Monday, October 1, 2012

TIPS60 - Why bother sending estimates to "low budget" clients?



Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

(Continued after the Jump)


TRANSCRIPT:Here a few thoughts estimating for clients with a low-budget. I'm John Harrington. So if you get a phone call from a prospective client who wants you to estimate their job and when you talk about budget they tell you ""Oh, we only have three hundred dollars and for you, your walking out the door rate is six or seven hundred dollars. The question becomes well, do I even bother should I even waste my time? The answer is yes. Because the client may just be fishing for a lower price and if you don't even estimate then they're not even going to consider you. But the other thing that could happen is, if you would have normally sent an estimate in for seven hundred fifty dollars for that project and the other two photographers they called also are sending in estimates for seven hundred and fifty, then the other two photographers would be considered for the job and you, because you didn't bother to send the estimate, don't even get considered. It's important that you send that estimate in because it helps the client understand what you're really worth, what the project's really worth, and in the end you might actually get the job when they only had a few hundred dollars to begin with.

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1 comment:

  1. Jeffrey Blake AdamsOctober 11, 2012 at 12:24 AM

    Its also important, in that these low budget clients, may learn from their cost cutting shoot, that they really need a pro photographer, and its worth budgeting for in the future. Another fact is that they may spend quite a bit of time apologizing to anyone in earshot about the poor quality of their marketing piece, and mention they wish they could have afforded the great photographer who was too expensive for them,,, someone with a real budget that wants to outdo the low bidget biz, may be listening...

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