Let me tell you about Gil Leffler (rest his soul).
Gil was a likeable guy who had been half good enough for Nashville as a musician but he liked the sauce a bit too much. Gil could also letter a bit and had ended up in my area in the mid 1980's. He had three letter styles he could do but he had the ability to hold a piece of artwork in his hand and paint it onto a 4 x 8 usually needing about six hours to complete the lettering and the hammering together of a site sign mounted in the ground.
He would charge $60 for this because that's what he had always charged. From that amount, he could buy the plywood and 4 x 4's and whatever else he needed. With the balance he could pay for his motel room, have some dinner and have a few drinks. Life was good.
It didn't matter to Gil that he occasionally made others look expensive. And it didn't effect others much because his productivity was limited.
One day Gil came in to my shop. We were strictly wholesale to the trade in those days. He had a customer that wanted him to do a couple of truck doors and the job called for being able to letter a passable version of Murray Hill Bold as part of it. The balance of the copy was about as brief as the new testament. Gil wanted to know how much it would cost for us to make the lettering for him.
The two doors priced out to about $60 for the vinyls. Old Gil started gagging and turning red in the face and uttered:
"That's about what I was planning to charge him Fred."
I said, "Gil, do yourself a favor and put this one job at risk and bid it like this." And I suggested that he keystone (double) the materials he would be using and add on for his time, including sales, planning and materials acquisition, as well as installing, at his shop rate.
He replied, "My what rate?"
So I suggested $30 per hour which was the low side average around town at that time and we figured $120 for materials with markup and four hours time $120 for a total of $240.
Gil was looking a bit pale and shaky and I again suggested that he put the job at risk and bid it at $240. He reluctantly agreed to do so.
The next day he was waiting when I arrived. He was all excited. "Fred" he said, "He went for it and even gave me half up front! Now what do I have to do to get my order in with you?"
Gil was active in my area until he died one day, about five years after this took place, in the middle of lettering a board. He became a regular customer for vinyls when he needed them and, while still a bit of a lowballer, had increased his prices, expanded his offerings, rented a shop, put in a telephone, and improved his standard of living.
There's lots that can be drawn from this story. My point is that opportunities arise all the time to help others and, in doing so, you can also help yourself. One doesn't have to be rude. One need simply recognize the opportunity and pass along the right information at the right time.
Gil was adequately talented/skilled/experienced to do okay in the craft. He just didn't have all the information he needed to confidently and successfully earn a decent living at it. He'd have been more of a problem if he had a computer and a plotter, but he was a problem nonetheless in most of the ways being discussed in this thread.
