There seem to be two schools of thought on this topic:
- Do an excellent job on exactly what the client is looking for;
- Do a good job on the project, and provide additional value as a bonus.
I got to thinking about this after reading about optimizing your freelance career, especially the reference to “undepromise and overdeliver.”
Do people try and compensate for a perceived shortcoming – maybe they are concerned about their grammar or the originality of their concepts – by adding in additional value? Does a client look at the job and think, “Well, the concept is ok, but we’ve got three pages of web copy that we weren’t expecting – hooray!” or “Wow – brilliant concept, I know we didn’t ask for more, but it would have been nice to get a few more pages of copy”?
Have you found that it is better to deliver “excellence” to your customers and nothing else, or provide” acceptable” with bonus material?