It seems to occur on a daily basis. The quote request. It starts with the unfamiliar “ding” of your annoyingly slow Intel Mac’s Mail program. Followed by a brief moment of excitement as you read the title of the email. “Photography needed”. A million things run through your head, usually in this order of importance.
1)Wow, what a great contact, they must have liked my previous work
2)This sounds like an interesting job; I think I’d enjoy this one.
Ending in….
3)Awesome, I can pay my bills this month
You drop everything you’re doing, and in some cases fade out of a one -on-one conversation that you completely forgot you were a part of. As you wait for your annoyingly–slow Intel Mac to open Microsoft Word, you manage to mumble an apology to your recently forgotten convo-mate, and begin your quote.
Click, convert to PDF, and send. Here comes the hard part, the waiting. In a perfect world, you’d hear back the same day (and believe me, it can happen and it has), but we’re not in a perfect world; we’re in a world filled with money-grubbing advertising executives, that aren’t happy with their 40% profit on their contract proposals. Heaven forbid that they’re not content with only making $45,000, they feel it necessary to perform the “+1.”
What is a “+1” you ask? Simple. Let’s say you submit a heavily detailed quote of $6,540, the following things happen…
1)“Ed” the ad executive does NOT read your detailed information pertaining to your quote.
2)“Ed” the ad executive will read only the bottom line, the final price. Oh, he might even take an extra second to read the sub-total, so he can work around the taxes
3)“Ed” the dick, will perform the now infamous “+1” where he will round up the sub-total to the nearest zero.
$6,450 now becomes an oddly even and suspicious looking $10,000 for photography
$10,000 for photography? Isn’t that kind of a strangely round number? Almost like the photographer didn’t spend a good 20 minutes of his day providing “Ed”, the dick, with a detailed quote? Almost like the photographer just threw out a number, not caring if he got the job or not? So what does the client do? Takes out the Sharpie, and crosses the photography off the quote, thinking “$10k? We can get it cheaper then that”.
So, what’s occurred? The following…
1)“Ed” the cockroach, has sacrificed you earning $6,450, for him to have an opportunity to make a measly $3,000 more.
2)“Ed” the scab-picking arse, doesn’t realize that the client now thinks less of him, for sourcing such a half-assed photography quote of “$10k”
3)“Ed” the BMW driving, suit wearing, self-proclaimed mastermind will be incapable of wrapping his brain around a good reason why they refused the photography.
4) So, “Ed” the plaid sock wearing creep, writes the infamous email….
“Dear Photographer, Unfortunately the client has refused the photography portion of our quote, have a nice day.”
Indeed, have a nice day, %&$*.
