How to deal with this kind of client?

[francomanko]

sorry for a bit of a off-topic:
good news for low end market - twinmotion is now free in its current state. perfect tool for 10-views-a-day business model.

Twinmotion..from BIM to VR in 2 clicks....taglines like that make me suspicious, like anything using EZY as a prefix to their tool, but if someone can point me to a good BIM site where the models arent gross and ready in one click, that would be lovely. Im only half joking

[jackieteh]

yeah RM300 is way too low so thats out of the question, but do you know exactly what quality they are after?

The reason i ask is that I've recently had to go really low with some client, just to get some work. But they aren't after 'top end' renders and the quality of the renders i give will take into account the cheap cost. However a lot of their homes are quite similar, so although, initially the hourly rate makes me feel sick, I can improve it a lot by reusing a lot of geo/ materials etc. So hopefully in the end I can bring the hourly rate from depressing to acceptable.

I dont think necessarily its about them 'respecting your work' , could be they dont understand it or require it. Get some examples of what they are after if possible and break it down before dismissing them entirely...but either way...RM300...no no no

This is one of the sample they sent to me, and they wrote in email as below: it is just a simple scene, not much of design, but it is double volume area, can you delivery the drawing in 2 days?

[jackieteh]

RM stands for Ringgit Malaysia, so it's around 80 USD.

Sadly, it's the common state of interior pricing here, even in Singapore. I deal with these kinds of clients every day. Some even go as low as 40 USD, and thinks 80 USD is too much.
There is not much respect for creative arts here unfortunately. Because some of these interior companies provides the 3D image to clients for free, therefore they are really pinching pennies.

My advice is to spend no more than 2 hours per view, reusing all your old assets and don't even bother balancing the image. Low highlight burn, pump up the contrast in post. Send.
I devised such workflow to actually make money off these types of projects. In my experience, the trade-off is that you can tell them that you will not get exact models (sofa etc) for them but just using something similar. Find something that looks 60-80% similar in 3D websites, download and use. No modelling except for walls and carpentry details.

It is possible to be profitable. There's a whole business in the low-end market, but as an artist, you don't feel fulfilled.
Because it's almost purely digital, and there are numerous free digital assets, coupled with the fact that you can get pirated software at no cost (not condoning it). The only thing you lose is your time and electricity bills, therefore the price is being driven down by people who keeps undercutting everybody's cost (not to mention respect), and sadly there are always takers.

I have the opposite problem as you. Because my first exposure to interior was through these pricing, but I know there are amazing visualizations that cost so much more. I am trying to break into the higher-end market and are pushing my quality everyday to get there.

I feel your pain, i face the same thing everyday. this client send same furniture and ask me to build, the difficult part is they only send one angle of the furniture, and asking me to build my model 100% accurate to the photo, hahaha to honest i do not know how to do it with just one photo and single angle.

[jackieteh]

Thank you for your transparency. That's a pretty detailed breakdown. I don't know if it's too high or too low because honestly, the price vary quite wildly in the industry. I will take your advice to heart and work on the things you mentioned. Thank you once again.

EDIT: To add on, it's quite a dilemma working in the low-end market. You will always have people trying to personalize their interior to a great extent, which I understand, but it's just not worth the cost, so balancing those has been difficult. The designers always want to please the homeowners, and ask us to amend many times over, and are not actually paying the amendment fee because 'I don't do this often, how can you charge me? Haven't we work together for a while by now?' This response is so annoying to me because just like someone said earlier(could've been you), if they want it cheap, they have less respect for your ability. They just want it cheaper and cheaper.
Which is why I want to take my skill to the highest level, and start charging premium fee. Have had about enough of this market.

i have been tying this in malaysia for many years, it just a dream for freelancer to charge premium price, same as singapore (i can't even get a job from there, because the freelance is cheaper than me), what in my head is you want to charge higher, you have set up a company, hire some talent staff to do all the job to achieve high end result.

[jackieteh]

sorry for a bit of a off-topic:
good news for low end market - twinmotion is now free in its current state. perfect tool for 10-views-a-day business model.

I will have a look, thank you for sharing.

