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Quote Today
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you could even add some time as director during the edit too since you’ll be wearing 2 hats.
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Wow, that’s one impressive breakdown. Now *this* is what I was needing, and while yes, I don’t believe I’d rate myself at $90, nonetheless, it’s a formula that I’m needing!
Today after I gave my quote, one of them asked me how I came up with my figure, yikes. I told her simply based upon the hours involved, but had I been smart, I coulda rattled off a list like that, and made her head spin.
I’m starting to realize a little bit of intimidation plays a major role here, in landing these jobs! 🙂
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[David Roth Weiss] “In fact Randall, I’m in the process of writing an article on “qualifying the customer.””
Oh, that will be a great article! I look forward to reading it. I go into any meeting knowing they have a problem and are hoping that I have the solution. ‘What’s the solution cost?’ That’s their real question.
How does one answer that? One can’t, without understanding the problem. So in the meeting, I’m the one asking the questions.
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Remember, one of the great things about being grown-up that separates you from the the twenty-somethings is that you can simply act secure even if you’re not. It works for me…
That is so good David. Yes, one of the few good things about getting old.
By the way: Corporate people always want to hand you a PowerPoint and assume that it’s a simple thing to turn it into video. Scan converters work, but they produce muddy looking video. Had much better luck with Camtasia. It’s a not inexpensive program about $300. However, you can get a fully functioning trial for 30 days. Assuming the safe area is ok and the font size is large enough, you can just run it through.
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[Randall Raymond] “So in the meeting, I’m the one asking the questions.”
Randall,
I’m too am always digging, wanting to know more…
BTW, think of me as the director of this article rather than the writer, as I’m going to interview people, like yourself hopefully, who will hopefully provide many of the ideas and concepts in this peice. Are you okay with that? Wanna participate?
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[Lisa Koza] “yikes”
Whoa there Lisa. Because you’re doing it as a side job, the answer should have been “We do those quite often and my price is about half of what it would have cost if you’d walked in the front door with it.
Something that I always say when I’m asked why my competitors are cheaper is “Because they’re worth it”.
By the way, of course the head guy wants to get it done for $300. That’s probably where he’s got all of his employees – working for nothing. After all, if they had any talent or skills at all, they would be doing it in-house. And don’t forget, they will probably detail you to death. Small people make themselves look like big people by changing things unnecessarily. It’s funny how you can be sitting at a meeting and everybody wants to change something until you start hanging price tags an the crappy things they want to do. Suddenly, it’s just fine.
When people ask me on the phone “What can I get for around $200”, my reply is “We’re almost there right now”. Most often, they hang up and go pedal their life problems to others.
If you concentrate on being positive, confident and professional, people will tend to treat you that way. Wear business clothing and don’t look anxious. I can get 20% more on a job by wearing slacks or nice cargo pants instead of jeans. I also wear long sleeve shirts to cover my gang tattoos.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
Sony EX-1 has arrived and it’s fascinating. -
[Steve Wargo] “”What can I get for around $200”, my reply is “We’re almost there right now”.”
That Kills!!! I’m adding it to my list; usually I say “I can’t even give you a referral for that much.”
And while you can get fully-functioning software free as a demo, I still think you’re not allowed to make a profit with it. I sure don’t like it when I see our work on the tube that somebody ripped. Keep good ethics from the start.
The goal isn’t to “make their heads spin” (although it usually does) You are simply a pro laying out the requirements of their job.
Steve
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[Steve Wargo] “Something that I always say when I’m asked why my competitors are cheaper is “Because they’re worth it”.”
I love it.
I tell you, the biggest gift this forum has given me is the sales tools to charge what I’m worth. As a new start up, it’s tempting to lowball just to get business in the door. Fortunately I’ve structured my finances to where I don’t have to bring in anything for the first six months. Funny thing is, I’m already pretty much booked for the first quarter…..AT MY PRICE!!! I had my first three jobs booked before I even had business cards.
Thanks Everyone!!
Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media -
[David Roth Weiss] “BTW, think of me as the director of this article rather than the writer, as I’m going to interview people, like yourself hopefully, who will hopefully provide many of the ideas and concepts in this peice. Are you okay with that? Wanna participate?”
