Someone wants you to build their company website. Somehow, a friend of his refer him/her to you after you finish the last project with a client.
Both of you sat around coffee and he started going over the requirements on top of his heard. You’re a listening and then suddenly he started talking about some complex Features.
I want this website to able to talk to our existing database, and the sales team should be able to do this and that. After clicking the X button it should be able to generate a report containing this data on it. And the list goes on and on.
At the back of your mind, you said, holy Molly how am I going to go about coding this. It needs a lot of time and resouces.
You’re now in a trap, either to say I’m sorry the feature you’re requesting is beyond my capacity or driven by money and said that’s possible I can do it.
If you after the clients money, you’ll definitely put your business at stake – if you are not able to meet the requirements on time and deliver the feature you agreed upon.
This is bad for you. Don’t you ever do that.
Instead, you need to be honest. You should tell your client, the feature you request is not possible because of these reasons.
There’s no harm in losing clients for being straight forward and honest with your limitation. This is a good assignment to build on top of it for the future.
Always be truthful – it’s good for you.