What Price Pro for Hire?
What value does a professional video producer place on their work? What happens when you contract video work for hire and the client doesn’t honor the work? What price pro for hire?
A couple years ago, I received a phone call from a woman in tears. She’s a good client of a friend of mine and the caller was going through some deep personal drama. Her mother had just days to live, and she was looking for someone to make a memorial video for the funeral. Knowing I offer this service, my friend, Cathy, suggested she give me a call. I offered my condolences, gently tried to explain to her that time was of essence, and she’d need to get photos to me as soon as possible and I’d make a nice piece for her. “Thank you,” she said, “my mother was a wonderful woman and deserves the best”. I then quoted her a price of $300 and she hesitated… and said she’d get back to me.
A week later, another associate told me she had contacted him, stating I was asking too much money, and she offered him $100 to do it and he turned her down. She then went to the person who manages her website, and he agreed to do it for $150.
Two days later, this woman’s mother did pass away, and with the funeral in 3 days, she called me back in tears again. She received her DVD and was shocked at how horrible it was. The fellow scanned about 40 photos, scanning the smaller ones together 4 at a time. He then made a slide-show of the scanned images. He didn’t resize any of the photos, frame them or make them “pretty”… he didn’t even separate those that he scanned together. Most of the photos had the paper edges showing, some were partially off the screen, others were slightly crooked, and a couple were even sideways. As for the ones that were scanned 4 together the “slide page” that these appeared on was even worse than the full-sized images. The smaller older pictures were so tiny you couldn’t make out the subject.
Taking pity on her predicament, and realizing she was a good client of Cathy’s, I told her I’d clean them up and add some music… for $200. She was terribly upset, said she’d already invested $150 and all this time, and the images were already scanned… etc. I tried to gently explain that I now had no time to finesse, and I still had to copy her chosen music, and as much as I felt badly for her, if she’d come to me in the first place… etc. She was terribly upset and I just couldn’t walk away from it, so I agreed to do it for $100, as a favor to Cathy, and be done with it.
2 days later, after 2 full all-nighters, I gave her a nice 20-minute piece that had a wonderful ebb and flow through this dear lady’s life with meaningful music. As I showed it to the family, they were all in tears by the video’s end. I received a $50 “tip”, for my effort.
So she ended up paying $300 after all, but I, the “artist”, who gave up 2 nights of sleep, had less time to work my magic, while the web-guy spent about an hour for his $150. (BTW: Cathy tells me this woman is very well-off, pays her well, and showed up at our meeting dripping in diamonds.)
A few months ago, a similar thing happened, when a local charity group wanted to make a promotional video for a fund-raising event they had coming up and called on me to help them. I quoted them $500 minimum, or $50 an hour to shoot and edit it. They said they’d get back to me.
I got a call from them two days ago. They decided to do it themselves, I was told, so they bought a small HD camera a cheap mic, and an expensive pro-level editing software program. One of their members was trying to learn how to edit but couldn’t get past how to capture the footage correctly. I made a courtesy visit and looked over their footage which was poorly shot and had unusable sound. Now they were desperate, their program deadline is looming and could I please, out of the goodness of my heart, edit it and “fix” it. For what they paid for that camera, mic and software, they could have hired a pro in the first place.
I wonder sometimes, why people are so willing to pay an attorney $100 an hour, or and accountant $75 an hour, without really knowing the amount of time these skilled professionals really put into their cases, but the clients will swallow and pay anyway. However, these same people seem to think that anyone can buy an affordable camera nowadays, and shoot a quality piece themselves with no training, skills, vision or ideas. Amazing.
I wonder how other video producers would have handled these situations?
April 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
This is why you should NEVER work with friends when it comes to video… favors turn into pay delays, and then turn into NO pay! So from now on, no more FRIENDS!!! Thank me for that advice readers! haha
April 10th, 2009 at 10:38 am
I would be insulted if someone said, “You’re charging too much. I can do it myself.” There is NO WAY IN HELL I would cut them a break if they came back asking me to fix their CRAP. No way. I cannot believe you pulled two all-nighters for this lady. She claims here mom was a wonderful lady who deserves the best? Then pay for the best! If they walk away, they better deal with the consequences.
