What's with people that dont read contracts??

[Peter Jefferson]

then they have the audacity to complain??

I shoot weddings and events, and all my wedding clients know (i tel them this BEFORE they book.. coz id rather not have any hassles..) that when a corp job comes through, we take it onboard and drop everything wedding related until we get it out. Its for the simple reason that the corp work keeps us afloat, and allows me to charge significantly less than my competition...
But when people see the wedding work, theyre all for it, and are "happy to wait for it, if its anything like this..."
So i tell them on average i tcan be anythign betwene 4 to 8 months, as im a one man band...

So in my contracts, i clearly state that delivery times are dependant on business workload and peak seasonal trends.. so what part of that isnt easy to understand??

I mean they friggin sign for it right?? So where do they get off telling me off??

Its come a time where ive literally started to send clients our contract reiterating it. Its not difficult to understand (some people here have already seen it, as i posted it up for people ot use as a base for their own contracts) but still come one..

Oh one other thing.. the whinging usually happens after a public holiday or ON a public holiday.. yesterday, which is Australias anzac day, I had 3 cients who i filmed no less than 6 weeks ago called up, and a furhter 3 emails.. and these are from weddings shot in Dec Feb and March..

So whats the go?? I can only work so many hours in a day...

how do u guys handle this?? An associate of mine who also runs a video business has a wait time of over 18months.. he double and triple books weddings and he told me that no matter what he tries to do to explain to them, they always complain.

So what do u do ??
What CAN you do??
I cant afford to get anyone to edit for me and i dont trust anyone enough to hand over some tapes and get them to cut for me. so now ive got idiots who dont read fine print harrassing me and getting ths shizzzz.. i mean i can always throw the contract right back at them, but its not the best way to deal with the situation..

any thoughts are greatly appreciated

[Greg Boston]

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

So what do u do ?? What CAN you do??

I cant afford to get anyone to edit for me and i dont trust anyone enough to hand over some tapes and get them to cut for me. so now ive got idiots who dont read fine print harrassing me and getting ths shizzzz.. i mean i can always throw the contract right back at them, but its not the best way to deal with the situation..

any thoughts are greatly appreciated

Pete, you are simply overextending yourself and you are at that point in a business where you have to find some part of the process that you can bring in someone to help with or....cut back on the number of jobs that you book.

It's great that you have a good reputation on the quality of your work, but people won't wait forever (myself included) for their process deliverables. You may have yourself covered contractually, but word of mouth has made you successful but it can also take you down if your customers become restless and unruly.

File it under 'growing pains' for your business. At the very least, you should be able to scan your footage and create an EDL for some hungry kid to log and capture from after you show them how.

jmho,

-gb-

[Peter Jefferson]

thx for that Greg, i guess another thing which caused delays was that over teh peak season (Feb and March) virtually no editing was possible, simply due to the organising of all teh shoots.. (at least one a week and 2 on every other week)

i mean that in itself is 2 months gone like that.. and for me, i might be flat out, but my clients arent.. and think "hey woudlnt it be nice to see our video.. lets go hassle our video guy.. and the strange thing is is that theyre not nice about it.. even general "hows it all going" kinda stuff... alot of them dont see that I service more than just one customer.. and most of them dont realise that as an example, it might take me 10 days from start to finish to do one job.. but in one month, i might do 7 job.. now when u consider that LAST job, it could take me at least 70 days to get to it... so already were looking at over 2 months..
At this time, im recovering froma serious illness and these people dont care, and i can se where theyre comng from, but in the end, all i want is to be left alone to do the work, and thats never gonna happen.. i mean im even lookign at jumping into stills coz i cant handle this negativity anymore...

I dunno anymore.. i mean i cant not take on more work, as i gota make a living, but ive changed my packages to suit the current trend, but even with that, its a trial over the winter season and i dunno how feasable that would be..

being told that "they all complain" was something i should have kept an ear out for....

[Craig Seeman]

Hi Peter, I'm highly sympathetic to your situation. I've been in it too although it seems I've got more understanding wedding clients.

I let the potential wedding clients know that I do corporate work and local TV spots too. The advantage to them is that my diverse background means they get someone with a more diverse shooting aesthetic that other wedding videographers (that's the sales pitch to soften the "downside").

I also tell them that the diverse client base allows me to charge a bit less for weddings ("translation" the higher paying work can interrupt their's). I also include a turnaround time in the contract. I had a bad habit of underestimating that.

