Do you charge clients for preepress re-design?

[Packin'JP]

HAHAhaaa Rubylith. That stuff smoldered and smokes up a storm !!
I remember the strippers used to crumple it and light that shit up and throw it into the darkroom and lock the door shut. The camera man used to freak out!!

AHHHH GOOD TIMES.....

 

[maas]

Thanks for prompting me to remember the experieces from my apprentiship days........i still have my original tool kit somewhere full of chinagraphs, whale bone, a pinbar or two and self adhesive regestration targets...... days were spend cleaning Pakonolith processors and at lunch we were busy trying to get an old klischograph back to life, when you used to wrap Rubylith around your tradesman's car exhaust and try contain your chuckle as he drove of home after work.

regards
Maas

 

[rich apollo]

Does not charging for a service devalue the service?

Are there options other than:

1) calculate your costs and what you want/need to make in excess of those costs and stick to that

or

2) identify the value to the customer of the service(s) you provide, and charge accordingly

or

3) what the market will bear?

 

[Packin'JP]

We build in a minimum sys time of up to a 1/2hr sys time for corrections of sloppy or bad artwork into the job. After that we give them the option of fixing it or we do it @ $100.00 an hour.

We keep in mind that if we touch something or alter the file not to the clients liking, we are most likely going to be responsible for a bad print job that can cost thousands !!!

 

[Stephen Marsh]

It is a testament to the “modern” printing industry that this topic thread ever took place.

(no offence intended in saying this)

Why has the manufacturing segment known as printing become so different to other manufacturing industries? Why has the value been lost?It can’t only be due to cost, client expectations and anybody owning MS Word or an Adobe product being a “designer”.


Stephen Marsh

 

[maas]

I am not sure if the manufacturing process has changed per se, certainly there are more media channels now than there ever were say 10 - 20 years ago with digital printing and social media etc so there is more competition in how a message is delivered to an audience, what in my opinion has been the biggest influence is the advent of desktop publishing where anyone can buy a computer and related software with the intent to produce files for print, there is no minimum standard by which a self employed designer is judged on delivering files for print as the focus is aesthetic, after all on export Adobe will do everything required by selecting the "high quality print" option from the drop down menu, so if there are any problems these are at the printers (as was explained to me once by a designer)

regards
Maas

 

[JimBob53]

Yes, Stephen,

People having the ability to 'design' their own project, and then, bring it to us and it looks beautiful when complete. They are then very proud of themselves. Not knowing the work that was done behind closed doors to correct the 'mess' they brought in and make it look good because if it looks bad it is a reflection on the PRINTER not the person who brought in the project.

So sad....

 

[Pitersen]

For me it doesn't depend on the client. If they do $500 worth of printing per year, they can go to Kinko's. And I hope they do because I can make quite a bit more money in the reclaimed time, and they'll probably like the "immediate" service better. If they do $50,000 worth of printing per year, we've discussed print-ready artwork.

That being said, it depends on how broken the artwork is. If I can fix it in 5 mins or less (which I generally can), it's fine. If one image is low-res and they can supply a high-res version of it, I can swap it out. Solid color background on a business card with no bleed? No big deal. Probably. Photoshop can be your friend

Time is much more valuable than money, and I can't afford to give mine away for free - time or money. I had a lady tell me a while back that her jobs couldn't be printed on an AB Dick because those can't produce high enough quality for her taste. I'm sure she'd do a decent volume of printing, but I don't have time for stupid people. Somebody support me on this one - maybe she's on this forum hahaha! Had a guy that needed to come "inspect" the color on digital prints to make sure it was right (which, of course, it never will be). I told him a color match is $35 if he provides the color, otherwise $90/hr. Guess what? He pays $90/hr. For his short runs, sometimes the "color match" fee exceeds the cost of the printing! None of the customers I don't want to lose mind paying a little more; they like me because of the exceptional service.

Bottom line? Same concept as you have with bad clients - charge yourself out of business. They'll stop wasting your time one way or another: either they go somewhere else or the get print-ready artwork. Either way, you win because your time is more valuable than their money. Customers can be replaced; hours can't.

