I had this problem a few weeks back, an individual approached me with a very sketchy design brief, cagey about budget and demanded to talk “everything through” on the telephone first. All the alarm bells were ringing so when it came to submitting the “RFP” (quotes intended as the budget no way reflected a proper RFP document) I simply put a breakdown of hours, what would be worked on and for how much, I left out all the ideas that I had for the site and basically ensured it wasn’t a consultancy in writing.

I didn’t get the job, which I was relieved about anyway, but when I followed up with the client, after the same old same old of not hearing from them then you following up yourself, he said that all I had provided him with was a “pricing document” and he wanted a run down of how to improve the site and what I would do to improve the homepage etc.

I politely explained that for the budget we were talking about, there was no way I was going to put in hours and hours of consulting time into a document that would then be taken to a design agency with lesser knowledge than myself and carefully worked through bullet point by bullet point.

He explained that 2 other design agencies he had approached had provided him with such a document and that I was the odd one out for not.

I can only assume the other companies that were able to take on the work within his (eventually) disclosed budget were start ups or off-shore dev companies, therefore – haven’t learnt not to do that yet and what it costs them by doing so.