One South

[glorybound]

april was only 3 months ago...... i think i read somewhere that 90% of your commissioned work comes from google search results..... years ago i received a letter in the mail from google ad words with a $100 voucher to try their service. being a bit skeptical about it i decided to try it out under a different umbrella. went down to the county clerk's office and filed a dba, setup a website and plugged it into the google ad stuff. got calls and e-mails left and right from people in need of a rendering. every single person that found me through google had one thing in common - a 5k rendering looked similar if not the same as a $500 rendering to them and they wanted their rendering at pennies on the dollar. the projects i took on under that separate company were absolute shit shows. before i shut it down i had two people threatening to sue me - one claimed that after he signed off on final images and began using them on his end that they were not up to the standards he was advertised - the other claimed that after a couple of days of not receiving an updated rendering it was costing his business to lose money..... my contracts for that business experiment were less than a page stating: here's what you're going to pay and here's a detailed explanation of what you're going to get, we'll start on it as soon as the balance is paid in full.

customers who search google for a service are generally looking for the best rates for something that gets the job done. if i google "architectural rendering" i get a whole page of companies offering renderings at wholesale price points... not some of the greatest looking renderings, but they get the job done. a lot of those companies have stuff in their contracts like: "_____will not accept liability nor be held responsible for any loss or damage caused to the client as a result of misrepresentation or for late delivery of the images" which sounds familiar to me.... if you continue to compete in that marketplace then eventually the quality of your work will get shittier, your rates will get shittier, and you will continue to deal with shitty people in general. based on some of the work i've seen of yours posted here, i don't think you belong in that cesspool.....

.....and that's the longest post you'll ever see from me again.

Three months for a single room when it had a three-day schedule. They needed it within a couple weeks, three months ago and here we are three months later.

I haven't had a lot of problems with Google leads. Most lead to long term clients. However, some do want things for cheap and I don't entertain them. I have found that if they complain about the price they'll be difficult clients. I don't pay for Google placement, I am generally at the top organically.

My biggest headache client is usually the ones who have never used a service like mine before. They think that they can send me a few dozen photos of furniture, have me model everything for the price I quote and have unlimited revisions. This client literally wanted me to push vases inches to one side, swap out different furniture pieces from photos they found and switch back and forth floor materials.

Just the other day I read a blog somewhere about having a 1/2 hour phone conversation to start off each project to verbally review the contract (might be the CGArchitect post). This is now going to be my practice.

[particlerealities]

I had a client a while back that scheduled an appointment to drop by my office and sit over my shoulder while we played with color schemes and camera angles. While he was here, he kept complimenting me on how fast I am (I'm a dinosaur compared to most of you), and how awesome it was to play with colors so quickly. He loved being able to do that. What happened two weeks later? He complained about our bill - said it was too high - he saw how fast I was, didn't think the final renderings took anywhere near the (agreed upon) fee. He also kept ranting about all the work he's sent our company (which he indeed has). What he didn't see was all the time I spent prior to the meeting creating the model, tweaking lighting & materials, and setting up the model so he could play with colors.

It's kinda like the old-school architect that can crank out hand sketches right in front of the client. The client complains about the architect's hourly rate to doodle pictures, but ignores the 30 years it took for the architect to master his craft.

What's my point? Not really sure...

[glorybound]

I had a client a while back that scheduled an appointment to drop by my office and sit over my shoulder while we played with color schemes and camera angles. While he was here, he kept complimenting me on how fast I am (I'm a dinosaur compared to most of you), and how awesome it was to play with colors so quickly. He loved being able to do that. What happened two weeks later? He complained about our bill - said it was too high - he saw how fast I was, didn't think the final renderings took anywhere near the (agreed upon) fee. He also kept ranting about all the work he's sent our company (which he indeed has). What he didn't see was all the time I spent prior to the meeting creating the model, tweaking lighting & materials, and setting up the model so he could play with colors.

It's kinda like the old-school architect that can crank out hand sketches right in front of the client. The client complains about the architect's hourly rate to doodle pictures, but ignores the 30 years it took for the architect to master his craft.

What's my point? Not really sure...

That's why we have to stop thinking of ourselves as a commodity. I am 10X faster then I was 10 years ago, so I am not going to charge less; that's asinine. What's going to happen is I am going to make more, which is how things should work. I am in a good place where I can tell potential clients that I don't think we are a good fit. When I get a sense that I'll be their cad tech for a few weeks I will tell them thanks, but no thanks. This and someone without construction documents and wants me to help circumvent the design process. Doing things this way takes a heck of a lot longer and unless they are willing to pay me 3X my fee, I am not going down that road.

We need to be a solution for their problem and not just a button presser.

[rusteberg]

if someone doesn't have construction documents for a project they're not hiring you to "circumvent" the design process. they are hiring you to be part of the design process. a very BIG part of the design process.

[glorybound]

Agreed and we need to be paid for it.