Chris Blair
Forum Replies Created
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I have to disagree with the notion of lumping all RFPs into one basket and judging them a waste of time. I have a friend that runs a business for the storage of arms and ammo. His clients are government and law enforement agencies. They started as a family machine shop that made one small portable armory for the military in 1969 and today they’re a $50 million a year company and growing by 20% annually.
Their military and law enforcement clients make them bid on projects using RFPs. They’re typically the high bidder on every project. They’re also the leader in manufacturing and delivery of these niche devices, so much so their called by this company’s name (like Kleenex or Xerox).
My buddy (President of this company) said their cliets NEVER take the low-bid on jobs, mainly because they figure those folks have underbid it.
So I agree with those who advise that you estimate what it takes for you to do the job (and make a nice profit), and do the estimate right or don’t do it all. Why spend 10 minutes on something and assure that you won’t get it, when you could spend a couple hours and give yourself a chance at possibly a lucrative project.
If marketing, advertising and production are your primary business, you cannot treat RFPs this way or you will certainly miss out on some potentially lucrative work.
This same company that makes the military storage units, by virtue of how they have to bid on projects, also asks their vendors to bid this way. They recently did just that on a project we bid for doing a re-branding of their company.
They got at least 4 other bids. Ours was the 2nd most expensive, and the two high bids were almost double the next tier of bids. They too would not give anyone budgets and told everyone the budget would be revealed when the project was awarded. We lost the project (even though the president of the company was the best man at my wedding), and it went to the high bidder. Their budget was in reality non-existent. They were willing to pay up to a certain amount (way over what anyone bid) to do the work.
So while certainly some companies are looking for the lowest price, many are not. They’re looking for the bid that makes the most sense and won’t end up in a “do-over” down the line.
Assuming all RFPs are a waste is like shooing away the lady that calls you to do a photo montage for her anniversay party because it’s a “waste of time,” then finding out she’s the wife of the CEO of your city’s biggest company. You never know what’s at the end of ANY request for information or any estimate and in my book, all those people are deserving of a fair shake.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I’ll add that once you nail down the different things you have to shoot, base your estimate on either a half-day or full-day of shooting for each shoot day. On the parts of the project where it says there will be just one thing shot, quote a half-day, on the ones where there are multiple things shot, quote a full-day.
Chances are you won’t be able to shoot or bill for much else on those days anyway, so you deserve to be paid for reserving those half-days or full-days for this project.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Bill Davis: Well, before we get too wrapped up in how much MORE we all “get it” than our stupid clients – while it’s easy to manipulate them to get them to do what we want them to do – that too is all about us feeding our own egos in the end.
I don’t think anybody said or even implied any of their clients were stupid. In fact, I think many of the clients that are reluctant to collaborate are some of the smartest. And I don’t try to manipulate clients. I try to help them tell their story in a better way based on 25 years experience as a writer, producer and director.
And as hard as it might be to believe, for me at least, it’s NOT about feeding my ego. I want our clients to be successful. I want their video or TV commercial or marketing brochure to engage it’s audience and persuade them to contact the company. I get satisfaction from helping people, not from getting credit or awards or write ups in trade journals.
Just one example of many. We worked with an agency a few years ago on a campaign. They did collaborate with us, even including us in their concepting meetings. During the course of this, I came across an idea that was inspired by a blog from employees that worked in the industry we were promoting. I wrote up a short proposal and even wrote a :30 spot (I spent many years as a writer/producer). The agency pitched that idea (along with 2 of theirs) to the client. The client loved my idea, especially the copy. The ad was produced almost exactly as pitched. The campaign was so successful a series of TV ads, billboards, newspaper ads, trade journal ads were spawned from it. It won Addys. The agency took all the credit. Never once was I given credit for the creative portion of this idea. But you know what, it really didn’t bother me because the whole point of what we do is to help clients market their products and this campaign did that.
The agency knew who’s idea it was and they continue to use us and continue to ask us to contribute to their planning and concepting sessions. The spend a ton of money with us. So wanting our clients to collaborate with us is not about massaging my (or anyone else’s) ego in our company.
We listen to our clients and always remember that they know their industry and know what works in it. But we also try to get them to realize we know OUR industry and what works in it. Marry the two and you can create successful marketing.
I’d like to believe there are many other company’s out there who feel the same way.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
Nick Griffin: Chris, it’s not about YOU, it’s about THEM
Nick…No offense, but I’ve been doing this for 25 years, 14 of it as an owner. I think I realize it’s about the client and not me. I constantly preach on this and other forums that our job is to solve clients problems. But that’s my point with the original post. If a client can save a day’s worth of their time and energy by letting a vendor create something that’s top quality, why wouldn’t they do it?
Don’t get me wrong, we have MANY clients that do just that. There are a handful that almost never come in for edit sessions, instead preferring to have us send them rough cuts at various points via email. Most of these clients make very few changes and they’re great to work with. A couple of these clients are so trusting they don’t even come to shoots.
Again..I’m not bitching or complaining. Like Ron pointed out, their checks all cash. We’re glad to do whatever a client asks of us. But we also feel like clients come to us (especially long-term clients) for our expertise.
So what I have a hard time understanding is the ones that guard their ideas like they’re gold and their unwillingness to get a marketing/production company involved during the idea stage. I just think doing that leads to better end projects.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
I love Grin’s theory. I wasn’t bitching in the original post, and I certainly realize they’re paying for it and we always do whatever the client wants. In fact, we have a long-standing internal code phrase in our facility: “we can do that…we don’t even need a reason!” It’s from a famous scene with Bill Murray in Caddyshack where the groundskeeper asks him in his heavy scottish accent to “kill all the gophers on the golf course” and Murray thinks he says “kill all the golfers.”