I agree onwsk8r! I recently dropped my prices to print only mark. It made life easier for me. Now you have the design print ready, you get cheap, you don't - pay or go away.
Today I had a call from a take away owner he wants 1000 leaflets. I've asked him, if he has the design print ready for his leaflets and he say - yeah we used to print 1000 every two weeks there and there. OK, so he comes to my shop, and hands me over his leaflet, right? His printed leaflet and he say "I want exactly like that" I asked him for a disk or file, he doesn't have it. So, I said you will need to pay me to re-do it, ok? He said,"No I no pay, you do the same" and I'm boiling, the leaflet is a typical asian take away design with all the dragons and shivas on it, with around 300 menu items in very small print. I told him £1000 to re-design it and it worked, he buggered off. Sure, someone would say, hey he wants a 1000 every forthright, but it's only a 1000 and I don't know if he would ever come back. I rather, spend this time, designing FOC medical form for a hospital, it takes 30 minutes and prints 10,000 every month in B&W.

 

[KidBilly]

"Either way, you win because your time is more valuable than their money. Customers can be replaced; hours can't."

Go ahead and flame me for this, but this is one of the most depressing statements I have ever heard. Many replies on this thread have been customer bashing. People wonder why printing is getting "thin"? Customer service is gone and that makes me sad. The desire to help even the most stupid of people has long past. I have worked in printing (prepress) for 12 years and 3 print places. Maybe its time I move to a different field if there seems to be so many self-centered bitter printers out there.

 

[gordo]

"Either way, you win because your time is more valuable than their money. Customers can be replaced; hours can't."

Go ahead and flame me for this, but this is one of the most depressing statements I have ever heard. Many replies on this thread have been customer bashing. People wonder why printing is getting "thin"? Customer service is gone and that makes me sad. The desire to help even the most stupid of people has long past. I have worked in printing (prepress) for 12 years and 3 print places. Maybe its time I move to a different field if there seems to be so many self-centered bitter printers out there.

IMHO, printers tolerate and accommodate more than any other profession would as far as incoming production materials is concerned. But that's another post.

The problem is not new - you might be interested in this tidbit from my library - a short letter to the editor that appeared some 86 years ago on the topic of graphic arts training - it could have been written yesterday.

"Because I have recently declared in one of our daily papers that our system of art and graphic art education is wrong, I have been plunged, immersed, turned over and over, in hot water.

It is essential that the school of art must give the commercial artist the right preliminary training. And what should that be?

The first step is a change of outlook. It is critical that the student artist be taught that his skills must first of all serve the needs of commerce.

The next step towards making the complete commercial artist is to enable him to become thoroughly acquainted with the methods of production. One of the most serious defects in the present system is that students are pouring from the schools to join the army of work seekers and find themselves but ill-equipped to do the work they seek. Young artists who know nothing of the means by which their ideas have to be produced. It is not just now easy for them to obtain inside knowledge. Manufacturers are secretive - and often look on the creative artist with suspicion and even contempt.

The art masters, the students, the printers, and manufacturers must learn to understand each other and work together. Equip the student with the right point of view towards commerce, the right perspective, and the right technical training, and commercial art will attain new heights of achievement. And print manufacturers themselves will profit by this new relationship with the creative artist through more efficient production methods and happier results for all."

- Charles A. Farmer
- Published in Commercial Art First Series - 1923

 

[Pitersen]

"Either way, you win because your time is more valuable than their money. Customers can be replaced; hours can't."

Go ahead and flame me for this, but this is one of the most depressing statements I have ever heard. Many replies on this thread have been customer bashing. People wonder why printing is getting "thin"? Customer service is gone and that makes me sad. The desire to help even the most stupid of people has long past. I have worked in printing (prepress) for 12 years and 3 print places. Maybe its time I move to a different field if there seems to be so many self-centered bitter printers out there.

