Monday Rant

[Wraps ink]

Ok so I'm gonna rant a little first off...I give customer a quote on several storefront items. Window perf 3D letters vinyl lettering, mesh banners, counter wrap etc. They tell me how perfect they want everything and trust me they are picky. I give them ideas and tell them how we should word different things and what info to put where. I called to follow up last week and he says oh we had some building set backs so I will get with you next week.

I say ok sounds good low and behold I drive by this AM. to see my Ideas done by someone else and you can't read anything from the road and the color combos are terrible. Why is it that people are so picky until they get jo schmo down the road to do their stuff?? Instead of lying to me why cant they say hey can we negotiate price ( which I thought mine was pretty competitive) we are more than happy to help those who have a lower budget but please dont leave your image to the lowest bidder it will only hurt your business in the long run!!

I'm tempted to call him today and say hey just following up with you on the quote and see what he says. I just dont get people these days. I am not the cheapest in town but I do feel we are the best at what we do. I can already see now that he will call me next time he is in a jam and needs some stuff done, No thanks I don't want customers like that. ( I didnt mention that we did a wrap foe his business two months ago that he loved and said he was told by several people if you want it done right go to these guys)
I guess his other store wasnt as important?

ok I'm done now

 

[S'N'S]

I'd call and say "I'm going to be down your way later, mind if I call in and discuss your signage?"

 

[Mosh]

Sour grapes...just move on! No matter what your price is, this is ALWAYS someone that will do it for less..

 

[Gino]

Happens all the time, but coming here and ranting about it, getting it off your chest.... does seem to help.

I'd just would call him and ask him what you did wrong, since the other things went so well ?? Tell him you'd like to know so you can correct it and so you might not do it in the future to someone else. Be honest and maybe he'll tell you he was just being a cheap pr!ck, stole your ideas and gave them to someone else. Then you can say.... Okay, I just wanted to make sure I didn't do anything wrong..... it was you...... :ROFLMAO:

 

[Rick]

Just check yourself out of this bourgeois motel, push yourself from the dinner table and say, "No more Jell-o for me, mom!

Then have a corn dog...

 

[HulkSmash]

I'd love other companies to take away all these dumb window lettering jobs from me.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Isn't this the reason you want to go to just design .... This is a common thing ... I always get people doing the same, bouncing ideas off me, & of course someone else does them, they even try to get me to design or lay it out.

Just move on.

Go after your advertising design idea. study more, be your best, take the high road always, & never negative sell (does not work at all) go for the bigger picture.

 

[Wraps ink]

Isn't this the reason you want to go to just design .... This is a common thing ... I always get people doing the same, bouncing ideas off me, & of course someone else does them, they even try to get me to design or lay it out.

Just move on.

Go after your advertising design idea. study more, be your best, take the high road always, & never negative sell (does not work at all) go for the bigger picture.

Thanks, good advice yes it does help to rant about things with people who know how it feels lol

 

[petepaz]

there is no doubt this happens all the time but you would hope a customer that has done business with you before and knows the quality of your work would give you a chance to match the price.

 

[Wraps ink]

I especially liked the neon pink vertical lettering in the windows..lol (not my idea ) that stuff wont last 6 months, that window gets direct sun 3/4 of the day they went from a nice tanning salon to used car dealer. I should have a friend go up and ask when will they start bringing the cars on the lot. I will go back to printing my (8) bus wraps now for the local university here moving on

 

[ddubia]

There is hardly anything in the world that someone can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper - and people who consider price alone are this man's lawful prey.

-John Ruskin 1819-1900

 

[TammieH]

Just hope the guy is having second thoughts and he hates the job these other guys did for him...

and

or

Send some people to him and have them mention how horrible his signage is

 

[Jillbeans]

I never even give out my ideas without a deposit.
It seems that in my neck of the woods, price is the only thing that matters, and the talentless local hacks are polluting my neighborhood with ugliness.
I think I'd call him just to tell him that his signs look like sh!t. He's not your customer.
Love....Jill

 

[Bly]

At least you got paid for your design work... didn't you?

 

[mark in tx]

It's only a matter of time before that stuff somebody else did bursts into flame!

 

[knucklehead]

And, if you do contact the client, try not to be 'snarky'........................












Ah hell, who cares. Go ahead and be snarky.

 

[heyskull]

S.S.D.D. this happens all the time.
Lean out and pick up your dummy up and move on to the job/client that appreciates what they are paying for.
If the finished article is YOUR design I think they have breached your copy, especially if your layouts/proofs state they are not be used unless payed for.

SC

 

[xxtoni]

Here's a story for ya...

So an acquaintance of mine comes to our shop and wants us to do a few car wraps for him. Sure thing.

We come up with a design and he says he loves it and asks how much it's gonna cost. We tell him the price and he says OK, he also tells us to send him the design so he can show it to his people.

Of course we send him the design in the form of a 1280x720 jpg.

A few days later he comes back and says that he got an estimate for half of what we quotes from someone else and basically he wants us to approach that price. We say that isn't possible with the quality of the print we do and so on...

We don't hear from him again, it turns out he went to the other guy, gave them the design we did (the 1280x720px image) and had them print that. You can imagine how pixelated the whole thing looked but from a fair distance it looked OK so that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that the color management was just terrible. Parts that should have been brown had a blueish hue, skin was purple...it was liquid laminated...nuff' said. A disaster all in all. He did 2 cars with this guy. After a few months he came back to us and we told him to go **** himself (literally) and after a lot of pleading we did it for even more than we quoted the first time around.

Most people really should learn the phrase "I'm not rich enough to buy cheap things"

 

[Graphic Destruction]

I'm with Jill, this area is full of hacks doing it for less.

We just got burned recently because we broke our golden rule...no designs without money. We did tons of design for a client we were trying to get and he took that design and found someone to do it for less and didn't have the courtesy to even let us see what the difference in product was or match the bid.

He did have the balls to call me yesterday to help him out out of a jam for some stickers he needed immediately.

I declined. After taking the $12k job and subbing to a cheaper guy I wasn't doing $30 worth of stickers. I hope his .036 cheapo channel letters fall off the building in a year.

 

[Marlene]

it happens. you get to talking about a job and bam, you find yourself saying all kinds of great ideas then they run off to another company with them. it is hard not to talk to a customer before the contract gets signed but after this happens a few times, you'll get sick of it enough that you'll hold back your best ideas for the paid job. hell, call those guys and call them out on it why not? it will make you feel better and you lost the job anyway. be nice but make them feel like crap