I mean, the assholes who can pay atill lie and say all that routinely.

I don't think I've had a client who didn't ask for a sweetheart deal "for the greater good, and because we're all friends here.".

My secret is I'm actually a bigger asshole than they are, deep down, and I genuinely don't mind walking away if they can't pay. I'm aware of how much pain their business collapsing will do, but I've accepted it as something I cannot fix while looking out for my team acceptably.

I feel that if they really can't pay my team fairly and stay in business, then enabling them to stay in business is hurting everyone, both on my team and theirs.

They wouldn't even being considering paying consulting rates to begin with if they had the decency to read a book about how to treat staff like actual humans. Keeping an internal development team takes work, but it's not rocket science.

In the rare case that they genuinely can't pay for work they genuinely need, it's sad, but the market is trying to tell them to find a role that is actually needed and that they're actually able to get good at.

But I've found that more often than not, they're really just asshole liars who magically find some money, after wasting my time with their sob story.