Count me in!
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GOOD scan converters are not blurry, BTW. Ours cost six bills when it was new and the output looks very nice. And it is a time saver for us (we do a LOT of powerpoint conversions to video) because instead of tweaking the individual slides we can scale and zoom and position to our heart’s content as if using a DVE, in real time. But there’s more than one way to do many projects, and if Camtasia works for you, fine.
When you want to hold firm on a price for something like this project, the variable that slides up and down is the amount of time and quality applied. Fast-good-cheap, pick any TWO. But ONLY two. You could for example just export the powerpoints as-is to jpegs, throw them down on the FCP timeline and stretch each to fit the narration, done in one hour.
Or, you could re-build each slide from scratch in Photoshop or Live Type at higher, more lovely resolution, with nicer backgrounds, even looped motion backs, add apropriate and tasteful transitions where needed, spend some time and artistic ability to make the slides as clear and functional as possible. That could take two days or more. Dividing the time into the fixed price, on that project, you’re LOSING money.
The question then becomes what quality level (for the price) is “good enough” for the client. Some of you guys that consider yourselves artisans and craftsmen and women would say without equivocation: “never anything but my absolute best.” That’s noble and if you can get away with that on every project, I admire you. In the real world, not everything always has to be performed at Olympian levels, and unless the client is Donald Trump, not every project needs to be gold-plated thruout.
This explains much about Microsoft (grin). The saying goes that Bill Gates never asked for or needed for Windows to be better than mac, just “good enough” at the price point that clients would buy it. A lot. And they did.
And this powerpoint job of yours is the same thing. We have to know is this just a play-it-once and throw-it-away thing for a small internal gathering of captive audience viewers, a “bic lighter” if you will, or is it going to be a sales tool that represents the company’s public face for a long time in the marketplace, or something in-between?
When you know what the stakes are, the budget kind of creates itself. You can ask them for example: “Is this little project supposed to help seal a 20-million dollar multiyear sales deal in China? What percent of that profit are you willing to invest in the successful sale? One percent? Point oh-five percent?” Then if true, you are going to do the work very much differently.
So, for a fixed price of $500 or less, you would do well spending an hour on the thing, total. Would the quality be satisfactory, and do they UNDERSTAND the quality in this situation is set by what they are willing to pay and not by your level of talent? This is a big “if”, to be sure. There is a real danger in being tagged with the “only does really cheap and low-end stuff” label. You have to have your own standards as well, and have thought this thru ahead of time. I hate giving fixed price quotes for anything, especially where there are many unknowns. You always wind up overcharging or undercharging, and neither is good.
Maybe you DO walk away now, saying, “I can deliver you a functional product at that price but it would be bad for my professional reputation to work below my normal quality level just to meet that price.” and there is the chance they’ll call you back or remember you later. It’s happened to me a time or two in my career that I told a client “no, this is not a good or effective project for a video, your money would be better spent doing this as a web page or PDF file”, and they respected me for it, indeed, called me back later to fix what someone else had done at the lower quality level and price.
This powerpoint sounds like one that is low stakes and low expectations, so they want to keep the expense low to match. Maybe your counter-proposal is to charge the $500 you wanted to charge, but tell them that includes your voice-over for free this time, and next time you will have to bill extra for that. You also stipulate that changes will be billed separately after the initial review, so they can’t keep holding off payment while they make you tweak the thing forever and ever. And if you’re going for the fixed price, below a grand, that will be paid in advance, not negotiable. They have that much in the petty cash/rainy day emergency fund.
Finally, two axioms you should have tattooed on the inside of your eyelids so you always have them in front of you during negotiations:
1)”You have to be willing and able to walk away if the deal is not good enough, and really mean it. Even if you are starving. Break this rule, just once, and they forever own you.”
2)”The first person to say a number loses.” Talk first about every dimension of the project BUT the rate, don’t be afraid to hold off on the quote until you can crunch the numbers; this is being professional about it. You are getting to a consensus about the values and scope of the project and making sure everybody has the same expectations. Then see rule 1 again.
Best of luck, do tell us how this turns out.
Mark Suszko
“Oh, you wanted to RECORD that?”
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