Showing Clients their Site

[zaricpp]

I was just wondering, what methods do you use to show clients their sites? I was thinking of just uploading it to my own site in a folder. Has anyone ever had problems with them just stealing it? How could that be prevented without diving into tons of legal aspects?

 

[DHDdirect]

I'd say you'd just have to trust them. If they know how to go about getting every bit and piece for a site they should have built it themselves in the first place.

If your website uses external css, js, php classes, includes etc it'll make it that much harder for them to find everything, unless of course they know what they are doing.

I suppose the alternative would be to show them screen shots or if you can possibly demonstrate it to them one on one using your own laptop.

 

[notarypublic]

you should always have a contract. Spend any time reading this site and you'd never think about going without one, again.

Also.. I just found this? I think it's a clever idea

 

[zaricpp]

That... is... awesome! that's an amazing idea. Bookmarking that page.

 

[DHDdirect]

Hehe.. or you can just get payments upfront. Though I suppose I don't have to worry about that because I have control over the server and really any good hosting company will help you out in this sort of matter if the hosting is in your name that is.

 

[ronaldroe]

I usually have them pay half up front. From there, I just trust them not to take it.

Also.. I just found this? I think it's a clever idea

Definitely gonna start doing this.

 

[BMA]

Once you get busy, insisting on payment upfront with a rather detailed service agreement is the only way to go. You can have all the contracts you want, but you will find that half the customers don't really read them, and plenty of people won't think twice about wasting your time. If you let clients pay upfront with a credit card, customers will have the protections through their credit card to protect them against fraud on the part of a designer.

I've never had a client steal a design. Most wouldn't know how. You'll find that this is a non-issue.

 

[locpicker]

I am doing custom wordpress themes and I put up working demos for them. These are not very easy to steal.

You can use software that will encode sites to stop any editing being done.

 

[Phreaddee]

again locpicker you are ill informed,
anything on the web is easy to steal, you just dont know how to do it.

 

[mrandrei]

Let the clients come over to your place / office and present it to them.

 

[Pheno]

I upload the site onto a folder on my server. It's extremely unlikely that client will go through the hassle of pretending to be a client just to steal your code!

 

[eonic]

All in the contract