It generally takes me about a week to edit a wedding so I thought four weeks turnaround would give me breathing room for other corporate and/or wedding work. Ooops! Not enought time!

What were my solutions?

• Increase turnaround time in my wedding contracts with something like "up to 12 weeks" and I let them know it may be sooner though.

• If I'm going to be late (never really more than an additional 4-6 weeks later) I offer them an extra DVD or two no charge. They feel they're getting gold even though it might only an hour or so to burn an label.

• If my sched. looks like it's getting full I try to take on/sell a few more "raw video" weddings. That keeps the income up relative to the hours. This takes care of the ironic quirk that editing is undervalued (and probably why you're thinking of moving to stills). The raw video wedding usually takes a day to input and a day or so to "clean up" (I do that much and maybe add a few dissolves for a scenic intro). I can charge 50%-60% my rate and 5-7 days of work is down to about 2 days. Think like a still photog. Shoot nice edit little! Actually for that very reason I do NOT go "overboard" with my editing. I don't do photo montages or some of the other time consuming (and IMHO unprofitable) stuff. The heavier motion graphics is for those paying my corporate rate. If a wedding client is looking for that (I do sometimes show them my corporate and spot demos) then they're going to pay much more.

I have much more to say about the wedding video business and how most WAY UNDERCHARGE relative to the work (I'll save that for another post as this has been a long one). I will say this: Many wedding video clients are quite happy with good shooting and simple editing (sans heavy fx work). While the demo might not win a WEVA award you'll make more per hour even if you charge less per wedding.

Hope this helps

Craig

[Steve House]

I have to take a contrarian view, Peter. The customer is not an interuption of your business --- the customer IS your business. You are not in business to make videos, wedding or otherwise. You are in business to make the customer happy and providing good customer service is the sole reason you exist. Your products, videos, are simply a means to achieving that end and their satisfaction is what they're paying you for, NOT the physical product of the video. The amateur makes videos, the professional services a client.

Good customer service means that each client must feel that they are the most important thing in your life and they take a second seat to no other client of yours, whether those other clients are other wedding customers or are corporate and commercial accounts. My money has exactly the same colour as that from Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe ad agency. How would you feel if you approached a business with cash in hand seeking to purchase a service and were told "Thanks for your deposit, we'll take care of you when we feel like it?" That's essentially what you've said you tell your wedding clients. Were I the client I wouldn't stand for someone saying delivery depends on our other business - it's up to you to plan your workflow so you can deliver on good customer service to ALL your clients and not take on those whom you can't service properly. I feel once you've made a committment to me you should not take on other business if it'll interfere with it. (I have that situation in reverse in my personal life right now - I have one client who pays half of the day rate my other clients pay - but if I commit to a day for client Low-pay and then get a request from one of the others for the same day, I do NOT cancel the first to go with the other - honoring one's commitments trumps earning extra money.) If I'm hiring someone to do a service or provide a custom product, I want to hear "We normally deliver in 8 to 10 weeks and guarantee delivery within 12 weeks" or some such specific schedule. Then it's up to me to decide if your delivery time is acceptable or if I need to look elsewhere. But I'd never go with someone that says "We'll do your work when we get around to it and you're not as important to us as our other [fill in the blank] kinds of clients."

You've said you can't afford to hire editing help. That just tells me you're not charging enough for your services operating at your volume of business. If you're good enough to service corporate and commercial accounts, you're good enough to charge so you net the same ROI on your wedding clients. The cost of doing business is the cost of doing the job right and that includes a reasonable turnaround time. You total up the costs, including the cost of employees or freelancers, add your required profit, and that becomes your rates. You might price yourself out of the bargain basement market but then again you might well find your income goes up even with fewer clients. It boils down to either hiring help or declining certain clients to control your workload.

[Peter Jefferson]

thanks for that Craig.. teh "wording" of how you do things seems to be an elegant way to put it, as opposed to my technique of hiting them with as much info as possible..

I do have a turnaround time, and i tell tehm its approximately 14 to 18 weeks on average, and al this is dependant on seasonal trends and studio workload.
Most are good with this, and go for it, but then there are the others who just cant fathom the thought of me having to service other people before them.