Video is a powerful tool that requires skill if it’s to be effective. People need to respect it.
April 10th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I simply tell them how many hours the job will take me and divide the amount of money they want to pay me and ask them, would they work for that much an hour.
I’m always asked to do football highlight films for about $300. They want me to take 16 games on “tape” and produce a highlight DVD. This is about 80 hours minumum of work that they want to pay me $3.75 an hour to do.
After I finish laughing, I politely tell them no thanks.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:41 am
I used to be offended an now I have no compunction about telling people to get lost. I, like you, have developed and paid for skills with blood, sweat, tears, time and cash and are a professional. Tough luck if a multi-national electronics company sold them the idea that all you need to be a skilled videographer is a fancy amateur camera.
Stand firm, and eventually people will start to respect filmmakers for the skills they have, rather than abuse them.
April 14th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I agree with all of you, if you break down the hours it took to makes something like this, you’re looking at less than minimum wage. I felt responsible to do the woman’s video because of my friend, who profusely apologized for setting me up like that. She said she thought it would help me “break in the business and open doors..” and mentioned something about earning my dues.. when, of course, I paid my dues 30+ years ago when I first started working in TV.
I’m certainly done doing favors, though. This equipment isn’t cheap… it has to get paid for somehow!
I remember a conversation I had recently with someone who does funeral videos and he lost one of his best clients, as the funeral director said he anyone can buy a good camera nowadays and do it himself. I wrote to my associate that his reply should have been, “yeah, and anyone can buy a shovel and dig a hole too, so why pay all that money to a burial company?” We all have our special skills and abilities, we should be paid accordingly.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Wow, what a problem. Guess you have to decide if you’re going to produce videos as a business or as a ministry. That will help you decide how to price your projects. If I want to support or help, my price goes way down. I count it as a gift. You’d be surprised at how much “real” work shows up on the tail-end of the “gift”. (made about 32K last year as a side business)
Having said that, a workman is worthy of his (or her) hire. Always present yourself as a professional first. Make sure your image is top-notch, not Johnny-come-lately. Do you have professionally produced brochures, price lists or business cards? If not, it’s hard for someone to see you as a professional. Respect is earned.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:37 am
I faced exactly the same issues for 10 years before I hit the recession early in 2007 and had to pack it up. I tried everything, including posting a sample comparison of video as an amateur would have shot it, and as I would have shot it, on my website. That probably just pissed people off, so I removed it. I tried getting tough, charging what I was worth, and letting people go ahead and use someone cheap and get disillusioned and then come back to me for the next job. Problem is, there is an unending supply of new people who will do it badly and cheap. I also learned that if you undercharge, people will peg you as the person who does it cheap, so that when they have a big job with a big budget, they won’t come to you. They’ll go to the guy with a big office who charges a lot and therefore looks more professional to them. There are two answers to this problem that I can see. First, have so much capital that you don’t actually need to be in business at all. Or, secondly, be part of a specialized group or community. This second tip is the real answer as near as I can see. It could be a religious group, an ethnic group, a political group–whatever it is, be the go-to guy for that group. Then, your competition is effectively cut to a fraction of what it would normally be. Then–and I don’t necessarily recommend this–what I’ve been doing within the group is letting people pay whatever they feel they should be paying, and whatever they can afford. Literally. People without money wouldn’t have paid you anyway. But people with money, for the most part, will pay more. What happens is that you create good will within the group, you get a reputation, and gradually, gradually, it starts building. It might take a couple of years. These are the only two solutions I’ve seen, and “Solution A” is out of reach for me (don’t ever try to build a business on credit cards…). Of course you have to do impeccable work–you have to consistently do better than expectations, and get that “wow” response regularly. If you do that in open competition without sufficient capital in a large city, you will still starve. But if you do that within a defined group where you are the go-to person, it will build. That’s my thoughts on it, anyway…
Steve S.
http://www.goldthread.com
April 15th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I feel your pain. I think most of us at some time or another have done that favor for a friend or family member, and I think most of us have learned our lesson the hard way.
