[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the feedback on my post. Hopefully I can make myself a little more clear…

[Rob Jackson] “From what I’ve seen, one of the quickest ways to dig yourself into a hole is to lower your standards during this recession.”

From what he says, his company has no “standard rush charges” in place and thus his post asking for advice.

[Rob Jackson] “If you lower your rates or start not charging for rush work now, when the recession ends, it will be exponentially more difficult to raise your rates and start adding charges.”

Two entirely different things. Lowering rates is not the same as adding on rush charges. Also, I find that almost 100% of my clients do not care what my rates are. They care if I can do what the want (or more than what they want) for the total sum of money budgeted for the project. If paying rush charges falls in line with the budget, so be it. If it ends up increasing the entire budget, then it may have to go through corporate channels to get it approved (along with the newly added risk of the project being canceled because of going over budget).

[Rob Jackson] “If you have to lower your rates, try and make it in the form of a one-time “special promotion discount” or something similar.”

Again, lowering rates and adding rush charges are two entirely different things.

[Rob Jackson] “Charge a rush fee. If they balk, perhaps compromise with 2-3 weeks instead of 3-4.”

Highly doubtful. The vast majority of my experiences with this are that the client’s usual way of balking is not awarding you project and taking it somewhere else (without telling you). Most of the time, there are no second chances to re-bid, adding value added services, or negotiating due dates after the first attempt/bid/estimate fails to get the project.

Cheers!
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

[Fernando Mol] “I have this good client, but a little difficult with delivery times. I always gave them a production calendar in every budget. 3 to 4 weeks, usually. This time they are asking me for a last minute video and they need full production in a week.

I’m thinking in charging a little extra for the short time delivery.”

Hi Fernando,

As a good client to the vast majority of my vendors, I too try to give 3-4 weeks for post production. I partly define “a good client” as one that pays on time, consistently patronizes the vendor and is understanding with schedules. But…

If I were to take a project with a 1-week turnaround (which to me is not too bad of a post production time period for a smaller project) to one of my post vendors, and they charged me a rush charge, I would (and have been) reluctant to bring such “quick turnaround” projects to them in the future. If I’ve spent thousands upon thousands of dollars with a vendor throughout my career, I would hope that I have some kind of “special treatment” when it comes to such things. Likewise, I extend my beliefs and practices to my own clients.

You must be doing very well to contemplate such a charge in this recession.

Just my thoughts.

Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

I agree with Steve on this.

When I worked for a post house for 8-years, we had a couple of employees who came from a local TV station. We paid them more money than they were making at the station, but they still would come to me (versus the owner) and complain that they weren’t making the amount of money they felt that they were worth, or deserved. They also didn’t like the fact that I was making more money than they did. (My title was Sales Manager. I was paid a very low base salary, made additional commissions on new client sales, and also wrote, directed and produced projects). I told them, if you want to make the money that I make, we can also lower your salary to equal my base salary, pay you commissions on new client sales, and you can also still edit, dub, etc. That would give them the opportunity to make more money based on their performances. They decided to keep their non-commissioned based salaries and predictable paychecks.

When I worked for a corporation as a Project Manager/Producer, we had lots of print graphic artists who always complained that they were underpaid compared to the manager level Project Managers that they reported to. The graphic artists felt they “did all the work” and the project managers had it easy since they didn’t do the actual layouts and design. I suggested that apply for management level positions and then they could get paid more (along with the new duties of countless meetings, performing employee reviews, resolving in-house customer complaints, be accountable when campaigns did not produce the ROI, and be accountable on keeping within budgets). Again, most of them decided to keep their “less responsible” jobs and “lower paid” salaries.

Typically, the people within a company that “create the work” do not get paid as much as managers. Managers take on more risk of losing their jobs. When an upper level manager or officer of the company gets pissed off because a campaign went over budget, didn’t work like predicted, and feels that it was a huge waste of money, usually the department head and/or Project Manager is the one who catches Hell and gets fired – not the graphic artists. They typically get to report to their new manager who takes over for the fired manager.

Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

[Mike Cohen] “At the moment, we need to support American workers, who are retail workers more than they are factory workers.”

Confusing statement to me.
Supporting retailers that pay employees a decent wage is good for our economy. For example, according to the New York Times, Costco pays their people an average of $17 per hour, which is about 42 percent more than the average Wal-Mart employee. Supporting retailers that pay employees a decent wage, offer benefits and don’t use their buying power to force American owned factories to relocate overseas is even better.

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Bob,

Your profile: “Hobbies and Interests: torturing participants on web based user forums.” LOL. This helps me understand your overall good nature helps support my harping on the newbies to fill out their profiles before posting.

