I stopped taking clients who want 'minor tweaks' after a disaster in Houston

A few months ago in Houston, a client asked for a 'simple tweak' to their website copy. I said no because their site was a mess, but they insisted and went with another freelancer who charged $200. Their site crashed hard during a product launch, and they came back begging me to fix it. Has anyone else had a 'minor tweak' job blow up and ruin the whole project?

3 comments

3 Comments

wells.evan6d ago

Man I read a post about this exact thing on a design forum last week. Someone called them "innocent requests" that turn into "dumpster fires" and that hit the nail on the head. The problem is clients see "minor tweak" as a low risk thing but they don't realize the whole house of cards comes down if you mess with one piece. That Houston story is classic - they save a few bucks upfront then pay ten times more later for emergency fixes. I had a guy once ask me to "just move a button" and it broke three checkout flows nobody knew existed because his site was built on top of twenty plugins. Those tweaks are never just tweaks.

dianawilson5d agoMost Upvoted

Pretty much every "quick fix" I've seen started with someone saying it would take five minutes. Best practice is to run a full backup and check dependencies before touching anything, even if the client is standing there watching. Saved my skin more than once when that innocent tweak turned into a full afternoon of damage control.

the_robin5d ago

...I mean yeah, but sometimes people act like you're juggling live grenades when it's just a CSS tweak. Not everything's a whole production, you know? @wells.evan I get it, that button story sounds rough, but how many times does it actually go that wrong vs. how much time we waste over-planning for a total meltdown.