Firing a client – long post

[Sandro Gentile]

Dear Greg,
I had similar experience in the past and I agree with you .
You said no deposit for booking your job!I think it is equal to no job ensured for the customer.No paper, no contract? Be fine, don’t worry.
Just as I feel that there are not projects in a hurry but only people in late, I don’t consider that people serious and trustable at all.
With the hurting heart for no job but a safe pocket for your life do believe that our job is an elite one, with sacrifice sense needed and investments in goods and valuable know how that clients get for free.
No contract and no deposit ? No product for the client!
This is the way natural selection of boring clients is done.
I run ,always run in the past to accomodate clients mistakes ,like e.g. missing planning or wrong or not discussed deadlines, working by night for the same fee…
I’m 41 years old and I want to work in a satisfactory way,without destroying my liver and my head.Time is precious and life is one.
Simply if you make a balance between energy spent and yearn you’ll find that a factory worker lives better.Do fire your client!
And enjoy the best from your job.
Good luck Sandro

[Jimmyjimmy05]

Man, I feel your pain. The hassle of having a project put on hold is almost as bad as the worry of potentially going to court. The best advice I can give is to make a paper trail. EVERY time you get on the phone with a client, let them know that you will be sending them an email

[Greg Ball]

Thanks to all who have responded. Normally I send a client a written proposal with both the shoot and edit itemized in detail. I use a few asterisks to indicate that shipping, courier, mileage, meals, travel fees, are not included in ths price, but clients is responsible for all fees . I add a terms and conditions page after the client has approved the proposal, and get a signature and deposit check from them. I’m now looking at adding items to my proposals For example, something stating that if deposit and signed contract are not received 5 business days before start of project, we have the right to cancel the project. Also, something about changes in edits, etc.

Let’s say you’ve proposed a project and estimated it would take 45 hours to edit. How would you protect youself in writing against unlimited edit changes?

Can all of you post samples of your contracts or proposals? Thanks.

Greg

[David Roth weiss]

[Greg] “Let’s say you’ve proposed a project and estimated it would take 45 hours to edit. How would you protect youself in writing against unlimited edit changes?”

Greg,

Unless you’re a fortune teller there’s no way you can accurately estimate how long editing will take on any given project. An estimate is nothing more than an educated guess at best, and its a sure way to financial ruin. The only way to get paid what you truly deserve is to charge for finite periods of time, by the hour, day, or week.

DRW

[Monica F.p.williams]

Hi
Sorry this message is off topic
I am interested to know more about you documentary I did one too for PBS on Wright in the Southwest
Please email me your address.
Ciao
Monica :coccodrillo_12@yahoo.com

Monica F.P.williams
crocodile editing

[Ron Lindeboom]

[David Roth Weiss] “The only way to get paid what you truly deserve is to charge for finite periods of time, by the hour, day, or week.”

This is surely the safest way to guarantee avoiding The Job That Would Not Die!

[David Roth weiss]

[Ron Lindeboom] “billing on a time-basis is a general rule that is usually only broken at your own peril”

Ron,

It took me over twenty years in the biz to learn this important lesson. I probably gave away half my billable hours over my first two decades in business.

And, as I’ve stated here before, I also collect every Friday at quitting time. While some of my clients must work on a 30-day net basis, most will pay at week’s end if I ask. The Friday afternoon collection takes a lot of the emotions out of the equation, and never lets a debt get out of hand.

DRW

[Greg Ball]

So how do you put together a cost estimate that includes editing a project? How do you protect yourself? Let’s say a client contacts you looking for a price on a 15 minute sales video on a new medical product. You figure it will take 3 days plus build in 1 day for changes. How would you present this to the client? Do you not estimate this at all? Do you just tell them editing will be $125 per hour?

[Levinehn]

Hey All,

This is a long reply, but I just wanted to say, as the original post mentioned, that talking about this makes me feel better, and it’s almost like therapy hearing other people’s stories. Especially as an editor locked up in a box all day, I sometimes feel all alone when confronted with problems, so this is all kind of refreshing.

My own story is that I’m a young editor and I got SCREWED by a producer. After three months on the job, the producer and I had a big arguement, and he fired me impulsively in the middle of a heated argument. This surprised me, but what followed amazed me: he stopped payment on my final pay check, which I had already deposited (apparently it can take 5 days for checks to clear). The whole experience caught me off guard, it simply had not occured to me that adults behaved like that, instead I felt like a little kid who had been beaten up by the school yard bully.

I eventually scared the guy into paying me most of the money by filing a compliant with the labor board, but the honest truth is that he could have fought me, he could have appealed a decision even if he had lost, and so on and so forth. The lesson I learned – its the wild wild west out there, and contracts don’t mean squat, even checks don’t mean squat. Gold coins and dollar bills mean something, but unless you’re a bank robber, that’s probably not how you get paid.

The story does have a happy ending, getting knocked down a few pegs made me step up my game and meet new people, and I now get paid three times what I was making before. But the frustrating part is that I still get paid by clients AFTER the work is done, usually by invoice, and I know that leaves me open to getting screwed again. It doesn’t even have to be intentional, a production company could go out of business, a producer could get hit by a car, etc.

To be honest, I wish I was in some sort of union, in fact, if anyone has any information freelance editing unions I’m really curious. Watching the union guys on film shoots is awesome – meal penalties, overtime pay, regular breaks – I want that! But the sad truth is, if I started putting down double time after 6 pm, the next time the client wanted someting edited, they’d probably call someone cheaper.

I don’t really have a ‘conclusion’ to this thought stream, because on the one hand I hate the fact that freelancers undercut each other, which encourages producers to negoiate lower rates etc. But on the other hand, the only reasone I got hired on my first few projects is because I basically worked for minimum wage and put in a lot of freebie time. At the time I thought I was just ‘paying my dues’, but now I realize that my actions didn’t just affect me, they also indirectly affected other freelance editors who try to stand by their established day rate. So like I said, I don’t really have a conclusion after typing all this, but I do feel better mulling it all over.

And briefly, regarding cancellation fees, I try to get a half day’s pay if someone cancels on me after telling me the project was a sure thing. If this stance is not something you are comfortable with (and I admit it gives me butterflies thinking about losing good contacts), you can copy my strategy:

If producer X cancels on me and we don’t sort a cancellation fee during that phone call, I ring later that day (or the next day even) and say : “hey, I was just putting together my invoices, and I was wondering how much I should bill you for the cancellation fee on job X”

This puts the ball in his court. If the producer is a good person with legitimate budgets, then she should suggest at least a half-day, maybe a full day. That’s the ideal response.
But the less ideal response is still OK. Maybe he says “Oh, I didn’t anticipate paying you a cancellation fee, I don’t really have the budget for it etc. etc.”
You now have a better understanding of the person and the jobs they are producing – and you haven’t offended the persone.
Using this knowledge and you our own circumstances, you can then decide if its worth being a stickler and losing a contact over a day’s pay. And if you chose to waive the cancellation fee with the hope of future work, at the very least you have planted a seed in her head that your time is valuable, and you have established that you are not a push over without offending her.

Sorry for the rambling note, but to say it a third time it feels good to write it all down,

Nathan

[Randy Wheeler]

This surprised me, but what followed amazed me: he stopped payment on my final pay check, which I had already deposited (apparently it can take 5 days for checks to clear).

Whenever possible, I always cash my clients check at their bank the same day I receive it. Also with new clients, I would be hesitant to give them the master tape until I was able to cash the final payment check.

Randy Wheeler
DnRedit