Should I charge clients for meetings

[Steve Wargo]

Todd’s advice is excellent. We recently attended a first meeting with a new client. The original contact said it was a huge budget but the meeting person stated right away that it was a budget of around $3k. We agreed to cap it at a bit more but made it very clear that in exchange for the discounted price, we had to make every minute count and that we needed to work with the decision maker to keep redos to a minimum. They were quite happy with that arrangement and said that we would conduct all business through e-mail.

Having thought about it a bit more and having read the other posts, you kind of have to play it one client at a time. Just be conscious of those who want to meeting you to death and then they don’t do the job or they hire someone else.

If you’re just getting started, brown nosing is a critical part of the relationship. My wife is very good at it and we should have done an instructional video years ago.I, on the other hand, have to really work at it.

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
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

[Grinner Hester]

I think you probably already know this answer. Hearing it from others is often an affermation that makes decision making easier.
There is no better diplomatic way of weeding out a client than nickle and diming them. Likewise, there is no better way to run off a great production company than to continually ask for their time for free. They know this. It’s a gamble they are obvioulsy willing to take.
The bare bones answer is if this is a sales meeting, no you cant bill for that and expect to see them in the future. If it’s a creative meeting they want you in, of course you are in the business to make a living and won’t be giving this off the clock.
If you feel you dont want to do this meeting for nada… man, don’t.
let em grind away at your competition while ya get back to work.
If you feel it’s a required hand-holding to keep a gig ya wanna keep, man oppease em and pretend it’s not irritating.

[Brian Mills]

One thing I’ve got to chime in here with:

I have a client that initially behaved just like you described. They called me in to “discuss the project” and ended up picking my brain on various other aspects of the project. By the time he called me to the 4th meeting, I said that I had already met with him enough to give him a quote to proceed, and any other meetings hereafter would be charged an hourly “consulting fee.” The meetings got a lot less frequent and I charged him for every one after that (and then the shoot of course).

These meetings were actually me teaching him what he needed to be a producer on this project.

This client is still active and still sends work my way, but if the phone calls start getting a little too long, I cut him off and say, “this is getting a little technical, do you want me to come in and consult with you?”. Some times he says yes and gets an invoice, mostly he says no.

You have to recognize the meetings which are necessary to bid a job (and therefore not charged), and the meetings where you are in essence helping the client produce their project, which very much should be billable hours (I charge 75% of my operator without gear rate for example).

Good luck…

Brian Mills
Videographer

[David Derozier]

Something I did years ago when I owned a business and helped me separate the “tire kickers” from the serious ones was to charge a “consultation fee” that was knocked off the price of the production if they accepted.

I’ve found (and was confirmed by reading the book “The Must-Have Customer”) that the ones that complain are not serious shoppers…or they are people who will suck the life right out of you. These people who nickel-and-dime you to death wouldn’t work for five seconds without getting paid…and they’ll bitch about how much they’re being paid (as Harlan Ellison in Pay the Writer said in a YouTube presentation).

As others have said, if they turn out to be good customers, then you can change your policies for them…you own the business, you get to make the rules.

Good luck.

[Kevin Hanley]

After reading your initial post, I had planned to ask you a question, but you subsequently answered it further down in the thread. The question I was going to ask was “Is this a high paying client, or a low paying client”, and then I was going to tell you that I already knew the answer.

In our business, we are selling time. That’s all we have to sell. Experience is part of what we sell, but actually experience is what makes our time more valuable, so it’s still time that we’re selling.

Any good client expects to pay for your time. The ones that don’t are always—100% of the time—low paying clients. They’re also the ones that take up the majority of your time, preventing you from working for other clients, and more importantly, preventing you from spending time improving your business and working your way up to bigger and better clients. Expecting free “meeting” time is one red flag. The next red flag is the “if you take care of me now, there are big things coming your way later” line.

Bottom line, meetings are not free. Maybe an initial consultation to sell the client on your company, but beyond that everything should be billable. Attorneys, mechanics, and many other people who sell time (labor) for a living charge this way, and I don’t see a lot of people questioning that. Why should your time and expertise be free?

We charge half rate for consultation and pre-production meetings. That seems to make all of our clients happy.

[Clyde Villegas]

Thanks for your all your advices. They’re very very helpful. God bless.