Mike Cohen
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COW Coin
Forum Replies Created
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As the others have suggested, what your client is really saying is:
“Can you tell me how to avoid paying you, and still save me even more money.”
This makes me think of a project we did a long time ago for a local newspaper. We interviewed their editorial people and some others in the organization, typical interview style, 3 point lighting.
They wanted to interview the editor in chief themselves and send us the video. We told them to have the interviewee look at the interviewer off camera. They had seen the other footage. What we got was a full profile of the guy, you could just barely see his left eye, he nearly had his back to the camera.Extreme example, I know.
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we have a phone based machine, like they have in many retail stores. You will need a regular phone hookup.
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It is certainly a buyer’s market for services. My clients are shopping around, and I too am shopping around for my own vendors. For example, I have been getting bids on live webcasting. Rather than my customary 2 quotes, I got 5 and in fact the 5th one was the best deal.
So be prepared as a vendor to be subject to price comparisons. Call attention to your value added services, or what sets you apart from the competition.
Study search engine optimization to make sure your websites are easy to find.
In tough times it does not hurt to diversify also.
It could be a tough year for a lot of folks.Mike
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The Non-Designer’s Design Book by Robin Williams.
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If your computer is doing something for a client, and you cannot use it to do work for another client, someone has to pay for this time.
We charge a fixed hourly rate for editing times the hours worked, plus a project management fee, which serves as a catch-all for unbillable time.Mike
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Thanks Dave – I can be very diplomatic.
Aggressive negotiations works too.Mike
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Better to shoot with two cameras, one wide, one medium, then you can cut your edits without an effect. Or shoot HD but edit SD, so you can zoom at the cut point without degradation. Inside Edition, the toilet of “news” changes the meaning of interview subjects with cuts and DVE zooms, which looks terrible, but this is a tabloid show, so they are not worried about aesthetics.
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This thread is diverging into two topics –
Helping to cool down David – David, take the rest of the day off.
Unusual contracts – I guess this does not mean such clauses as “only yellow M+Ms” and “50 lbs of shrimp cocktail at every shoot”. I have had a few proposals copied, pasted and modified and made part of a longer contract provided by the client. The larger the client, the more stipulations, rules and CYA provisions. The advantage is I can make my proposals in the future fit into their practices better.
Mike Cohen
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nice Bob. 🙂
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Your time is valuable – not just because of the fine quality work that you do, but because in the course of a normal week without any rush jobs, you can work on multiple projects and bill multiple clients.
A rush job entails stopping planned work on other clients’ projects, thus potentially putting other projects behind, or causing you to work extra hours to compensate. Thus, a rush job absolutely deserves a higher rate or “rush” fee to cover your overhead.For any urgent matter, get a piece of paper. Make four boxes:
Urgent Non-Urgent
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Important | | |
| | |
|_________|_____________|
| | |
Non-Important| | |
| | |
|_________|_____________|Decide where to put the “urgent” matter and this will determine how much effort you need to put into it.