When you’re an entrepreneur, you are bound to run into a client sooner or later that will attempt to “do your job for you“. By this I mean strictly someone who will offer to do a portion of the work at a reduction of your costs of course. And I guess in the grand scheme of things, if it’s work you don’t have to do, then that could be a good thing right? Sort of like boxing up all of your stuff before the movers get there.
Wrong.
What I’ve run into are situations where people are paying for a service, but they want to belittle that service by saying they can do some of the work, and think that entitles them to some huge discount.
I had a bride who had recently gotten married call me one day and ask could I re-edit her wedding video. She had went with another company to shoot it, and I guess the videographer was fond of one of her guests, because this guest was all over the highlight reel. The bride wanted me to go through the video and edit out pieces that featured our unwanted guest. She (the bride) claimed she could edit it herself if she knew how, but just needed this done “right quick“. She also mentioned wanting a color label for her final DVD, and once again mentioned she could do it herself because she knows “Photoshop”, but just doesn’t have a printer. Right. And I could fix my truck’s transmission if I just had one of those hoisty car lifty thing-a-ma-bobs.
Going into this project I knew it was going to be a headache. Not because the work was challenging, but because of the constant reminders of the services provided, that they could “done by myself, but“, and how that’s supposed to drop the price.
In the end it just made it easier for me to charge by the hour and just have her sit there and “watch” me do all the things she claimed she could do if and only if she had the equipment. Amazingly enough there were indeed things that I did do that she had no idea needed to be done.
But that didn’t stop another client of mine who needed something as simple as a DVD Copy of a trailer we had done for his company. He called me late on a Friday and begged and pleaded that I get him 10 copies of this trailer for a big pitch meeting he was having. And when I told him the price, he quickly changed his tune, “well make just one copy and my fiance can make the rest.”
I asked him if he knew how to “duplicate” a DVD for set top playability and he confirmed that his fiance indeed knew what to do, because they had done it on some of our other DVD projects. I confirmed with him one more time, because I knew the next three days I was on a set shooting another project.
I met early with him to give him this master DVD and went to my shoot. I thought nothing of it until we cut for lunch and I checked I had 12 voicemails from him. It appears that his fiance didn’t know after all how to burn a DVD, and they had already ruined eight DVDs trying to burn copies. I knew what the problem was, which is exactly why I tried to confirm with him before. My break was almost over, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to solve their problem, so he goes off on me like it’s my fault.
I thought about all of the times we had worked together and his “fiance” had her laptop open like she was taking notes on everything I was doing. I even remember him coyly asking one time if a final DVD I gave him could be further edited in his computer. As if he had already planned to start doing some editing of his own at home. I told him that if he wanted to edit, a DVD was not what he needed, to which he quickly refuted he was “just asking a question.”
The problem with the technology age is people think they can get the tools and do the jobs themselves. Companies have marketed certain products as consumer friendly, and so you got average Joes going out and buying video cameras thinking they’re the next Spielberg or Abrams, but don’t know how to remove the lens cap. So in turn, professions like mine get looked at as tool driven instead of skill driven and people “think” they can do my job for me and want to tell me what I should charge.
And when you’re black in business, this happens more often than not.
No you cannot borrow my expensive camera to film your own event. The service of filming comes with me performing the filming.
No you cannot borrow my DVD duplicator and printer to make copies. The service of ordering copies comes with burning and printing.
No you cannot use my studio “right quick“. The service of studio time comes with me as the engineer.
There are plenty of professions that have experienced this phenomenon. I’m sure carpenters go into homes all the time having to fix something someone thought they could do on their own because they seen it on HGTV. And there’s no telling how many financial analysts get laughed at because someone had fun playing around with online stocks. And let’s not forget how many weddings I’ve been to where cousins and uncles are doing the photos and videos with products make for vacations and not professional settings.
Because we live in a money driven society, you will meet clients that will try to devalue your service by assuming they know exactly what goes into it. I make a mean Eggs Benedict, but I’m sure if I go to IHOP and ask for $3.00 off because I know how to cook it myself, ask the to just provide me the industrial stove, pan, and eggs, they’d think I was crazy and kindly decline.
When you offer a service, let your clients know that the service has value and what it entails. There are times where you may adjust it, but don’t get put in a situation where you feel devalued. And definitely don’t let clients dictate how you run your business. Leaving off pieces of your services doesn’t equate to the quality of the entire experience.
This is the service. This is the price. This is your business.
