The Other Side of Writing: The Bidness
Bear with me, because this may not be as fun as my usual posts…but that only makes it all the more important. In addition to my day job and my writing career, I also do freelance graphic design work through workingmandesign.com.
Recently I ran into a situation where I quoted a client $x.00 for a specified amount of work. The price was ridiculously low because the client was offering a good size amount of work and I needed the money. However, as the job went on, he began to become more and more demanding in what he wanted. First his requests crept up in increments, but as we neared the end of the job, the amount of work he was asking for more than doubled.
Graphic Design is priced according to time. Time = Money. If a client starts asking for more work than was agreed upon, then it’s unfair to expect the designer to stick to their original price based on the estimation of time the work will take. Again, Time = Money. I don’t mind throwing in some freebies here and there, but when you start taking up twice as much time than you’re paying for, then something has to be done.
Would you expect a Psychiatrist to give you a two-hour session for a one-hour price? Or, would you ask your mechanic to change your oil for no extra charge when you only paid him to rotate your tires? No, because that would seem absurd. Dealing with graphic designers, or other freelancers shouldn’t be any different.
In this case, the whole thing boiled down to variations. We agreed on 3 to 4 variations per design. After the first four were completed, the number of variations crept up to 5 to 6, and by the time we got to the last two, he was asking for 8 to 9 different variations. My initial reaction was to tell him that he was going to have to limit himself to 5 variations or I was going to charge him extra.
Just on a whim, I decided to run the idea by my partner before I fired off the email. Thank God I did! He said to me (okay, I admit I’m paraphrasing here.):
“That’s the wrong way to put it. You should never tell a client that you’re not willing to do the work. You should explain to him about the time involved in doing the extra work and explain why it’s not reasonable for him to ask for twice as much work for the same amount of money. If you explain to him what’s involved and tell him you’re happy to do the extra work, but you have to charge more, he’ll most likely pay you for the extra work.”
So, I fired off a very nice and detailed email about the situation and explained step-by-step what was involved in accommodating his extra requests. I also very diplomatically pointed out that I had no problem doing one or two extra without any additional charge, but that the hours I was putting into the job were getting to be far more than he was paying for.
Lo and behold…the client was quite reasonable and saw my point! He apologized for not understanding that what he was asking for was taking up so much more time and paid me extra. We also agreed that for future jobs he would pay extra for more variations than we originally agree upon. So, the deal ended happily and with the promise of more work to come from a satisfied client.
In other words, I didn’t cut my nose off to spite my face. By stepping back and thinking before firing off a snippy email, I managed to earn extra money, establish a far better relationship with my client, and strengthen the promise of more work from this client instead of pissing him off and sending him looking for another designer who would meet his needs.
The lesson in this for writers (comic book or otherwise) is: THINK BEFORE YOU TYPE. If you’re working with a collaborator, try to see their point of view before you call them a raving idiot. If you’re doing freelance work, try to educate your client instead of making them feel stupid.
And, no matter who you’re dealing with, every relationship you have with someone else in your business is a connection. The more and stronger connections you have, the more work you’ll receive. If you want to build your reputation and your business, whatever it is, try to put your temper on the back burner and consider the best approach before you ruin what could be a very good working relationship.
