Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's assuming they are already familiar with wordpress, most people have never used a CMS in their life. If requirements are simple then all you generally need is an admin area with about 3-4 links. Something like: Change Homepage Text Show Customer Inquiries Add Item to catalog This is much easier to understand to a newbie than "Add Page" , "Add menu item" etc. If they want complicated changes they will usually en…
* Find a new developer to work on my site * Install a plugin to handle facebook like buttons * buy a new template/design for $40 The first one is key though -- as a business decision.
They want something they can log into once every couple of weeks and post some minor update too, then possibly consider a redesign 2 years down the line at which point they are likely to want to throw out most of what they have anyway which doesn't matter since they spent maybe $1000 on the whole thing.
If the site provides any kind of complex functionality then wordpress is really no longer going to make sense as a core to build around. Here 90% of the site is likely to be customer forms, order processes etc that don't fit into any convenient pre-existing model. At this point if you build around an off the shelf CMS 90% of the site will be custom plugin code so there will not be a huge benefit to anyone who would take over the code.
It's all about making the business itself a first class citizen rather than a particular piece of software.