Art, money, intangibles
I guess we all like to get our egos stroked and feel appreciated, even if the more savvy clients try to use that en lieu of money. I'll try to give you an example or two:
My longest running client has ,generally speaking, been a lot of fun to work with and paid me reasonably well over the years. Our last job was a major piece of work, full of good gags and good design and drawing by moi. I put untold hours into it, and was paid $2300, and gave explicit instructions to the printer, the most important one being that I had to view a printer's proof of the job before it went to press. My instructions were ignored, no printer's proof was provided for me, and the end result was a disaster as far as I'm concerned, as someone decided that it would be just fine to compress the major image into a proportion for which it was not structured. I felt demoralized and disrespected.
After that, we compounded the hurt when I spent a few hours attempting to come up with ideas for either Halloween or Thanksgiving, all of which were rejected by my client withouut his giving any positive feedback of any kind for me to work with. I didn't feel too great about that either. Now, he's given me an idea for an end of year card, and my enthusiasm level is below that of a person being offered the chance to be dragged along side a moving automobile by the scruff of their neck on a dirt road. With spikes in the road. I want the income, but I want to feel appreciated too. Oh, I forgot to mention that for some three years now, my client has been talking about photographing the best of the many pieces I've done for him, putting it on his website, and linking his site to mine. It has yet to happen.
On the other hand, I just completed a job for a corporation that went as nicely as it could, with my two clients there repeatedly expressing their excitement over the design. They will pay me reasonably well too, but I feel so much better about the way they are conducting themselves, that I'd run through a brick wall for them, and have done all I could to ensure the job coming out well by taking it to my photographer and giving him instructions. I hope to someday work for them again, and appreciate their feedback.
It's not all about money, although that is a big part of it. A well timed compliment, or even minor apology can work wonders too.
My longest running client has ,generally speaking, been a lot of fun to work with and paid me reasonably well over the years. Our last job was a major piece of work, full of good gags and good design and drawing by moi. I put untold hours into it, and was paid $2300, and gave explicit instructions to the printer, the most important one being that I had to view a printer's proof of the job before it went to press. My instructions were ignored, no printer's proof was provided for me, and the end result was a disaster as far as I'm concerned, as someone decided that it would be just fine to compress the major image into a proportion for which it was not structured. I felt demoralized and disrespected.
After that, we compounded the hurt when I spent a few hours attempting to come up with ideas for either Halloween or Thanksgiving, all of which were rejected by my client withouut his giving any positive feedback of any kind for me to work with. I didn't feel too great about that either. Now, he's given me an idea for an end of year card, and my enthusiasm level is below that of a person being offered the chance to be dragged along side a moving automobile by the scruff of their neck on a dirt road. With spikes in the road. I want the income, but I want to feel appreciated too. Oh, I forgot to mention that for some three years now, my client has been talking about photographing the best of the many pieces I've done for him, putting it on his website, and linking his site to mine. It has yet to happen.
On the other hand, I just completed a job for a corporation that went as nicely as it could, with my two clients there repeatedly expressing their excitement over the design. They will pay me reasonably well too, but I feel so much better about the way they are conducting themselves, that I'd run through a brick wall for them, and have done all I could to ensure the job coming out well by taking it to my photographer and giving him instructions. I hope to someday work for them again, and appreciate their feedback.
It's not all about money, although that is a big part of it. A well timed compliment, or even minor apology can work wonders too.
posted by Rich Sigberman at
8:41 AM
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