[jackieteh]

He offered you three-thousand after you quoted four-thousand...or he offered three *hundred*?
Please tell me that is a typo! If not, that's very cheeky of him and he'd make a terrible client.

it is not a typo, i, myself also hope that i was wrong when heard from my phone, i ask twice while i heard that actually

[Syu_z]

i have been tying this in malaysia for many years, it just a dream for freelancer to charge premium price, same as singapore (i can't even get a job from there, because the freelance is cheaper than me), what in my head is you want to charge higher, you have set up a company, hire some talent staff to do all the job to achieve high end result.

Yeah, I think the only way to charge decent price in this part of the world is if you have world class rendering skill (like BBB3Viz), and have very strong portfolio, and of course, under a company name.

It's really sad, and it's so ingrained that I don't see a way out of it as a community in South East Asia. Maybe I can break out and be good enough to charge premium for myself, but as a whole, it's a very difficult problem to uproot, save for government intervention maybe. Good luck with your client!

[jackieteh]

Yeah, I think the only way to charge decent price in this part of the world is if you have world class rendering skill (like BBB3Viz), and have very strong portfolio, and of course, under a company name.

It's really sad, and it's so ingrained that I don't see a way out of it as a community in South East Asia. Maybe I can break out and be good enough to charge premium for myself, but as a whole, it's a very difficult problem to uproot, save for government intervention maybe. Good luck with your client!

Thank you bro. still find a way to keep myself in this industry in Malaysia.

[seandunderdale]

Know your value and stick to it, personally I think good clients respect that. Once you charge low its hard to justify going back to a "normal" price since youve shown you can do it for cheap. Its a race to the bottom when you allow these kinds of clients to get away with devaluing your work like that.

[JezUK]

Know your value and stick to it, personally I think good clients respect that. Once you charge low its hard to justify going back to a "normal" price since youve shown you can do it for cheap. Its a race to the bottom when you allow these kinds of clients to get away with devaluing your work like that.

I couldn't agree more - I lost a client I'd been working with for most of this year last week all because he wanted cheaper and found someone else, abroad we both think (he doesn't know!) - not as good as me (his words) but 1/2 the price.

I prefer clients who appreciate my skills and aren't trying to drive us all to the bottom - so I'll just use the material I've created for him to show his competitors

I want to get better and better, not cheaper and cheaper.....

[glorybound]

I have gotten, "can you do less quality for less money?". What kind of question is that? My rule of thumb is if they complain about the money they'll be harder to please anyway, so I avoid clients like that. I got this comment last week and I sent them to Fiverr, telling them that if their circumstances change to let me know.

[seandunderdale]

Fast, cheap and Good. Tell them to pick two, but it wont be the one thats left out. Fast and cheap wont be good. Cheap and good, wont be fast, Good and fast, wont be cheap. Generally though, as has been mentioned, a client who tries to undervalue you up front will only be a nuisance client.

[francomanko]

not every job has to be top quality and not everyone has the luxury to pick and choose.

[JezUK]

Fast, cheap and Good. Tell them to pick two, but it wont be the one thats left out. Fast and cheap wont be good. Cheap and good, wont be fast, Good and fast, wont be cheap. Generally though, as has been mentioned, a client who tries to undervalue you up front will only be a nuisance client.

Oh they chose Cheap and Acceptable - I didn't even need to tell them to pick two

And I don't think clients who try to undervalue you up front are necessarily nuisance clients. Quite often, they simply don't know what is involved.

If anything, I could say it's just simply client ignorance, and quite often global competition.

Compared to local competition, I'm good value, good quality, pleasant to work with, on the same page etc etc.

[piotrus3333]

come on, stop with “stick to your guns, know your value, wait for clients that respect the work”. apparently things are quite different in the market described before. do not wait for somebody to pay you premium - adapt to the market, cut your costs - change the software for a free alternative, change the software to save on hardware. 2 hours per image? look at Lumion. sure, 3k€. but its full package, all the libraries included. you will save a lot on workstation - you do not need 32 cores or 3 graphic cards. the amount of images this thing can pump out in an hour is amazing. and after that you can try to leverage cheap animations to get more revenue.
adapt or starve. you will not change the market.