Million $$… or a bit Less?

[Craig Seeman]

[Nikos Mamalos] “Rich Rubasch is right on questioning the viability of my business.”
[Nikos Mamalos] “I hope in the next project I will be more fair to myself.”

But not with this client or any recommendations they might make.

[Nikos Mamalos] “I had done shortfilms and animations, these do not make a corporate portfolio really!”

Many starving artists have great portfolios.

One must weigh the portfolio vs paying the bills. Word of mouth is your best marketing tool. Repeat clients are the greatest source of easy income since they require less marketing effort. You might have a good portfolio piece but you’ve made your marketing much more difficult.

This client will likely expect a similar price in the future. Basically you’ve set up an unsustainable relationship.

Word of mouth will likely mean any recommended business will expect a similar price which means the recommendations will be unsustainable.

Basically undercharging is the business equivalent of hanging an albatross around your business’s neck. There’s nothing wrong with doing a portfolio piece. One can find any number of worthy not for profits to do that for. In those cases, your work will get seen by donors who, additionally, are in sympathy with the good deed you’ve done. These will likely be new customers willing to pay a fair price as they are the “patrons” to the cause and they become bonded with your sympathy to the cause that you both support.

Additionally, by undercharging, not only have you set up an unprofitable relationship with the business and any recommended clients they might bring to you, you’ve set up price expectations that other production companies will be expected to meet. This is a big contributor to the downward price spiral going on in this business.

[Patrick Ortman]

Craig Said >>
Basically undercharging is the business equivalent of hanging an albatross around your business’s neck.<< So very true. And those birds BITE. While I'm all for giving clients the best price possible for a project, it does neither the client or prodco any good to not charge enough to cover expenses and make a decent profit on a job, because the prodco will go out of business. Also, if you are the director on a job, and your hard costs for this job came to $8K, for instance, and you charged the client $10K, you did NOT just make a $2K profit. Remember to pay yourself. I only bring this up because I used to make this mistake a lot. Otherwise, you may as well work at McDonald's. Finally, while I do appreciate the folks who are very day rate oriented, I hope that you guys are including the planning and administrative costs of doing a project like this in your day rate, somehow. Projects like this one are absolutely not run-and-gun, I'd probably spend a week or so in prepro on a gig like this, and that's time you should be paid for. --------------------- http://www.patrickortman.com
Web and Video Design

[Vince Becquiot]

Aside from a great video, I gotta say, that music is definitely stuck in my head…

Yes, they go a great deal.

Vince Becquiot

Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area