Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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Nick hit the best point – long lucid message followed by hyperspeed phone number.
When I am leaving messages, I try to know what I am going to say before calling.
Keep it brief. The last thing you want is to be in the middle of something important when you run out of recording time. Our system goes to maybe 2 minutes, but others are shorter.Just as important is to leave a good outgoing message on your own line, such as:
“Hi this is Mike Cohen. Please leave your name, reason for your call and your number.”
or
“Hi this is Mike Cohen. I will be out of the office from Jan 1 through Jan 8. Please leave a message and I will get back to you upon my return. If you require immediate assistance, press zero and speak with so and so.”
Of course, any important clients with pressing deadlines should know you are going away.
I give out my cell phone number on my outgoing message as it is a much more efficient way to reach me than leaving a voice mail. As it turns out, I get very little voice mail on my land line anymore.
Mike Cohen
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I think John’s original post is the best thanks of all. Suggesting a way to compensate others for their generous help is very gracious.
I’m in the red as far as my giving help to getting help ratio. If I had made $5 tips for all the help I have received on the COW over the years I’d be broke.
But luckily, the COW offers such great help to everyone that it helps keep us all solvent.
Mike Cohen
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Interesting reading.
Here are a few examples from the past week of e-mail use:
The Right Tech for the Job
1. An e-mail sent to a doctor in Hong Kong asking for his approval on a project. I’d have to call him at some odd hour and probably would not reach him anyway. I know it will be a few days before getting a response.
2. A status update sent to a group working on a large multi-year project. The players are in CT, MA, Canada, Los Angeles and New Zealand (no, I’m not working on The Hobbit, rather the surgical equivalent of Return of the King). Could not do this by phone without a day’s notice.
3. Confirmed appointments for next week having made them during phone calls.
4. outlook calendar meetings sent or received by Blackberry – straight into the calendar app – that’s good use of tech
Maybe, Maybe Not the right Comm Tool
1. A series of jokes, silly animal photos and lewd anecdotes, sent by my dad, and copied to everyone he knows. I love my dad, but would much rather talk on the phone. Lately we’ve been doing Skype video chat on Friday afternoons when he and my mom are both home. Since I see them in person only a few times a year, that is pretty cool. Skype for business is also a possibility, especially for clients in other countries. We actually had someone do a PPT presentation from India at a conference a while back.
2. Back and forth chain of emails about a number of tasks on a long duration project. These are ok, but the subject line is pretty much the same, so one needs to do a search to find information later. I use Google Desktop which indexes everything on my computer, and is much easier and faster for searching than anything Windows offers. Alas, I make sure to pick up the phone at least once a week and talk about the various tasks on the agenda for long duration projects.
3. Follow-up with a new client about a pending shoot date. While the person did answer my e-mail, having not heard from him for a week, I quickly placed a call just to make sure things were ok on his end. Turns out he was on vacation for a few days, but hadn’t told me. Heck, he is not obligated to tell me when he is taking vacation.
In summary, as others on this thread have repeated, there is a right time and a wrong time to use e-mail. You can, of course use e-mail for any purpose you want, but the recipients may not agree with your motivation or with your sense of urgency.
I’ve been using one form or another of e-mail since about 1987. It has never been a total replacement for the phone, and as much as computers have evolved, the phone has stayed largely the same as far as its function in society.
Mike Cohen
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David, I experience the “sent an e-mail, no response for days at a time” syndrome frequently.
However, as with a co-worker or friend who seems to be in a bad mood or is also non-communicative, I always have to remind myself of the following possibilities:
1. Your client has other stuff going on at work, like planning for a big sales meeting.
2. Your client may have stuff going on outside work, like a sick child, spouse or other emergency. The last thing they are going to do is e-mail you.
3. The client is, in reality, extremely busy. You know the guy who, while talking face to face with you, is checking his Blackberry every 15 seconds because he’s drowning in e-mail, and much of it is time sensitive. Your email, alas, is less time sensitive.
4. The client got the message, but accidentally deleted it, and moved on to something else, forgetting about your project for a few days until you e-mail him again.
5. The client got your message, viewed the video or whatever, but then got distracted by his kid spilling paint on the cocker spaniel, and had to put the iPhone down for the evening.
6. The client got the e-mail, viewed the video or whatever, made some notes, but wanted to show it to some colleagues before getting back to you. One would think the client could shoot you and e-mail saying as much, but the guy has a lot of stuff going on so it is not as urgent to him as it is to you.
7. The client asked for the video or whatever by a certain day/time, such as before a trip or vacation. One would think this would mean that he would look at the video and then get back to you before the big trip. Not likely. You held up your end of the bargain, but that was not contingent upon getting feedback in teh same manner.
Alas, clients are busy people. That’s why they have hired you to execute their dreams better and easier that they could accomplish. But they have a lot on their plates. Is it frustrating? It can be.
By the same token, build some breathing room into your projects and workflow. If I don’t hear from a client for a few days, I cannot assume that something is wrong. Something is actually good, because I can use that time to work on some other tasks.
If feeling anxious, you could:
1. Send a follow up email saying, simply, “Dave, please confirm receipt of my last e-mail re: 4th video edit.”
2. E-mail or call the admin and ask “Can you check if Dave received my e-mail about the video? It’s no rush but I want to make sure my message went through.”
