hire me for the day?

[Linval Ebanks]

Question for you guys. I have a potential job coming up soon and it has to do with power lines and poles I'm not trying to scare the client off but I'm not trying to low ball this project. they want to hire me for the week for at least 8 hrs. per day. the job requires i stay on site and they want video and pictures of Poles being installed. not a lot of flying but just when the poles are being installed. that being said what do you think is a reasonable price?

 

[R.Perry]

If you are required to stay on site you are working. I would say seventy five to a hundred dollars an hour. You go too cheap and you won't come off as a professional, go too much and you won't get the job.

Remember this, a hundred dollars and hour isn't all that much any more, of course that depends on where you live and prevailing rates for professional contractors.

 

[Linval Ebanks]

Thanks, a lot for your quick response I'll take that into consideration when I talk to them

 

[BigAl07]

My only word of caution... if you haven't done this type of work don't over sell your qualifications.

 

[Lensupthere]

Establish a day rate. Your day rate is going to be somewhere along the lines of 85% of your hourly rate, and a set number of hours.

For example: if your hourly rate is $150/hr, then your day rate is going to be $637.50 flat rate for a max of 5 hours - whether they need you for the full 5 hours or not.

This incentivizes them to have a plan to keep you flying, and penalizes them if they make a call to have you fly but don't have everything organized (incl. weather).

Don't dip below $100/hr. on any of your calculations unless they are willing to hire you (with benefits).

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

Question for you guys. I have a potential job coming up soon and it has to do with power lines and poles I'm not trying to scare the client off but I'm not trying to low ball this project. they want to hire me for the week for at least 8 hrs. per day. the job requires i stay on site and they want video and pictures of Poles being installed. not a lot of flying but just when the poles are being installed. that being said what do you think is a reasonable price?

"I would say seventy five to a hundred dollars an hour " Perfect....

 

[Fred Garvin]

..... the job requires i stay on site.....

What exactly does this mean? Just be there and shoot when they want during the business day? You go home at night and come back?

Or, is there travel involved, with lodging? In that case, expenses + per diem is appropriate plus the hourly rate.

Consider too the transfer/storage/processing of the data.....

 

[Tgleason]

Let us know of you get the contract

 

[Linval Ebanks]

What exactly does this mean? Just be there and shoot when they want during the business day? You go home at night and come back?

Or, is there travel involved, with lodging? In that case, expenses + per diem is appropriate plus the hourly rate.

Consider too the transfer/storage/processing of the data.....

Yes & yes go home and come back 30 minute drive one way max.

 

[Linval Ebanks]

Let us know of you get the contract

I will

 

[Linval Ebanks]

My only word of caution... if you haven't done this type of work don't over sell your qualifications.

no I won't, just going to give them what they want and stay within part 107 guidelines

 

[R.P..R]

I'm not trying to scare the client off

The statement above caught my attention.

How much is your client’s annual asset worth?
Did they contacted you for the quality of your work? Or is it because they know they can save $$$$ by hiring you?

Don’t worry about scaring a client away if you’ve had multiple contracts in your books, then you should give them your true rate, because word gets around faster than you think. Your rate should fairly be consistent in reflection to the services that you do.

 

[BigAl07]

The statement above caught my attention.

How much is your client’s annual asset worth?
Did they contacted you for the quality of your work? Or is it because they know they can save $$$$ by hiring you?

Don’t worry about scaring a client away if you’ve had multiple contracts in your books, then you should give them your true rate, because word gets around faster than you think. Your rate should fairly be consistent in reflection to the services that you do.

Spoken like a true business professional.

AKA Charge what you're worth... if you don't value your work neither will anyone else.

 

[R.P..R]

not a lot of flying but just when the poles are being installed.

The next step is defining the work that is being asked of you. The word "simple" "easy" in our field has to be defined because there is actually no such word due to the saying "what goes up, must come down"

Before I will touch this subject any further, let me quickly share an experience. I was working in one of my scheduled pit, and the site manager of a crane that was contracted for the build approached and asked me if I have footages of their crane in action was polite and friendly enough to ask me if I can send him a copy. I declined, but! I told him that I will create a snippet and post it on my Youtube channel and I will include a crane footage in my personal vblog video. We exchange cards and we parted on a handshake. To make this long story short, I posted a 1min snippets. A month had passed and I received an email from the crane company's media department, but when I checked out their site there was no content on their site Welcome to West Coast Cranes unlike their sister or mother company.

I did a little investigation and learned that the company has been bought out by a bigger company, I looked into their asset and established a based price rate (Travel expenses, my hourly rate, VO day rate, Insurance) I then reached out to the person, who wrote me the email and scheduled a meeting. We had lunch and during lunch, we played hardball. I laid out the facts that my B-roll will be used for marketing purposes to gain a profit, I presented him of my area's current rate, and in return told me that they just want something "simple" and he can hire his own nephew instead of me for the rate that I am asking, I informed him of the FAA penalties for hiring an unlicensed drone operator, and he too will be penalized. A week has passed after our initial meeting and I received a call from another person on their media department, and I found myself in a room with 4 other people, and "simple" just became a workflow.
We started to talk about

• Film dynamics of DJI's log files
• Scenes and angle perspective
• Natural transitions vs manual transitions in motion
• RAW vs Jpeg or Raw with Jpeg
• Processed or unprocessed
• File size
• Model release
• Structural release
• Copyrights
• Day rate or fix rate
• Time and date
• Unforeseen events
• Travel and Expenses
• VO (will they provide or do I have to provide?)
• Insurance
• Transfer of data (the process cost time = money)
• Retainers fee
• Final compensation

Get clarity because simple, and easy can be misleading (and I know that you did not note these two words down) but these two words in our industry can lead to a workflow.

