There’s been a theme to this week’s work, and the business/entrepreneur/tech articles I’ve been reading: public (and business) relations.
I hit a small snafu with a business partner and friend. Each conversation between us generally has three parts: he requests work of me and details what I need to do; I articulate a price to which he agrees to; I complete the work and he sends me the agreed-to monetary compensation. It’s very informal, and I’ll often vary my price based on how many individual items he is asking me to put my attention to, and whether I anticipate that he will ask for “just one more thing” which can easily morph into five more things. This works for us, most times.
A few days ago, he asked me to edit some images in Photoshop, and to edit a video. Because the editing was a little more detailed than what I usually do for him and would take a tiny bit more time and computer power to render, I gave him a price that was a smidge higher than he was used to seeing. I price by queue load, not by individual item. I felt that would cover both the need of increased attention on my part, and his wait for the finished product.
He looked at my requested price, looked at what he was asking me to do, and then asked me if I were charging such&such for each image and video, and wasn’t that a bit higher than usual?
I explained that the images and the video required more of my time than usual, with more intricacies than are usually present in the assignments he gives me.
He then gave a reply that denoted concern that I was asking for too much, and that I should more concretely justify the price I had asked.
I said, a little snarkily (we are friends), that perhaps he ought to find someone else who would do the work he asked, who would use more expensive programs and charge roughly four times what I was asking, that this particular assignment warranted the slightly higher price because of the slight complexity to the tasks previously mentioned in this same conversation.
“No, it’s fine,” he reassured me. “I don’t much appreciate the tone of that last statement,” about him finding someone else to do the work. We sorted it all out a few minutes later.
I did the work, feeling a bit uncomfortable that I could have handled that conversation better. On one hand, he had never asked me before to more or less create an itemized list of why I am charging what I do per image or video or whatever else I do for him. I felt that was ridiculous, as I was doing this work at (well under) 1/4 the industry price that anyone not acquainted with him would charge, and I felt that at such bargain basement prices, I should be given the benefit of the doubt when something unusual comes down the pike, and I respond with a price that is (literally, in this case) a couple of dollars more than usual.
On the other hand, as a business owner and employer, he has every right to request such an itemized list from me if he wants to see exactly what he’s paying for. He’s one of those people who thinks that sitting in a computer chair and squinting at a computer screen doesn’t really warrant a token price for labor. I agree with that, except that I’m doing something when I am squinting at the computer screen, whether it’s pushing pixels around or editing a video to best effect, and yes, sitting is a given when one is working at the computer.
I felt a bit like a cranky designer after that little exchange. If he wants an itemized list, then he may find higher prices than what I had been giving him before, because again, I charge by bulk, not by individual item, and I often err on the side of quoting under a certain dollar amount, giving him a break for sending me so much to do at once. I suppose I will have to do that if he insists on a new practice of creating a need and then paying to have that need fulfilled.
Anyway, enough on that topic…
Related, there was an article on Matt Haughey‘s personal blog, a link to which I found on Mashable, the same day as the aforementioned snafu. The author relates an experience he had in funding a project on Kickstarter, which features fundraising opportunities for those who have a vision, a product, a movie, a goal, a required expense they cannot fund themselves, and turns to crowdsourcing to accomplish their fundraising goals.
I read, with horror, the process by which this funder was treated by the proprietors of the project he was funding. Anyone who wants lessons in what not to do in public relations, should read this article. There was no excuse for any of the mentioned interactions to have happened. With sufficient communication, honesty, and some sense of culpability, this project and its results might have turned out very differently. In this case, a product was being designed with obvious engineering and scientific flaws that should have been evident to any student of a high school science class. When these flaws were pointed out, the proprieters/fundees ignored all free advice given, ignored public commentary on alternatives (when they themselves created a poll to see what the majority of funders thought of a specific issue, 85% weighing in with a negative answer), required additional funds from funders above and beyond the original donation…
That last one really makes me shake my head. Who even does this? “Yes, we know you’ve already donated generously and voluntarily. Now, we demand even more than the amount you’ve already pledged, if you ever want to see this product.” Wow. Imagine if Netflix did that: “Yeah, we just raised our prices to 200% what they were before. Now, we require you to pay an additonal fee for the delivery of the streaming movie/movie on DVD disc.” I’d imagine their stock would be even lower than it already is (and let’s not forget the multiple lawsuits now filed against the company for its boneheadedness of late).
Getting back to the Kickstarter story, I understand that funding a dream, funding a goal, funding a good or necessary intention, is wrought with uncertainties as to odds of completion, odds of a (working) product actually being manufactured (and not just prototyped), even as to how many people will pledge to a given project. I don’t have much commentary about the specific story linked elsewhere in this article, but I do think that there are great lessons to be learned from how various companies treat their customers, and each other.
And I’m certainly not exempt from treating my “boss” with as much decorum and tact as anyone else doing business with or for another.
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