Changes isn’t just a David Bowie song.

Not one of us hasn’t had to make one or more changes to a project before a buyer would accept it.  It happens, sometimes it’s because the buyer was vague about what they wanted, sometimes it’s because they change their mind part way through, and sometimes it’s because they wanted something different from what I delivered.

As many of you know, I spend a fair amount of time on the oDesk Community boards, and one question I’ve seen come up more than once is whether or not you should charge the buyer for changes.  Some providers, especially new providers on their first job, are concerned that if they do not make the changes for free, the buyer will give them bad feedback and effectively blacklist them.

It’s a valid fear, especially when someone is just finding their feet and doesn’t feel confident about working within the oDesk system.

The problem is that except in one specific case, making changes for free simply devalues you as a provider.

You, your work, and your time are not free.

Being a professional means you work for money.  That means that when someone asks you to do more work you have every right to ask them to pay you more money.

The only exception to this is when they ask you to fix your own mistakes.

Nobody else should have to pay for your mistakes.

That’s the only time that you should be working for free.  The rest of the time you should be running the oDesk team and working on the clock.  Anything else sends the signal that neither you nor your work are worth money.

If your buyer decides that they really wanted something different, then you charge them for it.  You gave them what they paid for and you don’t owe them more work for free.

Let me tell you a story:  I was once asked to produce some articles for a client for at let’s say 800 words per hour.  I agreed to the rate and then they asked me to make the articles into presentations.  I said I’d do it but that I would like an increased time budget to do it.  They declined and said they would handle that themselves.

There’s nothing at all wrong with either side in that scenario.  As a provider I have every right to ask for more time in order to do more work, and the buyer has every right to say that they would rather not have me do it.  Buyers do have to consider their budgets.

The point here is that I had no hesitation about asking for more money (in the form of a bigger budget of hours at my standard hourly rate) in order to do more work.  Feature creep happens in all fields and the only way to handle it is to say yes you’ll do it, but more work takes longer and costs more.

Remember, part of being a professional means that you value your work.  If you regularly give it away then you are not valuing it.

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