I was just basically curious if others with long-standing clients find that they don’t really work with you on projects.
I just believe that in a corporate environment where marketing people are now being asked to do what 4 people were doing 5 years ago they’d come to see that allowing someone else more qualified to create something for them is a huge benefit. And don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind making changes. In fact, we LOVE changes because it usually means more billing. It’s the unwillingness to partner on projects and get us involved early on in the process that I’ve never understood. For me it’s like not getting a builder involved in a large construction project until literally a week or two before you break ground. Or planning a new house and not getting an architect involved until you run into problems.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
As I posted in another thread. I’ve tried wordpress and I don’t find it to exactly be “easy.” I build webpages too so after reading about wordpress I figured I’d be able to just jump right in. But it does require quite a bit of work and learning to set it up. It’s not as “automatic” as everyone makes it sound. I spent an entire day working through their online tutorials (which are very good by the way), but I still didn’t have things looking and working the way I wanted and I was still confused about many things.
Not to mention if you aren’t familiar with database software (as others have mentioned you can implement), then those functions also add to the learning curve. Yes it’s not as hard as learning a web design program, but just read the “about” page on the wordpress site and most people will leave scratching their heads at some of the jargon and terminology. Things like XML-RPC interface, Trackback, Pingback, Ping-O-Matic, open proxy checker etc.
The easiest places to build blogs are the ones you build directly from templates on web-based services. My wife has a couple that are very nice looking and she has zero web experience and isn’t all that proficient at computers in general. If I sat her down at wordpress and told her “build that same blog” from this, after 20 minutes she’d shoot me.
So I think you have to go into using wordpress just like you’d go into building a web page. With a plan and with many, many assets (like images and navigational plans) already in place.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
While wordpress is free and has millions of users, I’ve tried to learn it and found it’s NOT as easy as everyone makes it out to be. And I work on mutliple NLE platforms, as well as in Digital Fusion, After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, FrontPage 2003 and a few other media based software apps. I actually found it confusing. So prepare to spend a few days learning it before you can actually use it.
It’s certainly easier than Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Expression Studio and a variety of other web design tools, but it still takes a substantial investment in time and a basic understanding of website basics to learn it. True there are lots of great templates and many people use it for websites, but it’s really not designed for a full-featured website. Just try implementing flash video on it. You’ll need a bevy of plug-ins and some substantial coding knowledge to get it to work.
I also agree with using template driven tools from the web to start with. There are literally thousands of affordable resources like the ones mentioned in the thread. As the one poster noted, why reinvent the wheel and start from scratch when you can start with the basic structure of a site and customize it to fit your needs.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
If you’re on Windows, TMPGEnc 2.5 is a freeware MPG encoding tool that has a muxer app built in that’s also very good. It can demux, mux, join, and split files and works really great.
https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/download/tpfree.html
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
We bill almost exactly like Todd does…although we will charge more if it’s a shoot using higher-end equipment…say HD versus SD, or with specilized support equipment like jib arm, large grip package etc. But we do have a category for concepting, writing, location scouting, storyboarding etc. that’s less than both shooting and editing.
We also have different rates for compressing/encoding video since it’s a little less time intensive than editing or graphics or compositing etc., but it’s still tying up a workstation for a couple hours or even a day at a time on a big job.
We also break down all our estimates and bills and show clients exactly what they’re getting. We’ve actually done some informal survey’s via email on this and the number one complaint from clients was flat-rate estimates and bills that don’t itemize or break down what they’re getting. The people who responded said they want to know exactly what they’re getting on a job (hours shooting, editing, graphics, equipment charges etc.) so there’s no quibbling about it down the road. They also said they’d been burned by flat-rate quotes where vendors would charge more than the flat rate and claim, “well that wasn’t included in the flat-fee I quoted.”
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
There are lots of great people and resources on here and online. But one thing I’d suggest is to know what you want going in. No offense to any web designers on these forums, but we’ve had multiple experiences with web design companies that range from less than satisfying to downright frustrating.
Like video production, ask for samples of projects in your budget range. Every company puts their best stuff on their sample reel or website, but I’ve always found it’s more telling to look at a company’s low budget stuff. How does it look? Is it still nicely done? It’s easy to turn out great work with large budgets. Not so with modest ones.
So some guidelines:
1. Go in with a siteplan, which is basically a flow chart of every page and their links. Word has a little tool you can use to build one (can’t remember what it’s called).
2. Make sure your designer understands function and communication over (pardon the pun), flash. Naturally I’m not talking about Adobe Flash here.
3. Test, test and test some more before putting the site up live. Send test links to friends and colleagues and listen to their feedback about navigation, style, the writing, layout etc.
4. Focus as much on answering potential clients questions and promoting what can solve THEIR problems as much as just telling people about what you do.
5. Load it with samples. The more samples you have up, the better chance of getting someone’s interest. People want to hire people who’ve done something similar to what they’re looking for.
6. Ask about including a CMS (Content Management System). There are back-end versions (where you log into an admin page and change content in what appears to be a word document or within forms), and there are so called front-end versions, which show you the website with clickable areas where you can change text, graphics and photos. SimpleCMS is a great freebie one but it requires that the page is coded perfectly to work.
Here’s a good primer to read as well:
https://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/plan-usable-website.shtml
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com