[jasonkester]

Indeed. I can't tell you how much business I've lost over the years as a result of potential clients going to RentACoder.com. It must be literally hundreds of dollars by now.

Never ever compete on price. That's rule number one in the consulting industry. If there's a group of people racing to the bottom on price, then by definition they're not your competition.

[Jd]

Err, from your website:

"We offer... consulting services at rates that are much less than you might find from other US based software firms"

[jasonkester]

Ah, but the firms I'm competing with charge >$300/hr, so I can come in under them and still make a good living.

You'll notice that nowhere do I say we're prepared to compete against teams of highschool kids in Bangladesh on price.

[mikeryan]

So you only compete on price with those who charge more then you? ;-)

[jasonkester]

Sure. It's easier to win that way.

I still like to think I'm competing on quality rather than price. The fact that I bill less for my time when I've got sand between my toes is frankly a bit of a gimmick. Some clients see it as a positive that they're contributing to my suntan.

[jarin]

I don't see anything wrong with doing a little positioning.

[sudont]

You're exactly correct, but the mindset is much different.

Shit breaks when something's poorly coded, and has to be fixed (though, the DailyWTF would suggest otherwise). Whereas most people don't care if something's poorly designed and feel that a designer isn't necessary to just get it out there. Designers are fretting about losing mid/small-sized clients to stock templates, much in the same way that most businesses pre-DTP would buy stock letterhead and forms.

It's irrational, but when all of the clients talk about getting rid of the prissy designer one gets jumpy.

[_delirium]

True, but techies tend not to mind people using off-the-shelf technical solutions either, even if they're sort of a poor fit compared to custom coding. There are whole piles of Wordpress blogs and MediaWiki installations where maybe a Wordpress blog or MediaWiki installation isn't the ideal backing software for what the site aims to do, but meh, if it works well enough and fits the budget, it's a legitimate choice.