Ron Lindeboom
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COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Craig Seeman] “Alison, to extend what Ron says, it’s not only your rate for that client that will remain low. You mention networking with her community. Given it’s her community, it’s likely you will get plenty of recommendations at an equally unsustainable low rate after they talk to her.”
To expand on the phenomenon that Craig alludes to, we have leveraged this phenomenon to a competitive advantage over the years. If we know there’s a company in our area that tries to compete against us on price, we will refer a lot of jobs their way — not ones we’d want, but ones that are not worth dealing with. These grinder jobs will tie them up as they chase their tails, staying busy but never profitable. Sometimes, they give up and find something else to do with their time.
Ron Lindeboom
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What you are looking at doing would require not only millions of dollars, at least, in equipment and hardware — but also requires deals in place with local stations to act as your eyes and ears on the ground in those specific market areas. Getting them to give you their expertise and content requires some form of reciprocal value and a new station with no viewers in start-up mode is not likely to find much success in accomplishing this. These are just two of the concerns you would have.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
[Brendan Coots] “It sucks short term to lower prices, but virtually every business in the world feels the need to at some point or another just to keep their doors open. This is even more true if you’re a freelancing videographer – I get 5-10 emails a week from freelance videographers looking for work, because it’s such a competitive and crowded field. Besides, I sincerely doubt anyone is going to be passing around the word that said artist is a lowballer because she agreed to lower prices during the worst recession in modern times. Context is everything here.”
There is a law that I have seen over and over and it goes like this: Once you lower your price for a client, be prepared to have that price…forever. There is only one way to raise your price at that point and that is by using Zelin’s Law — get new clients. The old ones got your number and will keep you on peanut butter and saltine cracker sustenance forever.
I hate to disagree with Brendan but I am in a disagreeable sort today. ;o)
Was in court all day yesterday and I get like that when I am paying lawyers to fight with other lawyers — god, I hate ’em and their social preening and posing as they spend your money accomplishing little to nothing for months on end as they drive up their tab.
I got into the wrong industry…
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
Mark is suggesting the very kind of project that Kathlyn and I did to help us rebound and rebuild after I was very sick for a while and had lost pretty much everything following surgery and a protracted recovery period. Like you, we were very desperate but I knew that if we started low-balling we would become our own worst enemies. So we came up with a project for the local zoo and we built it under contract for the city, in return that we could keep whatever advertising monies we gained from the project. They would get the project, we would get the monies. The gamble was that if we couldn’t sell much advertising, we would still have to complete the project or make ourselves subject to fraud charges. We weren’t going to do that and so it gave us a real motivation to get the project done. We pitched the thing to all of the local businesses — showing a mock-up we had created on spec and supported by a letter from the City Manager endorsing the project — and we told the businesses how the project would benefit local schools and students who could use it to learn about all of the animals in the local zoo.
As Mark said, rather than give us a reputation as low-ball artists, it gave us a reputation of being creative and resourceful in our local market and we picked up work for the local TV stations, utility companies, etc., etc., because of the quality of the work.
You will not recover from a reputation as one who low-balls. Do NOT go there. Go flip burgers at McDonalds first. Do anything else except low-ball. Hold your value. Build your name and reputation. You are going to do that anyway but what you do in the near future is going to determine what that reputation is.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
From reading your other posts on this subject, Brad, I would recommend that you start exporting your file renders as sequential numbered image files, not as rendered movies. That way, you will isolate the very frame and occurrence that is causing at least some of your issues and will help debug what is going on.
A nice side benefit of doing this, is that often the things that were causing your problems will not show up when you render that way. Many After Effects and other users I know do this out of habit and always render sequential image files. That way, if it crahes 98% into a file, you do not lose all the work and only have to start at the last 2% and figure out what’s going on there.
That is the first thing I’d do and if not, buy something else. (Since you asked.)
Ron Lindeboom
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[David Roth Weiss] “Now, if Tim could just write a book explaining how to survive without income…”
Tim is good but I am not sure that he’s *that* good.
Boomer
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[David Roth Weiss] “As someone once suggested, right here on this very forum, I sent an email to Dr. big boss’s wife. It just so happens that, in my entire career, I have never agreed to do a wedding video, and only once have I ever agreed to do a bat mitzvah video. And, guess who the point person was on that one bat mitzvah video??? And, guess who howled with laughter at all the right times and cried buckets at all the right times? And guess who became my instant advocate yesterday? Needless to say, within 30-minutes of sending my email to Mrs. Dr. big boss, I was contacted by Dr. big boss himself. Bada boom, bada bing… Situation rectified…”
That “someone” was the COW’s inimitable Tim Wilson, and the aforesaid technique is from Chapter 7 of his “Full Contact Business Sport” handbook, coming soon to a bookshelf near you. The chapter is entitled: “Hitting Deadbeats Below the Belt — while allowing their wives to join in the fun.”
Trust me, the book won’t be cheap. But with advice that works like this, it won’t have to be…
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
[Tim Wilson] “I’ll second the suggestion that others have made: if the kind of work you want to do isn’t already on your reel, PUT it there.”
Over the years, there have been a number of occasions wherein Kathlyn and I have created prototypes of various projects we wanted to work on so that we could pitch them and gain contracts for doing these projects. (For the newbies around, these kinds of projects are called “spec” projects — short for doing them as speculative projects.)
As has been stated here, people ofttimes cannot see what you are talking about. Creating spec work and using “dummie” artwork that hints at a type of market without actually using trademarked products, etc., gives your prospect a “mental hinge” around which your pitch can swing and move.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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Thank you for chiming in, Kai. It is good to hear from others outside the USA who have to deal with these issues in their own country. Thank you for the well thought out response, it is appreciated.
Ron Lindeboom