A few years back, one of my wife’s cousin’s was getting married, and they really wanted us to do the wedding. I’ve never liked the idea of mixing family and business, so I offered to do the wedding, and I gave them my standard rate, plus a few freebies. A couple days later, I get an absolutely scathing email from a family member, saying how can I call myself family, and giving them such a “ridiculous” quote. After the whole “the family’s going to disown you” schtick, I caved (my first mistake) and I went back to the cousins. I told them that I could give them the same service, but because they’re family, I’d do it for what was about 70% off. I also at that same time, told them (and amended the contract to explain) that because the price was so ridiculously low, their project would have to take a back burner to all the other projects I was working on, and that meant I wouldn’t have their video done by their return from the honeymoon, as I usually do for other clients. I made it very clear that I would be wrapping up all my other projects ahead of theirs, and it could be several months to get the final product. They agreed, and were more than happy to take my offer for less than it would cost them to even rent the amount of gear I own.
Of course, this is where life gets interesting. Because they’re family, I now am getting calls on my personal phone from the aunt about her daughter’s wedding, and all the things they NEED that they won’t pay for. They wanted me to bring a projector and screen to the reception, to play a montage DVD that I didn’t even put together. Normally I would state that if I didn’t make the video, I don’t provide the equipment to play it, but again, I caved, and added another hundred pounds of gear to my van free of charge.
Of course, as fate would have it, my projector bulb went out on me a few days before the wedding, so I had to rent a projector, as I couldn’t get a bulb in time. The rental was a good chunk of what I had charged them. To compound matters, my wife (who’s one of my camera operators) was obliged to attend the wedding as a guest, so I had to hire someone. There went the rest of my profit (and then some).
Day of the wedding, everything seems to go swell, up to the reception. I’ve got the projector set up and ready to go, I pop a test DVD into the DVD player, and it works fine. Well, about 10 minutes before their video is supposed to start, they bring me the “DVD”, which is 1) a data disc with a wmv file, not a DVD, and 2) on a DVD+R disc. These two facts makes the disc utterly useless on my DVD player. I live about 10 minutes from the reception, so I run to the car, and dart home to get my laptop. About 3/4 of the way back from getting the laptop, I get a call that the groom had his laptop, and they’re setting it up, but don’t know how to connect the audio. I come in the door, walk past the fuming aunt, apparently angry that I wasn’t psychically able to see that when they told me several times that it was going to be on a DVD that they meant it was going to be on a DVD that no DVD player on earth can read, and I got the video going. Event saved, right?
A month and change after the event, as I told them upfront, I was wrapping up a bunch of lose end projects, and getting started on theirs. I open up my email one day to find another scathing letter, this time from the sister of the bride. She spends a few dozen paragraphs belittling me for taking so long to complete the video, and a few more paragraphs saying how my equipment didn’t even work at the reception, and telling me I should have never charged for such terrible service. Because of her letter, I decided to screw the charity work, and I slapped the project together, which by my standards was pretty awful, and just sent it on it’s way. In the end, I actually lost money on that project, and they got an inferior product. They wanted bottom shelf prices and top shelf quality, and in the end, everyone lost.
Thankfully, I don’t have too many of those horror stories. I’ve had a few others, but for the most part these days, my mantra is “No work for family, and everyone pays the regular rates”. I volunteer as the director of our church video ministry, and I was recently asked if I could do the wedding of a staff member at a discount. The gal is really great, and could use a price break, but since a lot of my wedding clients come from church members, the last thing I want is to open the pandora’s box of “SHE got it at this rate, and so I want it at that rate too!”. I gently explained this and lo and behold, she agreed to pay the regular rate! It’s tempting to do favors, especially for good people, but if you stick to your guns it’s a lot less messy in the end.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:11 am
If your good at something, never do it for free !
April 15th, 2009 at 7:31 am
Long before going into full time video work, I was the service manager for a computer dealership. I had a sign at the entrance to my repair center that read as follows:
OUR LABOR RATES
$30 per hour.