 

[drone Pilot]

How did u get this assignment ? Do u advertise or inside connection ? How come they didn't indicate a fee schedule? Until I can know these answers, I would not recommend an hourly fee. Yet my colleagues say 75-100 per hour, which is pie in the sky. Are u doing post production work ? Too many unanswered questions to give u a professional opinion.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

How did u get this assignment ? Do u advertise or inside connection ? How come they didn't indicate a fee schedule? Until I can know these answers, I would not recommend an hourly fee. Yet my colleagues say 75-100 per hour, which is pie in the sky. Are u doing post production work ? Too many unanswered questions to give u a professional opinion.

"75-100 per hour, which is pie in the sky. " Really? What do u charge for sitting around twiddling you thumbs while the client tries to decide what to do?

 

[Fred Garvin]

You should at the very least know your minimum hourly rate.....I mean, it’s the most fundamental number for your business. Anything else is gravy.

It’s pretty easy to come up with a very rough base:

1. Figure out what you need to make each month. This covers all your expenses, (mortgage, utilities, phone, etc) plus food, gas, fun money, savings deposit....you know, all you need to live life.

2. Multiply this by 3. ( 1/3 salary. 1/3 taxes, 1/3 to the business) (monthly nut)

3. Divide this by 20. (5 days a week, 4 weeks a month) (daily nut)

4. Divide this by 8. ( 8 hour workday) (hourly rate)

Say you need to get paid $5k a month to get by.

1. 5x3= $15k per month
2. 15000/20= $750 per day
3. 750/8= $93.75 per hour.

You need to make at least $750 a day (if you only work M-F) and in no case ever charge less than $93.75 per hour.

Now, of course this is a very basic, very rough formula with plenty of tweaking for circumstances....but should at least quickly give you an hourly rate that you can live on and grow your business. This also assumes you’re gonna make your nut, be it daily, weekly, monthly.....so if you’re short you can up the hourly rate, or if you make more on an assignment that can cover days you’re not earning.....it’s tricky, a juggling act. It’s very dependent on your local cost of living....someone in rural Mississippi would look at the above and see it as wishful thinking, where someone living in Manhattan would laugh, not even close man.

Please forgive me if this basic info is already known; I don’t mean to be insulting.....just the “how much do I charge” question comes up in every business forum out there....and the answer “what you’re worth” doesn’t help unless you know the basic formula.

 

[R.P..R]

You should at the very least know your minimum hourly rate.....I mean, it’s the most fundamental number for your business. Anything else is gravy.

It’s pretty easy to come up with a very rough base:

1. Figure out what you need to make each month. This covers all your expenses, (mortgage, utilities, phone, etc) plus food, gas, fun money, savings deposit....you know, all you need to live life.

2. Multiply this by 3. ( 1/3 salary. 1/3 taxes, 1/3 to the business) (monthly nut)

3. Divide this by 20. (5 days a week, 4 weeks a month) (daily nut)

4. Divide this by 8. ( 8 hour workday) (hourly rate)

Say you need to get paid $5k a month to get by.

1. 5x3= $15k per month
2. 15000/20= $750 per day
3. 750/8= $93.75 per hour.

You need to make at least $750 a day (if you only work M-F) and in no case ever charge less than $93.75 per hour.

Now, of course this is a very basic, very rough formula with plenty of tweaking for circumstances....but should at least quickly give you an hourly rate that you can live on and grow your business. This also assumes you’re gonna make your nut, be it daily, weekly, monthly.....so if you’re short you can up the hourly rate, or if you make more on an assignment that can cover days you’re not earning.....it’s tricky, a juggling act. It’s very dependent on your local cost of living....someone in rural Mississippi would look at the above and see it as wishful thinking, where someone living in Manhattan would laugh, not even close man.

Please forgive me if this basic info is already known; I don’t mean to be insulting.....just the “how much do I charge” question comes up in every business forum out there....and the answer “what you’re worth” doesn’t help unless you know the basic formula.

Are you a wedding photographer? hehehe.. I love wedding photographers, they know the sales pitch and price rate hustle..

 

[Mheight724]

I was in the video production business for over 25 years before I retired for the first time. What I have learned is that if your are new and want to start to get noticed sometime you need to do a job for the "Reel" not the "Meal". After you start to get known then you start to raise your prices. That is exactly what I am doing in what is now my 4th life with my drone business. So far it worked with my past 3 businesses.

 

[Fred Garvin]

Are you a wedding photographer? hehehe.. I love wedding photographers, they know the sales pitch and price rate hustle..

No way! The biggest hassle in Pro photo....Bridezilla wants magazine quality images for Walmart prices....the stress is over the top.....and you can get sued by an impossible to please wedding party. It’s a specialized genre all to its own....plus, they’re EVERYWHERE. The competition is insane.

I’m a business/commercial photographer. Anything else I do for fun or as a favor to family/friends.