In an earlier post discussing who benefits from a publication, I coined the phrase "the benefit principle."
Simply put, the person or organization who commissions a project, benefits from it, and should pay all costs of its creation and publication.
A designer's fee structure is basically a construct designed to give a client a fair way of controlling project costs, while ensuring that the designer gets paid fairly for his work. A meeting with someone who has not yet become a client falls under the umbrella of a sales call and is not billable. A meeting to discuss a flat-fee project may not be advertised as billable, but the smart (and fair-minded) designer will make sure that the flat fee covers the labor involved in the meeting.
By the same token, a meeting held at the beginning of a project, for which the designer is being paid by the hour, should be billed at the same hourly rate as the rest of the project (or at the same hourly rate that is charged for meetings, if this rate is different from what the designer charges for design or production work).
All sorts of unreasonable things can happen if a designer doesn't charge for initial meetings. First, a client can commission a project and then change his mind, thus forcing the designer to have wasted the meeting time without getting paid at all. Second, clients can get very casual about wasting a designer's time, asking designers to meet with them for an hour for a two-hour project, for example. Both of these phenomena can result in a designer spending an awful lot of time chasing meetings and very little time being paid.
A designer's time is valuable, and a client needs to understand this going into a project. My suggestion (which of course I have implemented only very rarely) is to send a letter out at the beginning of a new business relationship, explaining how your fees are structured. If you haven't done this, as most of us don't, at least, for your own sake, do include the time you've spent in the meeting as part of the hours you bill for at the end of the project.
Otherwise, just stay home!
Excellent points! Thank you so much, Naomi, for answering this question. I wonder if it would make sense to post a general statement about fees on one's website, including the fact that initial meetings incur the same rate. That way one can just link to the information in an initial e-mail. Might be less awkward than sending a letter?
ReplyDeleteVery good point, Ann. I think it would be a great idea to clarify at least your policies, if not your fees, on your website. (Some design firms legitimately have different fee structures for different clients, so publishing one's fees can get awkward, to use your word).
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think as designers, we should never feel embarrassed or awkward about laying down the rules at the beginning of a business relationship. If we can't say up-front that a client will pay for certain things, we are certainly not going to have an easy time invoicing the client for them later. Publishing a set of policies on your website and directing a client to view it is fine, but when you send a client a letter, the client really "gets it" that "this means you."
Payment policies and trade practices are the rules of engagement of any business relationship. A commitment to educate a client about what those policies and practices are speaks well of a design firm. Don't worry about antagonizing a client by setting out the rules - most customers will appreciate your directness, and (perhaps more important to you) will follow the rules.