to be paid because one of my first clients took so long to send content? Years later, one of my very best clients asked me why several pages of their site were incomplete. I told her because her predecessor never sent content. She seemed surprised and assured me she’d send something right away. I’m still waiting … but not for my money.

This is part 7 of the series Putting a Stop to Abusive Client Behavior:

  1. Stop Client Abuse of Web Designers Now!
  2. Stop the Abuse! 7 Steps to a Well-Trained Client
  3. Stop Wasting Time with Prospects Who Aren’t Serious
  4. Stop Giving Away So Much Free Information!
  5. Stop Writing Proposals to Win Business
  6. Stop Doing the Same Things and Expecting Different Results

Paul Boag Introduces How to Build a Successful Web Design Business

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While escaping your ‘evil’ boss and starting your own web design business may sound like a dream, in reality it can be a lot of hard work!

Here Paul Boag, world renowned web designer, speaker, pod-caster and author, introduces his new 12-part video course, in which he  shares his expert advice, top hints and tips, gained through over 10 years in the web development and design business.

Enjoy … and if you’re interested to see more you can:

Build a Successful Web Design Business, part 1: Selling Your Services from SitePoint on Vimeo.

Google Search by Image: The New Sheriff in Town

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Call it what you want, but there isn’t a webmaster out there who hasn’t “borrowed” an image at least once. Maybe you just didn’t have the time to scour through Flickr for a free-use photo, or perhaps there was one particular image you just had to have. Given the virtually infinite number of photos on the web and small presence of most sites, who would ever expect to get caught?

Last June, Google quietly introduced a new feature called Search by Image. This search tool provides a powerful reverse image search service similar to TinEye, but with more robust results. Search by Image finds copies of images at the usual Google speed. Simply upload a photo or paste a URL and Search by Image will pull up all the sites using the photo, including modified and resized versions. Google touts its new search feature as a “jumping off point to explore, examine and discover.”

Sounds great, right? Well, what if a photographer wants to “explore, examine and discover” unauthorized use of his photos, i.e. the adorable cat photo you just couldn’t do without? The Wild West Web isn’t quite so wild any more. The chances of being held accountable for misusing photos are higher than ever. Webmasters and bloggers should take  a careful look at how they use intellectual property and consider the potential liabilities for misuse.

What Counts as Unauthorized Use?

To keep things simple, if you use something without permission, you’re committing copyright infringement. This of course excludes images in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license. A photo does not have to say “Copyright 2012″ for it to be subject to copyright. Intellectual property is protected by copyright law as soon as it’s created, regardless of whether or not the owner registers a copyright or displays a copyright notice.

Searching for Creative Commons photos on Flickr is the easiest way to find high-quality photos of everything and anything for your site. Just remember that you must obey the terms of the license, which require you to credit the author and may exclude commercial use. Creative Commons licenses terminate for the user upon any breach of terms. Websites that use Creative Commons content but don’t credit the author are committing copyright infringement– it’s as if the CC license never existed at all.

What Do I Have to Lose?

Many website owners, especially bloggers, don’t feel liable for copyright infringement because they think the use is “not-for-profit” and/or unintentional Such was the case a few weeks ago when I contacted a blog network about its unauthorized use of a portrait of me. I sent a friendly email requesting a steep but fair license fee from the blog network, which likely earns millions a year in advertising revenue. The legal representative I spoke with, who should have been well-versed in copyright law, had the audacity to tell me I was owed nothing because her company’s use was “not-for-profit,” but also because of the exposure my work received!

In the end, we agreed on a modest settlement, but this is something that never should have happened. A few minutes of searching for a Creative Commons photo and correct use of the license could have saved the company several hundred dollars. Under US copyright law, a registered copyright holder is entitled to a minimum of $750- $30,000 per infringement. Image owners with unregistered copyrights (the vast majority of web images), may only collect actual damages or profits (see 17 USC § 504)

Note that the burden of proof for actual damages is relative low. An image owner could use a standard licensing fee as damages (which could run several hundred dollars), but only has to prove  gross revenue (not revenue directly from the image) to receive damages. An image owner can subpoena you for earnings records. Seeing as even basic legal services cost $100 or more per hour, it’s probably in your interest to settle copyright infringement claims privately, even if you end up paying a few hundred dollars for a $4 stock photo with no registered copyright.

The point is, you should spend your time blogging and building your business, not dealing with litigious photographers. The statute of limitations for copyright infringement is normally three years after the event in question, but since Internet publication is an ongoing event (new copies are created whenever someone loads a page),  the statute of limitations doesn’t expire until three years after an infringing work is taken down from the Internet. As a website owner, this generally means you’re liable for any image you ever published without permission. And with Google Search by Image, it’s easier than ever for image owners to find you. What wasn’t a big deal in 2005 should be a major concern for webmasters in 2012.

Take Action Now to Avoid Liability

Your first step should be to take down any copyrighted photos on your site. Luckily, there are more Creative Commons and public domain photos available than ever before. You can find great photos for your digital works without breaking copyright law. It might take a few more minutes, but you want to spend your days maintaining a great website, not fighting copyright infringement claims, right?

Just because you’re careful about copyright law doesn’t mean everyone else you work with is. Consider what else you can do to cast an umbrella of protection. Make sure your contributors understand what’s at stake. If you outsource web design, make sure your designer has obtained proper authorization for any included pictures. I’m dealing with a situation right now where a web designer included one of my photos without permission in a design. I don’t think the client will be amused.

Keep in mind you can always ask image owners for permission. I enjoy seeing blogs and other sites use my photos, which is why I license many of my images under Creative Commons. Webmasters have both an ethical and legal obligation to ask for permission when necessary and follow Creative Commons license terms.
So, why not take a few minutes to take care of any “borrowed” photos? Hopefully this sort of content doesn’t make up a large portion of your website. There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Google Search by Image.