This might seem non-sensical at first. Afterall, the client is the one paying you, so shouldn’t they have complete control? The simple answer is no, and here’s why. Quite often, clients don’t know exactly what they want, and quite often, they have no idea what kind of time or effort goes into the services you provide.

This means that if you constantly defer to the client to ask them what they’d like over the course of your project, you may find yourself giving them choices that they don’t need to be making, and aren’t really necessarily capable of making. This can turn an otherwise simple project into a nightmare.

If you’re working on an hourly basis, then clients making changes left right and center might not be a big deal since the more changes they make, the more hours you’ll bill. However, if you’re working on a per project basis, then the fewer changes and alterations you have, the better. And this means that if you can keep as much control over the details of the project as possible, you’ll end up having to deal with far less revisions.

The reality is, if you defer to the client for input on every small detail, they’ll probably end up asking for things that might be outside the scope of the price you quoted or impossible due to time restrictions. However, had you just made those decisions yourself, you’d never have had to deal with that at all.

Always make sure that everything that you’re going to deliver and all details are worked out and carved in stone contractually before you start a project. If your client doesn’t know exactly what they want, then either have them think harder about their requirements, or make it very clear to them that further revisions or changes will be billed on top of the initial price.

Some clients will try to work you to death for the least amount of money possible, and these aren’t the kind of clients you want to deal with. Avoid that problem by making sure that any time a project isn’t clearly defined from the start, that the clients understand that either a) creative control is in your hands or b) that they have the option of asking for revisions, but they will be billed for any changes that require extra time or work.

The basis for this comment was that Google Docs has a collaborative function built in, and that using it over traditional word processing could help alleviate the back and forth sending of emails and attachments that has always come along with collaborative writing. I thought the idea was intriguing and decided to check out Google Docs for myself. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Google Docs offers all the features necessary to draw up most types of documents you’ll write on a day to day basis. It lacks many of the features of Word 2007, but only those that are there as an extra convenience without being really necessary. If you’re coming from Word 2000, you probably won’t notice anything missing. You can save in a variety of formats including .doc, open document, PDF and HTML.

You can upload documents from your computer to edit and you can send documents by email or publish them right from the online interface. The feature that really makes Google Docs worth using though is the sharing function. Once you’ve created your document, you can share it with others and invite them on to be contributors.

Those added as contributors can then edit the document directly from their own Google account. Of course, as the “owner” of the document, you have the final say on edits. The value of this is that now on a document that might require three or four revisions from one of more people other than the author, the author of the document can simply upload or write their document in Google Docs and then invite in the editors or reviewers as contributors to the document. This could save a ton of back and forth emails with edited drafts attached, helping reduce the inbox clutter that often goes hand in hand with collaborative writing.

I’d suggest anyone that does any volume of writing check out this app., as there may be times when it makes your writing process significantly easier. By simply logging in with your Google account, you can access this useful web 2.0 app. completely free. I’d say this one is definitely one of Google’s winners.