Unfortunately if you want your wages paid, that is what we have to do! Times changed very much, and printing went the same way as music industry. People used to get excited about hi-fi equipment vinyl & CD, depth of the sound etc, now everyone is listening to crappy mp3 from the crappy ipod. I remember when I was 16 and I was the only kid in the city who did the hot foil business cards. People were excited about having gold or silver lettering on their business cards. Now they want cheap shite.

 

[Stephen Marsh]

American Psycho: Business Card Scene - YouTube


Stephen Marsh

 

[dabob]

Ah Gordo . . . all I can say is

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME

Alphonse Karr - French novelist

 

[Alois Senefelder]

More "Dispatches"

More "Dispatches"

From a "Stone Age Man"

But, how many members can remember doing "Hand Transfers" onto prepared Stones?


Regards, Alois

 

[Possumgal]

American Psycho: Business Card Scene - YouTube


Stephen Marsh

Yes, yes, yes. I've told many people to watch this scene. Whatever happened to classy looking, understated business cards? Now they want them all to look like a page from a coloring book, and so busy you can't read them. White space? Fageddaboudit.

 

[JimBob53]

Yes, yes, yes. I've told many people to watch this scene. Whatever happened to classy looking, understated business cards? Now they want them all to look like a page from a coloring book, and so busy you can't read them. White space? Fageddaboudit.

What happened to business cards with a classy look! Too much hype of everything... bigger, bolder, more color, etc.

 

[Possumgal]

And a cheap color home inkjet printer fed by a bootlegged copy of Photoshop. Now business cards are a snap!

 

[JimBob53]

From a "Stone Age Man"

But, how many members can remember doing "Hand Transfers" onto prepared Stones?

Regards, Alois

I can! Does that mean I've been in printing too long? Or has printing just changed that much?

 

[Pitersen]

And a cheap color home inkjet printer fed by a bootlegged copy of Photoshop. Now business cards are a snap!

Just yesterday, when I was canvasing for business (yes people still do that), I walked into one TAXI firm and the guy said that he needs business cards. He showed me his card and it was printed not only on the inkjet printer but in a fast mode with the resolution about 75 dpi. He said, the guy from the "printing company" comes every month and prints him 5,000 cards for £20 ($30 approx.) so I've snapped his card and it was printed on approx. 200 gsm newsprint or a yellowish cardboard not sure what it was as I have never seen paper like this and the closest match would be a pressed toilet paper, if you know what I mean. it was thick, soft and light.
Anyway, as I was walking out the "salesman from the print shop" walked in. And fair play to him, as he left his school bag outside the office. He might be on this forum in few years.

 

[davarino]

I have a fairly straighforward answer to this question:

"Yes, we charge for it, but the customer may never be 'bothered with having to pay for it'."

Our production arm charges what the job is worth to our sales arm. The salesman and the sales arm decide what the resulting product is worth to get the customer to purchase - taking a reduced (or increased) margin or not.

If the salesman is such a lackluck to continually court low margin customers he will see that his compensation is not what he would make from work from the "intelligent" customers. (We compensate salesmen on "contribution to profit", not on volume.)

He would have to choose whether it's in his best interest to be increasing the margin ("raising the price"), educating the customer on "the right way" to do things, or finding a way to jettison the customer to a competitor who wishes to spend more than he receives.

There are of course times when a customer should be coddled. Usually it is the "high potential" customer. "High potential" can have many meanings, depending on what kind of business you want.

The most intelligent approach in my view is to price work to get it, take an "accounting loss" on it if you must, but continually make the relationship mutually responsible with the proper people (sales arm, production arm, AND customer) contributing money in relation to each's (present and future) benefit from the relationship. And then develop that relationship to the highest level of mutual benefit.

This can take time: but it is far more important for any business to develop and nourish a customer base than it is to be "ideologically pure" about whether to "charge the customer" for something that is ancillary to keeping the business going. The bean counting mentality does not grow business: its greatest contribution is in preventing loss.

My own years of experience have shown me that when I "wanted the customer to pay", it was usually because I had viewed the customer as a bother rather than as the source of our income.

An obvious extension of the "let them pay" argument is to charge for customer parking: which is clearly ridiculous. And it is certainly the height of folly to make parking as a line item on the final invoice.