If you wait… $60 per hour.
If you watch… $90 per hour.
If you help… $120 per hour.
If you worked on it first… $250 per hour.
‘Nuff said?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Wow! I touched a nerve, didn’t I?!?!
But, yes, in the end, you get what you pay for and you’re worth what you charge. Giving it away for free means you’re worth zero dollars, and like jimcvideo stated, when I do it for free, I tend to not deliver as fast as those that I charge for. So I actually had a church that I did a “charity” video for hire someone else a year later for another video that they were willing to pay for because they needed it turned around quickly, and as much as they liked my work, they needed someone fast.
Also, as eric d and ssake mention, I need better marketing tools. All I do to “market” myself is through word of mouth. I have no demo reel or brochures or even a website. So I guess if I want to be a serious small-business video producer, I have to present myself as such. Saying I have years of experience doesn’t mean squat to anyone outside the business.
Thank you all, for replying, and offering suggestions and ideas. I’m posting eastalabamamedia’s “Labor Rates” mantra to my home computer to remind me, too!
btw: I got a call over the weekend from the woman who’s mother died and she wants to hire me to shoot her upcoming wedding. She remembered how compassionate and professional I was during her traumatic time last year and offered me almost twice as much as what I’d charge to photograph her wedding in September. I guess sometimes pay-it-forward really DOES pay off!
April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Wow, such sad stories. You’ve got to remember you are running a business and you have to eat.
Everybody is looking for a deal, even me. Yes, there are people out there who will do it for next to nothing since they don’t value their time and don’t understand the product they are offering. Maybe even becasue they have other streams of income besides videography since it’s a hobby.
Here is the real deal. Assume when someone asks right of front, “What would it cost me to…”, stop right their and listen. Ask them probing questions. Find out exactly what they are looking for. What are their expectations? What would they like to see? Offer suggestions. Even explore their thoughts on how much they think it would be worth for what they are asking for. Ask what the value would be to themselves and their family. Ask about the value over time. If you really think about its – priceless – unless it was somebody they didn’t particular care for. Just kidding!
Basically, what they are asking is for you to place a value on a record of someones life for future generations to ponder. What’s that worth! You got to get your head out of the technical and connect with the eomational side of any transaction. Get past the money, find out what is the real intrinsic value to them. If very little, it’s not worth your time. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. You need to swim around and show them your colors of how you can meet and even exceed their expectations in a win-win for both of you.
So, if you do your homework, you will create and know their expectations and what they’d like to see as the final result. Then you can calcuate your cost based on their needs that works for both of you. Remember, you don’t have to work for nothing just to make someone happy. When someone tips you for your work – you didn’t charge enough – and the tip is a way of making themselves feel better for being so cheap after the fact. It should be equitable where both parties at least feel they got what they paid for. It is all about fleshing out and meeting each others expectations so you both get what you want. It’s your job to show them what their getting beyond the physical product you are delivering. Your telling a story about someones life – priceless!
And my final point, never give an hourly rate. Your not selling your time to the lowest bidder. You are creating a story of someones life. Ask the client what the job is worth to them after you explain what could be done in the memory of their loved one. Apeal to their emotions. What you are really creating for the client is a priceless time capsule if you think about it. We all want to be shown value for what we are getting. Most people will pay the price if they get the real value of what you are creating. If they approach you and perceive you as techie wage-slave mark they will take advantage of you. You have to sell your creativity – what are you really offering them – it’s not the technical – it’s the intrinsic value of what your are creating – appeal to the emotional value of what your are doing for future generation of family to follow.
If they don’t see the value of your service – reevaluate what you are doing. It’s your life. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. You just have to attract the ones who see the value of what you have to offer. Just be careful of the sharks – they’re out there – and they will try to eat you if they sense you hungry for money instead of offering a priceless gift!
April 15th, 2009 at 9:54 am
That is the most annoying part of the whole video bus.