What gets my goat is that here in Aus, there is virtually no respect for video UNTIL the product is recieved and its of a super high calibre. There already exists a negative stigma to the format and techniques used by the predeccors in the industry, and to this day, there are may business who still operate in this tacky way... which is why theres only about 15% of weddings here in aus which are video'd
Thing is, is that ive been doing this for quite afew years, with a corporate background which led me to where i am today and even with that, after al this time, i still dont understand the reasoning behind peoples negative attitude to video... its as if they EXPECT something to go wrong and jump at the first opportunity...

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

t...

I do have a turnaround time, and i tell tehm its approximately 14 to 18 weeks on average, and al this is dependant on seasonal trends and studio workload.
Most are good with this, and go for it, but then there are the others who just cant fathom the thought of me having to service other people before them.

...

See my above post. Why in the world are you suprised that somone planning what to them is a very important event and offering to give you a signifigant amount of their money would be upset at being told they're needs are insignifigant? That's what you're telling them when you tell them that your other clients must come first. As new corporate business comes in do you just keep pushing the wedding client's work onto the back burner? Is there a time when you say "We have to get this out" even if it means turning down a corporate booking? As a consumer, my business takes priority over any clients that come to you after I do regardless of who they are or how much they're paying. Once you accept my business, that's it, engraved in granite, and I expect you to make my project priority one before any subsequent new business that might come in to you.

[James Emory]

I would have to agree completely with Steve. Your reputation is all you have and paying customers are the reason your business exists no matter who they are. I totally understand what you are experiencing because we all have to deal with this crap all the time. But you chose to be in this business and what comes along with it. It's not the customer's fault what you choose to charge for your services and that should not be thrown up to them. I understand how frustrating it is but I don't think yours or anyone's like it is the right attitude. You need to either raise your rates to match your expected level of product or service by adapting transparently to these demands or find something else to do. But you shouldn't take it out on the customer. They are simply coming to you under the terms that you offered and then being treated substandard by being put second to higher paying projects. That's not good business. I would turn away business before I took on a load more than I could handle. There's nothing worse than a bad reputation for crappy service. I would much rather be remembered or noted as not being able to do it to maintain a level of service than by not being able to deliver an advertised level of service because of an inability to handle the load or worse putting lower paying projects at the bottom of the pile. I don't do weddings mostly because I don't like to but the other main reason is because of the low pay and high expectations from the clients. Of course everyone wants the best but if you can't pay the rates then you don't get it. This eliminates the customer base that makes the work load compared to the pay not worth the effort. In other words the problem just goes away and you are left with clients that pay your rate. I know that you know this, but there's one very important thing to remember about consumers. They are spoiled rotten by other products and services that are easy and cheap to get because they are sold in volum. Therefore they kind of expect everything to be that way. Like I said though, if you price yourself above that customer level, it will go away. My view is that if the workload exceeds the value of the rates, then it's time to find another career. Not you or anyone else will ever be able to change the way consumers think or spend.

[Craig Seeman]

Hi Peter, No hostility or philosophy lessons about "customer service" here. Reality is we have to make living and we'd like to enjoy what we do too. I don't chop off body parts for my customers. It affects my future ability to serve them. Keep in mind I do both weddings and corporate work just as Peter does and face the same juggle so I'm offering how I handle lower priced weddings and higher priced corporate work.

Here's an analogy that works for me.
Some people here are describing the gourmet restaurant. The waiter takes your order, brings you food, offers you the wine taste and the customer is always right and if the meal needs to go back and get fixed some, you do it.

Some would say if you priced too low and/or offer too much you should just take it on the chin even though you have another restaurant next door that offers the same gourmet meal to customers paying a higher price.

Alas your chin is bruised and your not doing either client right. You end up serving the folks in the higher priced restaurant first even if the high service lower priced restaurant customer ordered their food first. You could do first come first serve (as some seem to say here) and you work just as hard and make less money. The higher priced clients have really subsidized the lower clients. The lower paying client should appreciate it but they don't. You need to fix that part.

The Alternative!
You have your higher priced restaurant and you have "McJefferson's." At McJeffersons they get no waiter service. They get the food at the counter. It's FAST FOOD. Now high faluten philosphers might look down on such a meal. It's really not bad at all. It's the One Dollar Happy meal. It's tasty. People like their one dollar me. It's TASTY FAST FOOD, NOT BAD TASTING FOOD. McJefferson's serves billions and dies a very rich man. Of course he made a good farthing serving the higher end customer in the other restaurant. Different clients. Different market. Different price. BOTH HAPPY.

