Shizucor

I’m a little bummed this evening. One of my mom’s friends wanted a business card for her business. My mom of course suggested that she talk to me and so she did. I just finished the roughs for the cards and sent an estimate (mistake #2). I just got a reply from the client saying that she wanted to postpone the project because she can not afford (!!) my services at the moment. I did not want to halt this project for the following reasons:

1. Spring semester for college is starting up again in a few weeks.
2. With spring semester comes a major web project for an organization. I’ve allowed myself only one project per semester so I’d like to focus on the website rather than the business cards.

And so, I decided to (greatly) reduce my rate and changed from an hourly rate to a flat fee. She would still have to reimburse me for the stock image and for the business cards to be printed. I think the price I chose should be affordable enough for her. I know professional freelancers will definitely say not to do this but I can afford to do this. To be honest, I don’t need the money. I have a full time job to pay the bills. What I really want out of this is experience. Anyway, I’m now awaiting a response from her. I sure hope she accepts my offer!

After thinking about what I was going to do about this situation, I realized I made a couple of mistakes:

1. I didn’t have her fill out a creative brief worksheet which would have given me pertinent information about her business. Right now, all I know is that she does alterations and creates custom bridal and formal apparel. I think the reason why I didn’t have her do this is because she wanted to get it done as soon as possible and so I didn’t want to halt the process (d’oh!). Plus, she doesn’t do a very good job of reading her e-mails on a daily basis.
2. I didn’t send her an estimate before I started on the project. I did tell her how much I charged per hour but she didn’t realize it would take a certain amount of time. I also asked her if she had a budget but she didn’t give any numbers. I did send her an estimate but only after I had begun working on the project.

In conclusion, never begin a project unless you have received a completed design brief and the estimate has been approved by the client. If these things aren’t done, surprises come up that may hurt your business or could make the process of designing more difficult and time consuming. I already knew these things but I guess I had to get burned to truly know that the oven is hot! :-)

If any freelancers happen to read this, please give me your two cents!