And therein has always been the problem. The clients I have and get referred to me are 'milk toast' clientele usually - the average home builder or local small business. They don't have the money to spend on a high end marketing campaign or want to develop a visual identity outside of their immediate needs - trucks, business cards and shirts (for example). Am I undervaluing my services if I create a quick logo that works for them for little money? Not at all - they are still purchasing other items from me, and that makes them a happy and hopefully repeat customer.
I have a feeling that the conversation is broaching on the definitions between an advertising agency and sign shop. Both yourself, Joe, and Dan have killer advertising agencies that happen to have a signage component. With that you gents can command a decent price for the individuals that recognize the worth in the research and idea generation. For the rest of us, we do what we can to encourage our clients to see the value in the work - and have to sit back and hear them say, 'well, I can get it done here for next to nothing' and risk losing the sale.
I can almost guarantee we get the same type of clients, and I can tell you this, they can afford all of those things. They have purchased much more expensive things for their business, some of which I would argue have less value to the success of their company, but I guess that's a matter of perspective. They just don't always want to invest in professional design... at first. It's our job to convince them, and in most cases it's not that hard. It just makes sense to invest in your businesses identity. There are a lot of tools you can use to convince your clients this the second they walk in the door.
A lot of shops see design as a selling tool used almost exclusively to get the sign job, but you can easily set yourself up to sell design as a service on it's own, and through that get even more than just sign work, but you have to sell it as a valued and essential service first.
Really that's not even the point here. You are now talking about the amount you get paid, that's not really the issue, The issue is getting paid at all. In spec work there is a very high chance that you may not get paid at all, and for some odd reason, to you, others in this industry and many in the general public, that seems normal. And that's kind of a problem if you are trying to convince everyone that what you create has value. If it were the norm to pay $1000 or more for a small businesses logo, it would be much easier to ask for that price would it not? Instead it's normal to have 100s of artists compete, where only one wins a few hundred dollars, and we as an industry are not only letting it happen, but many of us are doing it to ourselves.
