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John's staged payment idea is not industry standard for consultants. If I had a
tech writer who did a scope and outline and then folded his arms and waited for
a check, I would probably send that person packing.
Most service organizations bill straight time and materials based on a project
scope. No graduated payments. NO flat fees.
The key to decent contract engagements is having a good technical services
agreement that outlines your roles and responsibilities and makes it clear that
they will pay you for your services and you will provide good documentation.
If you have a solid, legal contract then there is no worry. If they stiff you,
you sue them.
Most contractors get into trouble when:
1) They ignore the client's needs/requests and do what they, personally think
is right.
2) They fail to meet deadlines.
3) They spend an extraordinary amount of time on management and overhead
(fiddling with tools or building pointless project management processes).
4) They construct ridiculous plans that have nothing to do with reality and
then have a fit when it doesn't come true.
The best way is to estimate a project first, get the client to sign off on the
estimate, and then do the work and invoice them like any other service
organization in the world. In my tech writing estimates I include time for 1 or
2 revisions. I also include a warning that if the client changes the scope or
nature of the project, it may alter the estimate.
Furthermore, estimating projects is an art in an of itself. Just because you
think it will take 5 weeks to write something, does not mean the client will
pay for that. When clients cut my estimates down, I still do the work and work
to meet their challenge, but I make it clear that I can't guarantee the work if
the estimate is cut.
