Firing a client – long post

[Greg Ball]

Hi Nathan,

I don’t think that your call regarding “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” is the best way to go. Everyone is on a budget, they’ll ALL say they have no money for cancellation fees. I think it’s important to put it in writing up front. I just don’t know how. That’s why I asked here. To your point ” 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. I think you can find out how they do business by putting cancellation fees on a contract. If tey reuure to sign that, you have your answer on what kind of business pperson they are, and how reliable they are. Then either choose to work for them or walk away. You’ll find out abouth them long befor you argue and get fired.

Greg

[Chris Poisson]

When I was in the ad agency biz, all our estimates had a + or – 10% clause in them. On a $200,000 TV spot that could mean up to 20 grand of gravy for otherwise lost hours or unforseen expenses. Not a be-all end-all fix, but it helped at times.

Have a wonderful day.

[Debe]

There will always be bad producers out there…and to be fair, incompetent shooters & editors, too (not to slight the other very important positions in the field, but for the sake of brevity….)

I had an experience, a really BAD experience over 7 years ago with two producers. One in-house, the other…I want to say “extra-terrestial”, or “out-house”….but I’m trying to be too clever. The other producer was independent, hired by our company to produce this video.

I won’t go into the details of how this project went awry, but suffice it to say, I was left holding the bag, because those two really couldn’t produce their way out of it, even if it was paper, and soaking-wet.

There was a lot of finger pointing on their part, a LOT of stunned silence on my part, and now years later, after it is all over, they are the ones with the permanent stink attached to them. Because I was “disciplined” mostly to save face with the client, whom I was trying to protect during all of this, it became common knowledge around the company and around the local community. When people ask me the story, I tell them honestly what happened, I even take responsibility for the 10% that really was my fault, which is mostly not insisting ENOUGH that there was not enough time to do what they were proposing. It was great idea, and under other circumstances, with a different deadline…yadda, yadda…

That being said, they trashed me every chance they got from there on out. They did this even at an industry party, an open house for a new facility a couple years later that we all attended. I was told later about it. They were walking around the facility pointing me out and telling anyone who would listen that I was incompetent. They were infantile enough to think that trashing me would cover their own inability to successfully complete their jobs. The people who told me about later thought it was funny, and let me know that it made them look much worse that it made me look. In fact, it helped goose my reputation a little bit, in a good way. I was considered a champion by anyone who had worked with, or rather put up with, them in the past. One guy told me he wished he’d had my moxy to walk away. As for the ones who believed them when they were trashing me at the party…well, I don’t lose too much sleep over it, because if they believe those two, they probably aren’t the sort I really want to do business with, anyhow.

I haven’t repeated their names in over 7 years, because I feel it’s unprofessional to trash someone, regardless of whether they deserve it or not. I’ll tell the story as honestly as I can, but I have refused to attach their names to it. Some people know who they are, but those are either people who were my co-workers at the time, or the people to which they themselves have blabbed. Honestly, as I type this I realize that I can’t even remember their names anymore. The in-house woman, I remember her first name, but I don’t remember her last name, and the other one….not a blip on the radar of what her name is. If I hear them again, I’d surely recall…but, it has become so very unimportant to me after all these years.

The gist of all this? They tried to trash me, they tried to ruin my reputation, mostly, in my opinion, to throw scrutiny off of themselves. It didn’t work. I didn’t play their 4th grade game, and I am the one left standing with a very successful freelance business. People who know me and hear the story, know that they are full of it. People who don’t know me, but know them and hear the story, know they are full of it. The best thing to do is to take the highest road you can. Defend yourself, of course, but don’t point fingers. Defend your work, your point of view, your method of thought, your decisions on workflow, your attempts to guide the process as justified by the deadline or the budget, and that’s all you really can do. Do it honestly, earnestly, and almost most important, LOGICALLY. It will serve you very well in the end. It worked for me, anyway! I left that company a year later, by my own choice. The management knew. My punishment turned out to be really an extra week of paid vacation. They called it “suspended”, again to save face with the client. I called it a paid week off richly deserved after what they put me though.

I still have the plant from the very expensive arrangement the company’s receptionist “sent” me. I’m pretty sure it was charged to the company credit card. The one with my manager’s name on it.

debe