I got an email a few months ago from a client we had done work with a few years ago. It’s always nice to get these emails out of the blue. They had a project and wanted to have us get a bid to them. Multiple days, travel, animations, sound design, right up our alley.
Now the dreaded question I have learned to ask…budget. They said they didn’t have one, ugh here we go. Sidenote: everyone has a budget and trust me, they just haven’t taken the time to really think everything through.
On our call I gave them a rough range of what they were describing. No real numbers at that point, but after doing this for so long I have a good feel for where things would end up. A little while later I heard back and they said that they found another company that could do it for what they had in their budget.
Now regardless of what they eventually told me what their budget was, we had two good options. Present them with a detailed bid of what it would take for us to do the job, or pass on the job but give them a few referrals of people who I know could crush it for them. Either way they get the project done and none of us burn a bunch of time going back and forth on something that was never going to work. Taking care of your clients sometimes means you don’t get every job, but it’s about looking out for them. I’d gladly recommend someone I know who would be a great fit for the project as a way to look out for the client and pass work onto a friend of mine.
I’ll be honest, learning to say “no” took quite a while for me. Early in your career you tend to say yes to everything. It’s a great way to learn and to find out what you want to do, but more importantly, what you DON’T want to do. Take weddings. I shot a few early on and found out really quickly that it wasn't for me. I will never shoot another wedding. Ever. Ever. Ever. That ship has sailed!
These days the jobs I pass on aren’t necessarily the ones I haven’t done, but are the ones I have done too many times. Hundreds of skews on white for e-comm, or jobs where the budget just isn’t there to cover everything. If we said yes to some of these, it would be a disservice to both of us. We can’t stay viable as a business and the client ends up with something less that what they saw in our portfolios because we couldn’t bring together the crew needed to pull it off. They expect that level of quality and not matter what, and they should.
Thankfully we don’t have to pass on many jobs, but when we do I try to be useful about it. Like I mentioned before, if I can pass the job onto a friend I know would crush it, then I’m more than happy to do that. The client gets their project done, and they also remember someone was looking out for them. Sometimes saying no can be the reason we get to say next on the next one.
All of this is no different than going to the grocery store. Whatever is in the cart at checkout is going to cost what it costs. If there’s $150 worth of groceries and you have $100, then you gotta put $50 back on the shelves.
Here’s the thing. Deliverables and crew can be adjusted to fit the budget. I have a great network of crew that I call on for the projects we do that I have built over the years. We come together for each project and the size of the crew is based on the project's demands and budget, not the other way around. One we wrap everyone is off to the next job which means I’m not carrying payroll on days that we don’t shoot. That focused approach is the reason we can take jobs of different sizes. It also keeps all of us sharp. They work on other productions, see new things and then bring that back to the next job.
What stays in the “cart”? Day rates for myself and crew, thats what pays the people who make the work worth paying for. Once you start cutting that, you cut the quality of the work and that quality is what drives the sales the work is supposed to make. I’ve had plenty of clients come to me after the fact and express how great the work we did was doing to provide instant ROI and the production had already paid for itself. That’s what happens when you have the right people as part of your production.
I’ve had clients spend $40k+ on productions for years and then have someone higher up at the company cut budgets. I get it, these things happen and it’s largely out of my control or who is hiring me. Unfortunately during these times the content needs don’t change. So we change the scope, crew size and deliverables. I even had one job where I reduced some post-production rates to get them to the goal line. Day rates for everyone stayed the same, but I knew I was going to lose some revenue. This was a one time thing for a client that had been with me for quite a while, but after that rates would be back to normal. They did and now we were even able to raise some rates.
We don’t do coupons or discounts, but in this case this client had proven themselves and a good client who hits an unforeseen wall isn’t worth losing over a few hundred bucks.
I don’t care if the job is $1000 or $100,000, it’s the principle that a client has trusted us with the budget they have. Most of the time, whoever has directly hired us has someone to report to on how it got spent. This is something we take seriously on each job and I’m grateful for each one. The care that is given to each job is the same no matter what the final invoice looks like.
If there was anything I could tell a client looking to hire us, it would be to do some homework before you call us. Come with your idea, what you need it to accomplish and at least a ballpark of what you have to spend. We don’t need exact numbers to start but be realistic in what you are able to spend. No, we can’t go to Alaska with a whole crew for 2 weeks for $5k! How we would approach your project in those initial conversations will tell you more than a 3 bid ever will.
The more prepared you are makes us understand the scope much faster in that initial call. This matters more than most people realize. There are a ton of tools out there to help with productions and AI is just part of that. But we are still human, and humans need time to process, come up with great ideas and know how they are going to solve problems and execute the job.
Now don’t think this is necessarily a long drawn out process. I’ve had times where a call on Monday means we are on location a week later and executing the brief. It can be a bit of a goat roping at times, but we can, and have , made it happen. (I actually LOVE these kinds of jobs!)
At the end of the day, this is a business, a hell of a fun one, but still business. I want to work on your job, and the next one, and the one a year from now, but the scope and vision of the project needs to match the budget. Otherwise we won’t be around to work with you on the next one.
So let’s bring ideas to life and make work we all know is worth making.