People do not understand the time involved with producing a professional product. I had friends visiting recently, The husband was beaming to show me his video he made about his vacation, and his prowess using Imovie. This was a single layer video with one basic title, no animation, transitions etc. Creative apps are not one of them. Never used Photoshop or any Adobe products. He did have one slow mo segment. He thought it was award material. He is an engineer and is techincally competent in many computer areas. Believes that he is technically superior at everything or can figure anything out in short order. To help him learn, I suggested Final Cut’s express version and showed him Digital Juice animations, lower thirds etc. Instead of gratitude, he gave me defensivness and did not read some printed materials I proivided to him. He was looking for accolades. Showed him what could be done with multi-layered video. He was not interested.
As for business, I recently produced a basic multimedia piece in Flash for a home staging friend of mine. She lined up a happy customer who did nice job on camera with a testimonial which we used for a 5 minute video as part of the overall presentation. The husband of the happy customer is developing a cosmetic product and wanted to know about filming video clips of happy cusomters who have used his product. Aledgedly, he is doing some Flash development and only wants raw footage of testimonials. Apparently he feels he has some knowledge of editing. I am unaware of any editing apps he owns. I quoted $100 to take footage and transfer the AVI’s to disc and give to them. When I quoted my fee there was silence and no acknowledgement. I am not sure if this reaction was doubt or what. It does remind me of Videochic’s expereince.
If anyone is interested, I will report the evolution of this saga as it unfolds. I predict that he will reluctantly proceed, then will call for help later wanting advice on how to process footage, trim clips, add animations etc. However, the deal is for footage only and I will quote for additional time if they need further help. Time will tell.
Anyone have similar expereinces? Love to hear how your’s went.
Thanks.
Manappraisal
Camera: Sony FX-1
Editing: Adobe Production Premium CS-3 suite.
Plugins and assorted media from Red Giant, Blue FX, Prodad, Digital Juice and others
Many related accessories
April 15th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Priceless memories are important to capture, but many people don’t seem to think the videographer has as much value as the still-shooter they hired for the event. Then they come to you later to fix it.
The very first wedding I shot was for a friend about 20 years ago. this was long before many consumer cameras had very good quality, so I used pro gear borrowed from work and edited it tape-to-tape on our broadcast-level system. I put together a nice, albeit simple piece and presented a VHS dub to the bride as a gift about 2 weeks after the wedding. A week later the mother of the groom, a (former) good friend of mine, voice messaged me that she was bothered that I didn’t get her kids a gift, that I “only” gave them a VHS tape. her comment was: “VHS tapes cost, what, two bucks or something?”
The time to create art is never appreciated or understood by those outside the artist’s circles.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
So many stories….so little time! Everyone’s comments resound in my ears! I’ve been doing memorial videos for funeral homes for a little over 2 years and I’ve run the gamut of clients. The formula I’ve settled on is a flat rate ($125.00) for a certain number of photos and price per photo above that.
Worst case (REAL) scenario:
The client says they have 75 photographs and agree on the price (175.00). They drop the photos off to me – all in huge photo albums with sticky notes on the photos they want used. The pages of the albums are not removeable and most of the photos are GLUED IN!!!!! I spent 5 hours just getting the photos out in one piece and scanned – before any editing started! Approximately 9 hours of editing later I get a call that they have music for me. They drop it off on cassette tapes. It’s crazy old music that I can’t find anywhere else – so I begin the conversion from tape to digital – 4 hours of that. All said and done I had a little over 20 hours into the project. They were happy with the final result, though an aunt said I was “taking advantage of their sorrow”. I bit my tongue instead of saying something about the $8.75/hr I made off of them.
Best Case (REAL) Scenario:
Client agrees to price for 25 photos ($125.00). All photos are in pristine condition and require no touch-ups. Scanned in 15 minutes, edited in 2 hours. Client is so touched by the final product that they immediately order 50 copies ($10.00/each) for everyone at the memorial service. I walk away with $625.00 for 3 hours work!
BOTTOM LINE:
It usually evens out in the end. Through highs and lows, I never can get over the fact that I love what I do and that’s why I do it!
