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The politics of freebies
Nothing urgent, just fishing for some points of view.
A few of my clients are non-profit, and some (agencies) do public service, which I often get asked to help with. Most want to pay me fairly, but there is always some discounting involved, or free hours thrown in.
Case in point I finished a job for Make-a-Wish this week, was originally guesstimated by the agency to take 20 hours, and I made them window code dubs of all the Beta tapes so we could try to stay in budget. Well, those WC dubs must have been use as doorstops, thank god I watched most while they were being made, because come edit time it was basically start from square one. To make a long story short, after 4 days, my client says ” whoa, we’re over budget, and he went back and upped the work order to 50+ hours, but I still ended up eating a few hours, but hey, it was giving back, and making my client happy so hopefully inclined to bring me a real job.
But I would say this was the exception, not the rule. Last year I did a video for an art museum with a fixed budget, and the time on that trippled what I was paid. And, no, I am not slow at this stuff.
So my question is, how do you handle this with your clients? Do you just shut up and do it, or let them know how much you are giving? Any other thoughts on this?
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12 Replies
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Chris,
I do quite a few freebies for friends/students/charities/etc
The way I handle it is to have a regular dialogue about hours and money or rather make them worry about it as opposed to you. After all, you can always say you have paid work you can do instead.
I’ve also told the odd client that it was a waste of my time and their money because they haven’t logged the tapes properly.
Nobody is going to complain if you offer them a way of saving money.Peter
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Chris,
As you know, there are the big jobs and then there are the others… Clearly the non-profits are not going pay your full commercial rate, unless they are raking in millions, like the Red Cross etc. And of course, its the ones getting the discounts who also seem to have no clue what they’re doing and who are completely disorganized, so they seem to take double or triple the time as well.
Personally, I just bite the bullet and do my best to make them happy, getting them out the door as quickly as possible, but without breaking my back for them. I always let them known that real “paying” jobs have priorty, and I never give them a discount that’s so deep that I feel resentful. In addition, I always submit an invoice that shows them the real-world price tag as well as the discounted price — that way they know what I’ve sacrificed for their cause.
DRW
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DRW brings an important point. Something I learned a long time ago is a little trick I do.
On every invoice (to real clients as well as discounted clients) I always list in the invoice something at No Charge. It doesn’t have to be anything big and expensive, but that does two positive things. One, the client feels good about getting something for N/C. Two, it puts them in a position of feeling bad about asking for another discount on that invoice as they feel, well, I’ve already gotten a discount. Trust me, it works!!!
Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com -
Same here, I put the real cost on the invoice, and then put in the discount.
I don’t have a set rule for how I work with donating my time, it depends on
the organization and the people I interact with at those organizations.
Sometimes it’s ignorance on their part and I let it slide, sometimes it’s
“how much more can I get for free from this person” and I get out quickly.Ed
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To be a bit cheeky.
You could watch the secret and figure out how the law of attraction is playing out for you.Seriously.
You either give or you don’t. It’s very black and white. When you do a non profit for less than your rate is must have something to do with your feeling toward the organization. Shift your thinking from “what am I getting” to “what am I giving” and you might feel a lot better about these jobs. Every once and a while you get the chance to help somebody out. Don’t you think it comes back to you in the form of all of those jobs you get where you did a lot less work for really good money.
You always have to look at that too. We’ve all had jobs like that. So, if it is going to irk you then that should tell you not to take the job in the first place.
Life is short, time in edit rooms is much longer if you are not enjoying yourself.
my two cents.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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To be a bit cheeky.
You could watch the secret and figure out how the law of attraction is playing out for you.Seriously.
You either give or you don’t. It’s very black and white. When you do a non profit for less than your rate is must have something to do with your feeling toward the organization. Shift your thinking from “what am I getting” to “what am I giving” and you might feel a lot better about these jobs. Every once and a while you get the chance to help somebody out. Don’t you think it comes back to you in the form of all of those jobs you get where you did a lot less work for really good money.
You always have to look at that too. We’ve all had jobs like that. So, if it is going to irk you then that should tell you not to take the job in the first place.
Life is short, time in edit rooms is much longer if you are not enjoying yourself.
my two cents.
David
Peace and Love 🙂
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Just a quick observation on your original post. I NEVER let my clients “estimate” the required time for any project. As they have usually have no clue as to what is really involved, and at this point you’ve lost control of your billing options. BW
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One thing that helps is to explain up front that to keep the bills paid, the company (you) has a set monthly limit on pro-bono hours, past which requires cash money or a wait until “fresh hours” open up and become available next month. You let them know some others folks already have some of those hours booked ahead, and that paid gigs always supercede virtual payed gigs…
Then as these guys have all said, you create a “virtual bill”, an invoice as if it was being billed at standard rate, showing the hours and the fact that it’s discounted or comped.
I find that in video and in life in general people don’t respect “free” resources as much as ones that cost dearly or even a little, so they tend to get sloppy in their prep or pre-production work, then hand you a mess that leads to overtime.
Putting a hard limit on Pro-bono hours takes you off the hook and puts them on notice that avoiding a cash bill is up to them and their advance prep work. If the project is not all that important to them, the extra wait for new free hours gives them time to get their act together and you time to do paying gigs. Should they get desperate and the deadline looms, they retain the option of paying “real” money to get it finished, and that is almost certainly going to still be a fabulous deal for them versus paying full-rate elsewhere. What it does is gets them to invest more effort into their end of the work because they suddenly perceive a value.
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David,
In no way was I complaining about these kinds of jobs, if you read again you’ll see I mentioned giving back, that has always been part of it for me. And I mentioned the benifit of getting the same client’s to perhaps bring me more paying jobs. I was strictly looking for other’s points of view on a purely theoretical business perspective, how you all handle this. So in that regard, thanks for your comments.
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Chris,
I did not mean to suggest that, please do not take offence. I think this is a fantastic and very useful thread. It might belong in the cow’s business practices thread, but none the less, it is a very worthy topic and I learned a lot reading this thread.
I agree that giving is the crux of receiving and it does pay to have a component of your business that helps people.
David
🙂
Peace and Love 🙂
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