trying to collect on a prooject

[Mark Suszko]

IANAL,(to my mom’s everlasting sorrow), but I believe it is offer, acceptance, and “consideration”, i.e. some actual money changed hands.

You can prove that with xerox copies of the partial payment checks. I once won against a deadbeat cheating client because of that principle. He claimed the contract was void, never in effect but I proved he’d gone ahead and abided by it, paying for services, then suddenly stopping. Too late for him. Had he never paid a cent, he’d have had a better case, but proveable, partial payment sealed his doom with the judge, who then let us garnish his bank accounts.

While I think small claims could be worth pursuing, can I suggest one more “negotiating” tactic: your own version of the garage mechanic’s lien.

Call the station that airs the spots and ask to talk to their legal department about the fact that they are running copyrighted stuff without your permission, and that you really dont want to drag the station into the middle of a payment dispute with one client…

See: if you can get the station to not run the spots, THAT is going to get immediate attention from the car dealer. He sees himself winning all the way on this if he can still run your spots and bring in customers all at the same time he’s stringing you along on payment. It’s like he’s getting the ads – and the customers they bring in – for free.

Your truest leverage with a guy like this is that he is on a deadline to have something, and he wants what you have, and will have to give you what you want if you are to hand it over by that deadline. A Cash On Delivery service.

If you can get the station to suspend running those spots, (even if their only motivation is that THEY get to bill the guy to remake spots instead) the dealer either has to pay you fast to clear this up and stop losing customers, or he has to pay somebody ELSE to make a new spot, which he also doesn’t want to do unless it’s cheaper than paying you the outstanding balance. Plus you KNOW the station has a solid contract and is going to keep billing him for unused airtime spot or no spot, so you’re putting the guy in a pincer between the two of you.

Those kinds of guys do this kind of math in their head for every transaction and decision in daily life. We don’t have to because we don’t see everything in the world in terms of it’s immediate utility to us. We have learned and internalized a moral code of ethics and conduct and we have our religious tenets or philosophies as our moral guides. They don’t. It is all a zero-sum-game to them so you have to make this a mathematical argument, not a legalistic or even a moralistic one.

Numbers are your best weapon on these guys. Interfere with the bottom line, and they will pay you to go away. And pay quickly.

[Nick Griffin]

[Mark Suszko] “Call the station that airs the spots and ask to talk to their legal department about the fact that they are running copyrighted stuff without your permission, and that you really dont want to drag the station into the middle of a payment dispute with one client…”

I guess it was inevitable that Mark Suszko would come up with something with which I totally disagree and with this post it has happened. Mark’s suggestion might work in the very short term and might work in a vacuum, but it also might be very bad for the long term success of your business.

Don’t contact the station’s sales or legal department. First, they won’t be on your side, they’ll be on their own side. Second they’ll be on the side of the guy who gives them money — the car dealer. He probably has for years and probably will for years to come.

While it’s possible that the station may go along with what you’re asking, it will likely be after you’ve had to engage an attorney to convince them you’re serious. They will also, from that point forward, have you pegged as a trouble-maker — someone who makes their primary business of selling airtime MORE DIFFICULT. Can you hear what the station’s sales people might say? “Sure there are several decent production companies around town, but stay away from DVDProducer because he’s hard to work with. I heard he had a fight with another of our advertisers and you don’t want to get in the middle of something like that.”

Get whatever money you can get and MOVE ON.

[Mark Suszko]

You yourself said it could work, Nick, nobody specified it had to avoid collateral damage….:-)

I disagree with my esteemed colleague in that the station is to be feared. Stations forgive all, as long as invoices are paid timely and complete. Stations usually have very good lawyers on call and these guys make sure the station’s contracts are solid. So you are not likely to see them have the same problems as D here.

I take the position that if the car crook is scamming the producer, he’s probably already not a favorite client of the Tv station either, because likely he’s also stringing them along as far as he can.

D making himself a “problem” for the station could be mitigated by the fact the station can use the excuse to upsell the car dealer on new spots… and there is no reaason D could not work with the station to do those spots with an apropriate markup… so the station wins either way. The station itself becomes the final bottleneck to the car dealer getting what he wants: airtime.

Finally, if we’re talking about word of mouth, you must also consider what kind of rep he’d have if the market knows he’s a pushover. Either way with the car guy, this guy’s not getting much of a referral for other business. His house could become Grinder Central, with every client thinking they can get stuff and not pay.

Yes, he can walk away from this now, and chalk it up to tuition in the school of life. Nobody would fault him for that. That’s probably the Christian thing to do.

But if you are going to fight, then I say you fight with everything you got, or don’t fight at all.

[Mark Suszko]

And just one more point on that: what matters with my ploy is that the car dealer *thinks* he could lose access to airing the spots. Just the bluff that you could mess up his access could be enough. Like I said, it is all a game of numbers to these types, so like Keanu in “Speed“, you have to “change the equation”.

[Glenn Grant]

I do have at least limited support from the sales exec. at the station. The dealership had signed a long term contract at a very good price, so I think the station would be happy to get out of it.

I told the station that if I don’t get a check with in 10 days that I will insist the the dealership pulls the spots. The station said they would back me on that.

They could start airing an older commercial.

You are right that I don’t want to be known around town as a trouble maker, but I don’t want grinders lining up at my door.

[Mark Suszko]

Be sure you are really nice, reasonable and easy talking to the station guy, and think about a tactful way to suggest that they can sub out some production to you if they need to.

Station then tells car guy they can’t run your old spots. You’ll either get paid or not for them if the car guy likes them enough to get them “out of hock”. If it’s a “no” for that, then the station will offer to make him some new spots. They either then do that themselves (no big loss to you) or you volunteer to do them for the station (because you have all this raw footage ready to go) for a small markup and revenge, served cold with an invoice the STATION will now collect for you.

They and you would probably want to send a different guy to shoot new inserts and stand-ups, though, otherwise the grift is revealed:-)

(“I love it when a plan comes together… let’s drive, B.A.”)

[Brendan Coots]

If you are selling copier machines there aren’t many details to work out except price, so not as much need for a contract. In the video business, it’s the particulars that will kill you because it’s your word against the client’s when it comes to budget, delivery items, who provides what, what is included in the budget and on it goes.

I hear what you’re saying, but I would never, ever do a project in this field without some form of contract, even if it’s a $100 job.