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Client Pushing his luck?

Thread title: Client Pushing his luck?
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10-27-2011, 12:25 PM
#1
CreativeDesigns is offline CreativeDesigns
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  Old  Client Pushing his luck?

I just received an email from a prospective client:

I’m wondering if you can assist me, we are looking at redoing our letterheads. I’ve attached our old horrible letter head as well as two examples of our new logo’s that we would like used. Can you perhaps put something together for us to have a look at.
The way I read and understand this email is they want us to create something for them to look at, then they will decide if they like it enough to pay for it.
Do you read this the same way?

I am honestly not sure how to approach this response without chasing the client away.

Any thoughts on this?

10-27-2011, 02:37 PM
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derek lapp is offline derek lapp
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Hellow *client_name, we would love to be involved with this and provide you with some concepts to look at. Before we get started, however, I would like to clarify something:

You're providing us with multiple logos. How many different design concepts (not variants) are you looking for? We generally have a package we work with and we'd be happy to put a quote/proposal together for you to outline the scope of the job (amount of concepts, amount of variants per concept, amount of revision rounds, cost. etc), otherwise we can adjust according to your preferences.

--

even if you don't have an actual 'package' you've done in the past, just put one together. for example, if he has 2 logos, you could offer something like 2 concepts (original design concepts) each with 2 variants (1 for each provided logo) and 2 rounds of revisions (equals initial design, plus 2 rounds, so 3 total). moving forward, you can offer a fixed rate if you're comfortable with your estimating ability, or because of the amount of deliverables you're more comfortable with an hourly cost strategy, and your rate is $*/hour.

you won't just be blindly accepting, and it lays the ground for the projects so he can't come back and get you to edit 800 times. if you get through both revision rounds, and he's still unhappy, tell him you have a revision extension, and just apply the same pricing strategy.

you want to bill them as separate jobs. don't tell him about the revision scenario up front, but make it clear what your providing and for what cost. my friend just got dragged through the mud because there was ambiguity in the correspondence between him and his client: they wanted 3 concepts with 3 variants for the different ways the name could be displayed. he read 3 concepts, so he provided a price based on working on 3 concepts - 3 working files through the rounds and providing 1 final in the end, where as they expected 9 files to be worked on throughout the rounds and 3 provided in the end - 1 concept with the 3 variants finalized - for the same cost.

they're coming to you to provide them with designs. it's not up to you whether they actually use them or not, so you need to be paid to for doing the work. you buy a movie ticket, you don't get a refund just because it's a bad movie, the cinema didn't make it. you'd only get it back if they were at fault for you not being able to see it in its entirety - projector broke, someone caused a scene and security got involved, etc.

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Artashes (10-27-2011), cpr (10-28-2011), CreativeDesigns (10-28-2011), SenseiSteve (10-27-2011), Village Genius (10-27-2011)
10-27-2011, 04:56 PM
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Derek hit the nail on the head, I couldn't agree more with what he said.

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10-27-2011, 06:47 PM
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Derek, that was one of the best replies I've read in some time. Couldn't agree more

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10-28-2011, 08:02 AM
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Agreed! Fabulous response Derek. Thank you so so much! I'm bookmarking this page should something like this ever come up again!

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12-03-2011, 09:13 AM
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  Old

Originally Posted by CreativeDesigns View Post
I just received an email from a prospective client:


The way I read and understand this email is they want us to create something for them to look at, then they will decide if they like it enough to pay for it.
Do you read this the same way?

I am honestly not sure how to approach this response without chasing the client away.

Any thoughts on this?
Well, I guess since you have some work done, you have to charge him for the hours you spent working on the letterhead. Whether they like the output or not.

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12-07-2011, 06:32 PM
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derek lapp is offline derek lapp
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^ he hasn't done any work yet - as of posting this. client has a bad letter head and a new logo - who knows who made it?

he called them a prospect, so it's doubtful they're a returning client - if he did the logo, the letterhead should just be tacked onto the bill. sounds like a classic case of, they paid a creative to design and execute the logo, and just want it stuck into a basic template and want to pay someone smaller to do the less creative work.

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