Saturday, November 28, 2009
10 Ways to Get Paid What You Deserve
WebWorkerDaily: "Once just the purview of cheesy late-night infomercials (“buy now and get this beautiful set of six steak knives at no extra charge”), free has taken on a life of its own in the new economy. Even the prestigious and pricey New York Times offers its stories online — yes, for free."
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6 comments:
I completely agree with this article. You never want to sell yourself short by giving out too much information for free to a client before having a commitment from them. This is especially true in the world of theater, because that piece of advice, could have just cost you a job, or even worse, a string of jobs. The examples given here are a great basis for your knowledge, but it would be great to see if there is a book, or more in-depth articles that could go along with this.
while I agree that you should be paid for what advice you give, it can be a very thin line. It really depends on in what capacity you know the person, but where is the line between job and mentor? It seems to me as though this article wanted you to charge for any advice you give, which can be very offputting for some people. I think it depends on the amount of time you would put in helping the person. At a certain point, yes you deserved to be paid, but don't get greedy.
If you were to walk into best buy for that season of 24, you would expect to pay for the product (as you would for a website etc.) but not for the advice as to where it is located in the store. where is this distinction?
This article gives us something to think about with the question of are we selling ourselves short. I also agree that some of us may be walking a thin line in answering that question. While we may feel that our services should require a fee, that may not be the opinion of everyone in the field. If we charge for a certain service, while our competitors provide that same service for free, we still will not be making a profit. This article makes several good points, but we would need to take into account marketing and use the advice here realistically.
Although this will help you not to sell yourself short, it may also work against you if your potential client gets the idea that you want to charge for everything in which case they may take their business elsewhere. I also agree with Brooke, the competition may in the end dominate you if they offer such services for free. For example, i know of some people who prefer to get their gas at Hess because of the free air that they have which they use to fill up their tires whenever they get gas. Things like this don't cost as much as they gain.
I think its especially tough in our business, especially when we are starting out, not to give hand outs. There is a fine line between paying your dues and giving away your skill. There are two things to take away from this article. 1. It takes a certain suave to do business and maintain a relationship. 2.In order to get paid, you have to have the confidence in your skills to understand what they are worth.
While it is important to make sure that you get paid, some of the methods mentioned in the article seem as if they would turn away otherwise good clients. For example, if you are putting together a project estimate sheet for a potential client in a scene shop, you are going to put in some amount of work into it, but the potential client only gets billed if they actually do the job with you. This is similar to in some industries where you can get free samples (eg swatchbooks) under the expectation that you will probably be ordering some of the product. However, if your line of work is more consulting than fabrication, these tips make sense. It all depends on the details of your work.
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