[radu_floricica]

It all probably boils down to you being of less value to smaller clients than to larger ones. Software and web are a force multiplier. They don't produce value on their own, they just increase what's already there. If a new, better website can get the client a 20% better conversion rate, or if a new software will decrease their costs by 5% - that can be dramatically different in CorpX and in Ma&Pa.

The multiplier itself can't be dramatically different - you can't write software that'll bring a 99% decrease in costs. But the base that you're multiplying can easily be 100x larger (10000%). That's the value you're creating, some part of which is your fair share.

So how to successfully sell to small clients? The correct answer is "en masse". The only way to make up for the difference in productivity is with numbers - you don't write custom software, you make a product and sell it to thousands and more.

Small clients simply should never work with service providers directly - they just waste time that'd better be spent by making a bigger client 0.1% more efficient. I know that's the opposite of what idealism would say, but it's true. The _smaller_ cost for society is burned out and pissed off developers. The real one is the opportunity cost of what they could have been doing instead.