April 16th, 2009 at 4:23 am
I have done many various types of videos from sports highlight videos (football, basketball, softball, baseball, soccer, etc) for many sports teams and individual players. I have also done weddings, tribute videos, tv commercials, etc. It is amazing that when you price a project that many think it is too high. Sometimes the response is “Well DVDs don’t cost that much anymore, how come you charge so much?” Many don’t think about the time it takes to put together a project. I like to detail how many hours I project to spend on a project to justify the cost.
I will say this though, once I have done a project for someone, I have never had anyone complain about the price after they received what they had to pay, and they always come back for more. I have been doing several sports teams since 2003 and they always come back next year.
Regarding the comment about sports teams, I recently contacted a firm in NY on the web about pricing for a football highlight video. Their price? $2000 for 10 games and you get 1 DVD. They charge $200 per game basically just to edit the project. They wanted the same rate for any sport.
I have also had to ‘fix’ videos done by others. I had been doing videos for a national company’s local site with about 500 employees. They got a new director who insisted they use a company in another state since surely some guy in podunk KY could not be as professional as what you paid for out of state was his attitude. The price they paid was much higher and the product was not as good as what I had given them. They brought it to me to ‘fix’ after they paid so much for a subpar product. No problems since.
It has taken a while, but I have learned to not take it personal. Many don’t realize the time it takes or the expertise one has developed after working on countless projects. I tell them ‘When you pay your plumber $65/hr for something that seems simple, you have to realize that you are paying him/her for their expertise and that is the reason they charge what they do for their time.
I generally charge $30 per hour (lower if it is a bigger job), $20 for the first DVD and $10 for each copy.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
[...] technology initiative — makes me think of a great article that I read yesterday called ‘What Price Pro for Hire?’ It came in through the e-newsletter from the magazine [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Getting what you pay for……
Determining fair prices for creative work in the video editing business is extremely challenging, because there is a potentially huge range of quality that can come out of the process.
……
April 17th, 2009 at 8:31 am
I used to have an XL1 camera. The FireWire port burned out on it and fix would have been about $1800 (including shipping) since I didn’t believe the camera was worth that much I sold it to another production company who said they can use it as the second camera. The meantime I have been renting cameras from job to job because sometimes I find I need a smaller camera, easier to handhold and sometimes I find I need a larger camera like an XL2 especially if we are recording something with a larger area like outdoor sports scenes etc.
Now that I’m limited by the camera rental, I find I have a good excuse when people ask me about a low end job. I simply tell them that it cost $400 a weekend to rent a good camera with a tripod microphones etc.
But this limits me in some of the lower end jobs. For instants I would like to shoot short real estate videos for local agents but I found that they are only interested in paying the $200 or less. So of course it’s not worth renting a camera for a job like that.
Then the argument is if you had a brand new $5,000 camera sitting there, would you go out and take a $200 job? On one hand it offers some money coming in, on the other hand doesn’t even seem worth starting up the truck!
The other thing is that cameras are changing so drastically, I’m really reluctant to spend say $2000 on a DVX100b, when in reality I think everything will be going solid-state! Not only cameras but also computers, storage systems and the like.
But now especially during recessionary times, I’m finding the hiring jobs more difficult to find so in the meantime I’m doing nothing to speak of other than replying to this article.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:37 pm
This discussion reminds me of a story I heard a long time ago (I don’t remember to whom it is attributed):
There was an inventor who believed he had discovered the “perfect mouse trap” (no, it isn’t a mouse trap, it’s a parable
) that would make him rich. However, he had one problem with creating it that he just couldn’t overcome.
He had a friend who was an engineer and thought he’d ask her for help. He explained the problem and she told him that the problem was way over her head. However, she knew of two people who might be able to help him solve the problem. The first was her professor from college who MIGHT be able to solve the problem and the other was this high-powered, VERY expensive engineer whom she felt SURE could solve the problem.
Well, the inventor felt sure that the solution would be pretty simple for an engineer to solve and just didn’t think it was “worthwhile” to spend a bunch of money. So he calls the professor and was told that it would cost him $150/hour for the professor to try to solve the problem. The inventor thought that was a lot of money, but he really wanted to get the problem solved, so he bit the bullet and took it to the professor. He told the professor about the problem and the professor said he’d research it and get back to him. A couple days later the professor called him back and said he’d spent 5 hours on the problem and had not found any promising solutions and was giving up.
