Explaining a hike in cost

[WarrenG]

Holly, well said, not every situation would be typical... Oh and I was someone who took one of your workshops several years ago, but I know we did not talk about pricing

[d2creative]

Originally Posted by WarrenG

Wow, I am pretty shocked at some of the responses. I took this as an "ongoing assignment" situation (say an agency or pr group). When I get called for a job from one of them, they pretty much know what my rate is, and have a decent idea of what I will charge for the assignment. If I suddenly said I was charging 600.00 more, they would most certainly ask why I had increased my prices.

While I see Holly's point about "explanations", I cannot agree that by giving the client an "explanation" it equates to trying to justify ones self? I also cannot see how that reflects a "screwup" in the work?

Now, I can see if someone underbid due to inexperience, and then tried to get an adder for the work. But if an assignment is normally X, and then winds up being Y, I have no problem stating to the client (on the next job) that the last project was really a lot bigger in scope then the ones you normally send us out to do. If we have another like that I will need to charge some more.

Now, as I sit here typing this... I guess I can see some of the perspectives here if it was a job you did once or twice a year? I guess I was really speaking from the perspective of commercial, corporate, or editorial type work where you are doing a fair amount of volume with them. I mean, I have pretty good relationships established with those clients, so I would not hesitate to explain why I needed to charge more, and I would not be worried that they felt I had messed up. In fact, if I didn't explain, I might not be on that call list for the next assignment.

Just my .02 cents

Warren, you were correct...this is pretty much where I am coming from... except the job i underbid was my first job for this particular client which was the reason for the screw up. The job ended up progressing much differently than i am used to with other clients. The time passed has only been a few weeks.

Thanks for the discussion everyone.
Lots of good points from all sides. I believe I will be able to take a little bit from each. :)

[dmcantrell]

This has been a good read.

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by WarrenG

Holly, well said, not every situation would be typical... Oh and I was someone who took one of your workshops several years ago, but I know we did not talk about pricing

lol. Thats fun! Thought you looked familiar!

I'm around photogs a lot - b/t workshops, guilds, interns, and what have you, & price is something that comes up over and over again. Its one of the hardest parts of the business, imho. That and selling. Which are tied together. But thats another thread, workshop, really really looooooong post. ha ha.