I am sure every industry struggles. I know a guy who owns a town from buying wholesale clothes from China and selling it retail in the states. I know another person who sells this health stuff and she made $450,000 a year the last few years. Literally, this lady does nothing but takes orders.
Your 10 step process is the issue we all face. The main issue is with point 2 and point 5. Their initial needs more often than not, change drastically by the time you get to point 5. You have to learn to say no.
Do you talk to your clients during the process? Or is it all just emails once contracted? So much gets lots with email, I always call and go through it with them (cam, lighting, materials, etc). Besides everything becoming more clear and focussed you personalise the work so, in your case, you’re not just some online service.
And then after the call you send a summary email detailing what’s been discussed.
I think it’s also understanding the market, from what I have seen and read they are nearly all real estate / developers so their focus is nearly always the bottom line, especially within the scale of your work (single houses or limited developments). Building costs are increasing by the month, they want to sell asap to keep their margins, etc. Literally every dollar they spend cuts their own profits. And at the same time they are often rushing about trying to get everything sorted around the project of which the images are just one element. You can’t rely on them to know everything you need to do your part correctly / without a lot of revisions.
In your situation I think more and clearer communication is needed to hopefully weed out the worst of it. Go through each step with them and continually check that the data they are delivering is correct and specified enough. Your example about the oven vents I find ridiculous, are they a kitchen company selling the oven or are they selling an impression of the kitchen that comes with the house? And looking at it the other way, did you ask for enough specifications to correctly model the kitchen? Had you known the detail they want would your quote have been what it was?
It’s hard to do with how busy you are, but spending more time during the preparation phase getting all the info and clearly explaining what you and they need to do should help. And if they cant do it you kinda know the chances of how it will go.
You are correct, communication is the key. I am finding that, with a lot me clients, this is the first time they are using someone like me. I rarely talk to my clients on the phone and I never meet face-to-face. I think a phone conversation to kick off a project is a good idea. I like to pre-qualify potential clients through emails first. This way I am not wasting my time on hour-long conversations.
These types of jobs are always painful. I understand wanting to be a good guy, and I’ve not always been in this situation. In the end I just worked in 'additional revisions @ XX/Hr." into the contracts. For some reason the clients are a lot more careful and deliberate once the billing starts for change rounds.
My contract says the same. Any change requests outside the two revisions will be billed per hour. As you said, the change isn’t as important to them after they know it’ll cost them.
of the nearly 14k posts you have on this forum i think i’ve read about 12k complaining about clients.
find ones you like working with who are willing to pay you what you’re worth or shut the fuck up.
welcome to the real world. have a wonderful day.
for the record i’m not trolling here. your posts regarding clients come across as insecure. you either need to own them or find a job where an employer owns you. quit acting like a victim and take ownership of your own actions.
maybe that will help you understand instead of all the fluffy, holding hands while singing kumbaya bullshit that normally gets written in response to your whining about clients.
embrace the hard feelings. it’s good stuff when you know how to deal with it.
… get out of the room. there’s a big world out there
I have a family to feed and kids to put through college.
Psychologist, surely?
Or do you routinely go to a Physiologist to ensure your heart hasn’t moved from its place, nor changed its bodily function to, say, respiration? ^^
How not to sound like a jerk?
Mpfh, i never once managed the trick.
it feeds my family after all, but at what point do you put your foot down?
Right after the family’s well fed?
Your post reads like the best negative example for the title of this tread.
Really, if you don’t want to read this, just don’t do it…
That’s not quite like a public forum works.
Restraint is on users posting, as the public nature of the forum, coupled with somewhat generic titles, makes reading a necessity.
Sure, one can conceivably block or ignore users, and their posts, but there’s potentially plenty to go amiss, given the forum is mainly a technical resource (even, i’m afraid, the off-topic section.).
Personally speaking, I really needed to hear that myself - thanks 