The inventor was very frustrated, but paid the $750 and asked if the professor knew anyone who might be able to solve the problem. The professor replied that one of his former students was now a very highly regarded engineer in town who charged $250/hour and might be able to solve the problem and that there was this high-powered, VERY expensive engineer (the same one as before) whom he felt SURE could solve the problem. After having just spent $750 with this professor, he really didn’t think he could afford the high-powered engineer for such a “simple” problem.
So the inventor made an appointment with the professor’s student and went through the same process as with the professor. The student took about 10 hours and couldn’t solve the problem. The now VERY frustrated inventor paid the bill and asked who the student thought might be able to solve the problem. The student told him that his boss, who charged $500/hour might be able to solve the problem and that there was this high-powered, VERY expensive engineer whom he felt SURE could solve the problem. After having spent over $3000, he decided on the student’s boss.
As you can imagine, the boss took about 20 hours to try to solve the problem and couldn’t. When the inventor asked who the boss thought could solve the problem, the boss only had one name. That of the high-powered, VERY expensive engineer. When the inventor asked how much this engineer charged, the boss said he didn’t know, just that he was VERY expensive.
Well, after having spent so much money on the engineers, the inventor wasn’t about to “waste” more on this highly recommended engineer, so he tried to solve the problem himself. After another year, the inventor had given up all hope of solving the problem himself and reluctantly made an appointment with the recommended engineer.
The inventor showed up at the appointment on time. However, the engineer was busy with a prior appointment and he had to wait a couple of hours. Needless to say, he wasn’t very happy. Eventually, the engineer showed his previous appointment out and the man was VERY happy as they had found the solution for his problem.
The engineer showed the inventor into his office and asked what the problem was. The office was large and the walls were covered with bookshelves from ceiling to floor and all were filled. The inventor spent about 30 minutes explaining the invention and the problem he had run across. After he was done, the engineer sat back and closed his eyes. After a while the inventor began to get VERY angry. He thought the engineer had fallen asleep! Just when he was about to begin yelling, the engineer stood up and walked over to a wall. The engineer paused and took a book down and leafed through it. Not happy with what he found, he put it back and walked to another wall. Grabbing a ladder, he climbed to the top of a bookshelf and grabbed a very old, very worn leather bound book and leafed through it until he found what he was looking for. Walking over to the inventory, he handed him the book and there, in that old book, was the solution to the inventor’s problem!
The inventor was incredulous and ecstatic! He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The engineer made a copy of the relevant pages and the inventor was so excited he left before the engineer could say anything else.
After that the inventor proceeded to begin production on his invention began making his fortune. About a week later he received an invoice from the engineer for $25,000. The inventor was, once again, incredulous and infuriated that the engineer would charge him so much when he was in there for less than an hour!
He made another appointment the following week, first thing in the morning so he wouldn’t have to wait. He arrived at the appointment and the engineer promptly showed him into his office. The inventor began to berate the engineer about the invoice and how much money he was being charged and the engineer quietly interrupted him. “Did the solution I showed you not work?” he asked. The inventor, caught by surprise, said it did, but he couldn’t believe the engineer was charging him $25,000 for less than an hour of his time.
Finally seeing what the problem was, the engineer said, “Ahhh, I see now. You misunderstand. I am not charging your $25,000 for the less than an hour you were in my office, I am charging you $25,000 for the SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM that a lifetime of experience allowed me to know which book on which shelf would have the solution to your problem. I assume I was not the first engineer you hired to solve your problem, so you can see that I provided you with something that no other engineer you found did.”
Of course, if you are going to charge a premium price, be darned sure you can deliver a premium product!
Scott
August 25th, 2009 at 2:55 am
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October 10th, 2011 at 8:00 am
[...] had lots of money at their disposal, they just didn’t want to spend it on my work. My blog, What Price Pro for Hire? got a number of people responding, and I suspect it was because they, too, have been treated [...]