Folks, before you pick this apart, I'm hopping you see the point. You don't have to serve all customers the same way, nor deliver the same product. You target your two markets differently and don't be embarrased about McJefferson's. It might not win gourmet awards but it's quite profitable and doesn't burn you out. You still have your high class service for the high paying clients.

You don't have to treat wedding clients the same as corporate clients.
You do need to be honest to your wedding clients what you're offering them and that will relieve your stress.
It does not mean the wedding clients are "second class." They are the fast food class. They get the meal with simple tasty ingredients.

The issue is that unless you're getting rarified top end wedding clients paying $5000 a wedding (or whatever), wedding clients generally pay less than corporate clients.

You DON'T have to serve them equally. You DO have to market them DIFFERENT products though.

Keep your camera work nice and your editing simple for the wedding clients. Do the "raw video" wedding clients when you can to keep the income proportional to the work. With the right marketing and approach you can keep both sets of clients happy.

My "raw video" (low budget sushi, steak tartar?) weddings get a reasonably fast turn around. For the edited weddings . . . while a week of wedding work and a week of corporate work takes the same amount of time, I can charge the wedding client LESS for a week of work because the delivery deadlines are longer than the corporate deadlines. Wedding edits fill in the days not booked by corporate work. I don't explain it that way but I do let them know that because I do corporate work I can charge less for my wedding work. The clients usually understand what that means.

Folks, keep in mind Peter started the thread saying that people DON'T read the contracts. It's not that Peter isn't being honest with them. Maybe he needs to make it clearer verbally. Maybe Peter needs to offer a faster simpler option for clients who want fast delivery (fast food). And as I mentioned before, if they grumble, ask them to be patient and let them know you'll reward them with an extra DVD (or a few).

[James Emory]

Craig, I totally agree with your comparison too. And yes, I also think Peter is right about the contract no matter what it says, those are the terms. Those dumbasses need to read it carefully before proceeding. Another point about spoiled consumers though is that they don't read contracts like business people do. Hahaha! I totally understand his point about the frustration of them not reading it and then complaining later. I mean, what else can he do, beat it into them? That's why I said if it was too much of an effort to enforce those terms and to make a decent return, I would have to find something else to do. Consumer level work and retail is a headache no matter how you look at it because of their expectations. I still say that the priority should be transparent as much as possible and not thrown at them. If you are that far behind, then either hire some temporary help like retail stores do during the holidays or don't overextend yourself.

[Craig Seeman]

James, being a "hybrid" is a strange place to be in. There are wedding videographers. Some are full or part time but that's the only video work they do. Then there are the corporate videographers. Alas there are a few of us hybrid vehicles like Peter and I.

You have to keep reminding yourself that the consumer isn't going to have the same understanding of contract as the corporate client. For consumers, contracts are to be feared or ignored. They close their eyes and click on "Agree" just like they do with software packages and web pages . . . cause they simply want the product.

Corporate clients will read it, ask questions, ask to tweak things, etc.

As a hybrid you have to keep remembering to "reinforce" bits of information to the consumer side of the biz. Ya, they still don't remember. I've had that too. I have a few stories on that but they did have happy endings.

Hiring temp help can be a scary thing for a mom and pop. So much reputation on the line. For me, it's how to handle/prevent overextending yourself. If you see the work mounting you change a couple of things in your marketing. I focus a bit more on the "raw video" weddings. If I got an edited wedding or a multicam wedding I fit them in by making a longer time for the finished product. Unless they've seen the contracts for your other wedding clients, or you do something like a have detailed contract with standard delivery times on your website, you can buy yourself more time. You still might miss the deadline but the client only thinks you're two weeks late and not six weeks. That standard delivery time contract on the website is for the full time wedding videographer, not for us hybrids.

Heck, it hasn't been an easy lesson for me to learn either. My wife and fellow videographer keeps telling me when it comes to wedding video that I either have to raise my prices or edit less. As I think Peter has noted in some of his posts, wedding clients (consumers as you aptly put it James) tend to want prices lower so the answer is do less editing. That doesn't mean do a bad job. It's just no frills. I'll probably never win any WEVA awards. When it comes to weddings I opt to be the tasty fast food place. Yes you can make money that way.