E-mail is a useful tool, but it is a tool.
If there is a string of back and forth questions, sometimes it is easier to pick up the phone. Set a timer if you are worried about it getting out of hand. Ask the client “do you have a few minutes?” If not, either setup a time, or send an e-mail that they are on the lookout for.
Feel better?
Mike Cohen
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Grinner
Having seen the Deadliest Catch behind the scenes episode, all I can say is learn to cook some good food. Take care of the crew, they’ll make sure you don’t fall in an open hatch on deck. Sounds exciting.
Mike Cohen
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Since a lot of folks read this forum who are, perhaps, just starting out in business, often for themselves as sole proprietor, I think this point is one to focus on again.
Remember that you need to earn a living, not just get by. X dollars for a quick project may seem like a good idea, but make sure you are actually getting something out of it, not just breaking even. If you do a lot of work like this, you may do ok at the end of the year, but break even sometimes or lose money other times. If this works out for you, and you hopefully are looking at the future on a regular basis, you might be ok. But if you make a habit out of losing your shirt, you are going to be walking around without a shirt a lot.
For every unit of money you earn, divide by 3.
.33 goes towards your bank account (profit)
.33 goes to your cost of doing business, which for a one-man or one-woman shop is basically your salary
.33 goes to overhead, which is rent, utilities, phone, website, blank tapes etc.If you are in business for yourself, you should be tracking all your expenses in Excel, Quickbooks or whatever, so you know what your salary, your Overhead are and your profit is whatever is left over. So it may not be .33/.33/.33, but whatever proportions you follow, make sure these are accounted for in how you charge.
My dad always used to say, “Pay yourself first.” Actually he still says that.
Mike
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in addition to my above post – you may quote differently for different line items:
Editing – 1st edit through final $1000
(up to 40 hours)
orEditing
1st edit – 10 hours @ $25/hr = $250
2nd edit – 10 hours @ $25/hr = $250
Final Edit – 20 hours @ $25/hr = $500If you do option 1, just one price for editing, make sure it is a number you can live with if things go to 10 edit versions.
You may, or may not, want to include a clause saying “editing time beyond X hours will be billed at $25/hr in the final invoice”
A client may want this clause modified to add “Vendor certifies that total cost will not exceed X% of the total estimated charges.”
Know your client, know thyself. Find a way to keep both parties satisfied both with the work and with the cost, and avoid emergencies, by anticipating emergencies, so that they are non-mergencies.
Mike
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1. Know how much you need to earn to fill your three buckets: overhead, costs of goods and profit.
2. Know your client. Some clients want a project price and the end product, others want a detailed hour by hour summary of what you will do and then a report at the end of what you actually did, and either a pro-rated final invoice or a refund.
This can also apply to how you write your itemized list of deliverables, and is impacted by how you run your business. For example, do you write:
Video shoot, 2 cameras, 2 guys, lighting, audio: $1500
or
Video Shoot, 2 cameras: $500
2 camera operators: $500
Lighting: $100
Audio: $50
Tapes: $50
Consumables: $100etc
If you are a day-to-day work for hire outfit, like a owner-operator of a production kit, then you may use the 2nd option.
If you charge by the project, you probably use option 1, and your client could probably give a hoot about what the video shoot charge contains on an itemized basis. But they might. Know your client.3. Knowing what you know about every type of project, either from past experience or from your gut, build in enough hours to cover the work. Anticipate the unanticipated extra work. There is almost always unanticipated work. As described in many past threads, corporate clients are flying by the seat of their pants, and may not consider last minute changes to be a big deal. Build this contingency into your price, so it is not a big deal for you either.
4. Charge a project management fee. This covers your time doing things that are not editing, shooting or rendering. For example, scheduling, travel time (not travel costs, those are billed at cost), quality control, burning discs or backing up files. This can also cover you for overages. Take a fair percentage of the total estimated charges and add that to the final total.
In summary – don’t be surprised if there are surprises. What sounds simple to you, and simple to them, may turn out to be slightly less than simple: aka “simple-plus.” Assume that simple will be simple-plus, so when it happens it is not a shock, and you can focus on the job.
Of course following these suggestions may reduce the traffic on this forum!
Mike Cohen
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While not an award, for the 5th time this year a long lost relative in London has died leaving me his fortune. My previously unknown London family is dwindling.
Oh, and I was able to help a friend get back home after his wallet was stolen, oddly enough, in London. All I had to do was give him my bank account number.
There is so much generosity in the world.
Congrats to you all.
Mike
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If you recall last year a company called U Tube was suddenly getting a lot of traffic. Apparently this metal tube company sold their domain because the site is now garbage.
I am not sure exactly what information you are looking for. Your original post combines questions about the need to incorporate with being worried about trademark infringement. Thus, do you mean that you have a business name/website name that is similar to an existing company? Caution. Having an LLC does not prevent someone from taking legal action if you have infringed upon their IP.
Oddly, there is a film festival in France called Cinemed, but not really competition to us. The name is a coincidence, since the “med” in Cine-Med refers to medicine, not the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, we dig French cinema.
Mike Cohen