Vicente Wolf Blog

Fully agree with this one, it is only too often, that I am approached to give advise for free. In the beginning of my career I felt flattered, but it turns out is is just a small form of abuse of one’s kindness. I have clearly stayed away from this practice and give them a friendship price, usually accepted!

Could not agree more. I would not take it personally, but it’s human nature to not value what you don’t pay for. You have to first value your own time enough that others won’t assume it’s available to them for free, family, friends, whatever it does not matter. Better to avoid the problem at the onset rather than have the inevitable lagging angst that follows.

Daniel

I agree, and I learned that from a personal experience.
I once gave design advise to a family member offering to do her house at a discounted price. after she got the initial ideas about how to do the livingroom. She simply ignored my proposal as if nothing happened..
I spent about 6 hours doing my homework and research… being so eager to do the job…..
people are simply ignorat when it comes to understanding how hard designers work.

Funny my husband and I had this conversation last night…some good friends were installing all new appliances, they needed some electrical work, drywall and misc work. They called my hubby (a general contractor). He sent his guys in, the trades submitted their bills to us and we paid them. Out for dinner with said friends, she said “you’re not going to invoice us for that work are you”, and of course we invoiced only for the subtrades, and time my hubby spent at the job site – no management fee or admin overhead fee (it’s a very small amount really). She’s annoyed. C’est la vie.

i am helping a friend with his place because we both have the same aesthetic and he makes his decisions based on logic not emotion. his place will give me something new for my site which will not be “diluted” by a client’s input (you know it happens) – that being said i am charging him @ 50% of my normal hourly rate and he makes the checks out to paws chicago (pets are work saving)- a no-kill animal shelter. a win-win for everyone incl the homeless critters of chicago -!

As a landscape designer we get this also, customers don’t want to pay for your time, expertise, the design, or when they do, they want to change the plant material after we spent all the painstaking time planning out bloom times, colors, heights, etc. So aggravating! And as for working for friends, I usually say it’s a conflict of interest, and I’m happy to set them up with one of my colleagues. Safe and professional!

As a photographer, I work for friends but at a discounted rate…if they are friends, they value your time and expertise.
I’m sure you get the same attitude…that what you do is “fun” and can’t be work. An accounts payable person at a small magazine once said to me ‘…but it’s only a picture” when I requested payment for an invoice. My response was…”Please do not deminish what I do for a living to put food on my table.” I was paid within the week.