Patrick Ortman
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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That’s really the trick, if you’re doing this. Gotta find/build an audience. Walter (and everyone else): I’d love to learn about what you are doing to address this with your marketing/social media/etc. Now, if you’re lucky enough to have a built-in audience, that’s cool (like, if your show was on TV for years, or if you have name talent, or a very specific niche that you’re plugged into). But a lot of us don’t have that.
P
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
Thanks for your thoughts, guys!
On the reason:
I think they were being honest with their reasoning. They’d never done a project like this before, so going with what appeared to be a bigger company made them feel good. And the liars’ website IS pretty convincing.I feel good about my decision to hang back and not point out their foolishness, definitely nobody likes to feel the fool. And things do change- there are always other projects.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
Just a data point, but a certain “not doing too well” state on the western side of the USA once didn’t pay us for 5 months, which almost made us go bankrupt. I was getting advances on credit cards, etc. A bad situation, and one I never want to repeat. And we had a PO#, we submitted invoices on time, to the right people, etc.
Sometimes a governmental entity can really mess you up. I know since then I’ve been really careful about how my shop works with them.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
The guy screwed up. Don’t hire him again. I used to say “and tell him what he did wrong”. However, I’ve recently gotten into a ton of b.s. trying to help a younger idiot by explaining what he did wrong.
It’s not an age thing, though. It’s an idiot thing.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
I had a small nonprofit client who asked me to help them out with a change to one of their projects, as they had no cash-flow for a couple months. I did it mostly out of the goodness of my heart. Found a package on the front doorstep to the building the next day. Brownies! Score!
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
🙂 cool!
Gotta echo Mark (once again). At one time I thought things like what he mentioned would never happen. Sadly, it does. I had an invoice held up over 3 months while some jackass accountant went through and did an internal vetting study to see if our price for certain line items were in line with “industry standards”. They were, but damn.
P
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
My own experience has been that often clients don’t understand things, and their accounting departments will hold things up indefinitely if you give TOO much detail. I, too, tend to break major things out, and usually have a “catchall” admin/expenses line item as well. But I always, always keep a much more detailed log for our internal use- good to know where one’s time is going, etc.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
Exactly. It’s not in any way greedy, unless you’re like some unscrupulous producers who bask at the pool at the Four Seasons. If I’m funding a campaign, I want to know the people doing it are 100% IN IT. That means we need to make sure they don’t have extraneous worries like dying of hunger.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com -
Generally we bill for travel separately, itemized-like, and the client reimburses. If a client insists that we build the travel costs into a bid, we do like said here, which is make it a truly reasonable price (most people underestimate the costs), pad it a little because shit happens, and if shit doesn’t happen, refund the difference to the client as a discount on the final invoice.
But almost always, either the client pays for our travel directly, or has a set policy on travel expenses.
I shoot people.
http://www.patrickortman.com