One common defensive remark related to my “Wal-Mart” comment goes something like, “All retailers buy goods at the cheapest price possible. Wal-Mart happens to do it best.” But…. As far as I know, Apple (Final Cut Pro) and Madison/Middleton’s Electronic Theater Controls (ETC) don’t hand out applications for state provided health care or food stamps for low-income residents upon hiring new employees like Wal-Mart does. And, I don’t think our locally owned Dorn Hardware store chain has systems in place that help their suppliers close down domestic factories and then set up replacement sweat shops in China. Looking at the “means” versus the “end” has a lot to do with my actions/opinions. I hope this negates the feeling/belief that I’m being a hypocrite.

As far as small, medium and large vendors, I try to “share the love” with all of them.

Thanks for the reply. I enjoy reading your posts.

Now I must go out and buy our local boy Matt Kenseth’s Daytona 500 t-shirts (printed by Madison/Middleton’s Top Promotions) before all the good stuff is taken. I plan to buy from Matt’s independently owned store near Cambridge and don’t plan on stopping at Wal-Mart 🙂

Cheers!
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Karim,

I am a Producer/Director who owns an LLC without any other employees. I sub out all shooting and editing. Business is good, but like many of us, unpredictable for 2009-10. This year, I’ve already lost two $15,000 jobs that were canceled because of the recession. I’m preparing for the possible “crisis to come” three different ways.

#1) Personal Life
Over the past year, I’ve been paying off and eliminating personal debt. Also, I have been spending less “disposable income” for fine dining restaurants, toys, etc. This has created less need for a “larger salary” from my business. (Still doing a good job of staying away from Wal-Mart in order to help manufacturing friends from losing their jobs to China).

#2) Business Infrastructure Adjustments
I’m trying to emulate what all the corporations are doing. Because of the actions mentioned above, I cut my salary back to what it was in 2007 (if I end up making great money this year, I can always pay myself more as dividend payments). I was amazed to find out how much money I was “saving” from less payroll taxes.
I also cut operational costs like the fax service that I used only twice the last two years, less awards competition entry fees, etc. According to my accountant meeting last week, this is exactly how small businesses should be dealing with this recession.

#3) Vendors
I have vendors who are full fledged brick and mortar production companies with multiple employees and others that are younger professionals who live and work out of their parent’s houses. Having a diverse vendor base allows me to be flexible when bidding on projects that are all about price in these times of client budget cutting. I have the flexibility to at least compete with others in getting “low priced” jobs by hiring the vendor that “fits the budget” best. I don’t always go to the cheapest vendor for low cost jobs, but some times will discuss cheaper budgets with higher cost vendors and see what they can (or if they want) to do in order to compete for the job. I have very positive and honest relationships with all my vendors. If I tell them that there is no money, they know there is no money. Likewise, when I have a higher budget, I let them know that too.

My 2-cents for now (maybe more once that big stimulus package is implemented).

Good Luck,
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Steve,

Dunno about your all caps thing, works for HD 🙂

https://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/2008_Campaigns/ride_free/rideFreeNew.jsp?locale=en_US&source_cd=Email_011909_RideFreeEmail2

Cheers!
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

Hi Dan,

Your Website “treatment” took me way back 16 years ago when I first got into this biz. I started out as a salesman for a small post house. As a young, inexperienced salesman who had to get his own clients, I cold called every day, all day.

My cold calls resulted in 2 main groups of potential customers: 1) businesses that were currently doing video production, were completely happy with their vendors and had no interest in talking to me, and 2) businesses that didn’t do any video production (or had thought about it in the past) and had to be convinced/persuaded that their business needed video production.

The second group was very challenging. First, I had to sell them on doing video and then come up with a price that they could justify paying. Typically, they were businesses that were very hard to sell and many were “grinders” (search the COW on grinders for more information). Lots of work and a small percentage of profit/sales from this group.

When I visited your Website, I felt that you are targeting my group #2 and it is taking the place of a salesman (versus concentrating on showcasing your projects, talents, value added services, professional experience, etc.). I think that many “high dollar” businesses that are looking for video production services may be turned off by your approach.

Very nice graphics and easy to navigate.

Just my thoughts…

Good Luck,
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

Tim,

You’re right, unfortunately no matter what happens, the Producer is always at fault (and almost always catches the blame from the client).

Thus my “brand of disc” used with an “incompatible player” theory. Usually when this happens, the discs are simply not recognized by the stand alone player. (And it still does happen today because some hotels/rental companies will not update their DVD players until they die).
One way to know for sure is to make a copy of the “suspect DVD” onto a couple of entirely different brand of media.

Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC

[Bruce Bennett]

If you do this, I’d burn an identical program on a couple of other brands of media (Sony, Maxell, etc.). I’ve had issues with some older standalone players having problems playing certain brands of media.

Good Luck,
Bruce

Bruce Bennett
Bennett Marketing & Media Production, LLC