I see some of the wedding video demos posted on other parts of the forum and say, gee I should aspire to great things. Then I slap myself in the face and say don't be a fool. That's not my market reality . . . not if I'm a hybrid and need flexibility to do the corporate work and have time to sleep and have an occasional weekend. While I haven't posted any of my demos in the wedding forum . . . I'm not trying for that market or doing that much work for the rates my wedding clients pay, I'm showing my demos to my potential wedding clients and getting booked. There's certainly enough fast food millionaires who've proven that business model can work.

[James Emory]

Craig, I'm on your side because I am a hybrid too. I just stopped doing weddings a few years ago because I don't like them. I do corporate work too. But I am fortunate to mostly do broadcast or entertainment work more than anything else. I totally agree about the volume business model by working on more smaller projects and having a steady income instead of a few large ones. But that depends on what the work is and this isn't like a widget that a machine can stamp out 1000s of every minute. This is time consuming work, not satifisfying to me as far as content, and the pay just isn't enough, at least in my area, for the gear expense and labor involved. Read what I said in the thread below. I have alot of respect for those that do alot of wedding shoots or do it full time. I will probably be shooting an episode of A Wedding Story for TLC in May. YUK! But I guarantee I won't like it because of the content, money or not, and I don't even have to edit it. Whether I like it or not, I always to the best job that I can. That is never sacrificed.

www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=49012

[Steve House]

Craig - there's only one area where you fast food analogy breaks down and that is in customer service itself. Your economy retaurant can offer lower cost meals by way of a number of compromises - less opulent decore, pre-packaged entrees, short-order menu, no entertainment, etc etc etc. But if it is to be a success it must never stoop to indifferent customer service.

There's precedent to you restaurant concept by the way. In my home town many years ago there were two restaurants in the same building and with the same owners. One was upscale and called the "Scotch & Sirloin." The other was more budget fare and called the "Beef 'n Booze."

[Craig Seeman]

Customer service. Yes, that's why I mention doing things like offering "free extra dvds" if you're going to be late on a project. No frills should not be poor service.

BTW one of the things I bump into, very much like waiter service, is clients who want/demand hand delivered dubs. I'll do that for my higher paying clients. I get budget clients who ask for that too after the fact. My offer is that I'll do it when in the area if they meet me (they may wait a few days) or they can come buy and pick it up. I'm polite but explain why I can't do it when budget clients ask for this.

BTW I think the whole "Days Inn," "Comfort Inn," is also a broad example of multi tiered service markets.

I think if people who do video work think this way they can find ways to make both lower and higher paying clients fit into a profitable business model.

Sure we'd love to have all higher paying clients and work fewer hours for more dollars but many of us know we need the lower paying clients to fill the hours and keep income coming in between those rarer higher paying clients. The trick is not to let the lower paying client "demands" push out your time for the higher paying clients. It's important to come up with a model where both can get serviced within their price range. You can't do that if everyone is getting "waiter" service. You have to make a "budget tasty meal."

Originally Posted by Steve House

Craig - there's only one area where you fast food analogy breaks down and that is in customer service itself. Your economy retaurant can offer lower cost meals by way of a number of compromises - less opulent decore, pre-packaged entrees, short-order menu, no entertainment, etc etc etc. But if it is to be a success it must never stoop to indifferent customer service.

There's precedent to you restaurant concept by the way. In my home town many years ago there were two restaurants in the same building and with the same owners. One was upscale and called the "Scotch & Sirloin." The other was more budget fare and called the "Beef 'n Booze."

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Craig Seeman

Customer service.....

Sure we'd love to have all higher paying clients and work fewer hours for more dollars but many of us know we need the lower paying clients to fill the hours and keep income coming in between those rarer higher paying clients. The trick is not to let the lower paying client "demands" push out your time for the higher paying clients. It's important to come up with a model where both can get serviced within their price range. You can't do that if everyone is getting "waiter" service. You have to make a "budget tasty meal."

I'm not sure I'd agree with all of this. The budget client may get 10 hours of editing while the higher ticket client may get 50 hours. But the budget client's work should not be deferred if a higher ticket client comes in the door later - you do the work in the order it was booked with you and take care of the budget's 10 hours, get it delivered, and then start on the high-roller's project. Of course they may be exceptions for emergency, there needs to be some flexibility, but price should determine the quantity of services they receive, not the quality.