what would you think of this design credit system??

[Karl Williams]

In a nutshell…..no I wouldn’t. If you can design fast then it’s done fast. Some fully qualified designers I’ve met take ages to do the simplest design.
I’m now giving the customers a set price on designs based on the info they give me for 2 designs. They are then told any designs after this will be charged at a set hourly rate.
I have a client right now who has clearly stated he does not have a clue what he wants. He’s agreed to pay up front £500 which he now has for me to design his van signs and unit signs plus generate a logo. If he is not entirely happy with these then he will be charged extra. This is the first time I’ve tried this and was suprised how easy it was when trying to sell the design time and signs as 2 seperate services.

[David Rowland]

how long will it take to explain the credit system to a potential customer?

[Soyeb Ravat]

Well the problem i have is not with the design at all whats so ever. its when customers want the simplest of designs which are almost done instantly and then faff about afterwards saying how would it look in such a colour or if you could make the text a little smaller. all of this takes up alot of the time which is the problem. is it also fair that one customer has 2 hours spent and another has half an hour spent? lets assume you have 2 of the fastest designers on this forum but one designer has a fussy customer and the other a straight forward one. how would it be fair if one has longer time spent then the other and the customer keeps changing his/her mind?? would you not think this way it will control the customer, make sure they have a long think about there requirements and get it right the first time??? also I feel it will remind the customer in advance about the consequences and the limits which they have. do you not think so??

[Soyeb Ravat]

customer : I would like a banner
me: sure i charge say £2.50 (example) for a square foot. excluding the design
customer: how much is your design??
me: we have a credit system. each credit entitles you to half an hour or when the artwork has been sent. if more revisions are required then more credits need to be bought at say £10.00 a credit.

[Karl Williams]

Most customers can be pains mate. But if you get it right first time that’s a financial bonus for you. It’s not your problem what’s fair and what’s not. If they want extra work then they should pay extra.

[Peter Normington]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

customer : I would like a banner
me: sure i charge say £2.50 (example) for a square foot. excluding the design
customer: how much is your design??
me: we have a credit system. each credit entitles you to half an hour or when the artwork has been sent. if more revisions are required then more credits need to be bought at say £10.00 a credit.

Why cant you just tell them design time is chargeable? cant see why you want to use credits instead of real money?

Peter

[Soyeb Ravat]

The other thing i would like to point out karl is i feel this method can get customer’s to you instead of you to them. why should a customer pay more for an unhappy design when with the credit system they can come to you and with 1 credit they can have as much changes as they want until there limit (half an hour) runs out. I think the credit system will also be easy to explain. let me know if you disagree!!

[Soyeb Ravat]

the reason i’m thinking of calling it credits peter is for theses reasons:

1)easier to explain to the customer that 1 credit will last half an hour
2)that 1 credit will expire when the artwork has been sent.
3) another revision require’s another credit.

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Confusing, and reminds me of feeding quarters to a peep show machine.
Not that I do that a lot.
To me, you are selling a product and should charge a fair (to you) fee to begin with whether it takes you 5 minutes or 5 hours to do a design.
If someone wants additional revisions simply charge for those, and make it known up front.
Love….Jill

[Peter Normington]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

the reason i’m thinking of calling it credits peter is for theses reasons:

1)easier to explain to the customer that 1 credit will last half an hour
2)that 1 credit will expire when the artwork has been sent.
3) another revision require’s another credit.

why not call a credit a £50 note or whatever in real terms?

Peter

[Soyeb Ravat]

I was hoping this method would be easy to communicate with the customer and also make it easy to control both the customer incase they faff about and the time being spent. i was hoping it would also make it fair for everyone and make sure there is no under or overcharging by calling it credits as you have limited the credit to when it expires or whatever else you want to call it. it also allows the customer to expect that there will be terms behind it. Just feel it would be easy to address overall also. am i wrong???

[Soyeb Ravat]

well what I was thinking peter is a £50.00 cant have terms but a credit can.

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

I was hoping this method would be easy to communicate with the customer and also make it easy to control both the customer incase they faff about and the time being spent. i was hoping it would also make it fair for everyone and make sure there is no under or overcharging by calling it credits as you have limited the credit to when it expires or whatever else you want to call it. it also allows the customer to expect that there will be terms behind it. Just feel it would be easy to address overall also. am i wrong???

Yip

[Nigel Hindley]

This is getting very amusing! – if a credit is 30 mins what happens if you spend 40 mins designing?

Do you sell 2 credits and give a 2/3rd credit as change?

Nigel

[Soyeb Ravat]

oh well worth a try 🙄

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

oh well worth a try 🙄

Theres no wrong or right but there difficult and simple and i think yours is more the difficult end of the scale?

Can I exchange credits for beer? – if you could liaise with an off license you may have something!

Nigel

[Soyeb Ravat]

I was thinking Nigel charge to the closest credit may be?? haven’t thought that far ahead. :lol1:

[Mike Grant]

I think you should go with whatever suits your needs, if you feel credits are the way to go then give it a try. I personally build the artwork price into the quotation and leave it up to swings and roundabouts. Some you win…some you lose.

[Martin Pearson]

What it really comes down to is doing what you think works best for yourself, if you want to charge a credit system then do it but I don’t expect anyone else will bother trying to do the same thing.

If you want to charge customers for design as a separate item then fine go ahead but it would be simpler just to tell the customer that you charge an hourly rate for design time, can’t be much clearer and can’t see what’s not to understand. Course that’s just my opinion and others may see it differently.

[Soyeb Ravat]

😀 lol I think I will try it in practice and see if there is benefit or if its a complete waste of time. will report my findings on here!!

[Phill Fenton]

So will these credits be linked to the price of Gold, The Euro , Oil, Carbon Credits or what?
You’ve got to think about these things – and consider currency movements or volatile markets with fluctuating commodities prices.
All these factors can have an impact on how much design time they get.

Signs isn’t just about making stickers you know 😮

[Martin Pearson]

I was wondering where you had got to Phill, was missing your expert point of view on this subject. 😉

[Soyeb Ravat]

Well i was thinking £10.00 for about half an hour?? but it seems the response on here makes me feel that may be its not a great idea. hmmmm??? 😕

[Peter Normington]

quote Soyet Ravat:

Well i was thinking £10.00 for about half an hour?? but it seems the response on here makes me feel that may be its not a great idea. hmmmm??? 😕

I dont know what your overheads are Soyet, but £20 an hour is really like minimum wage if you work for yourself,

Peter

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Peter Normington:

quote Soyet Ravat:

Well i was thinking £10.00 for about half an hour?? but it seems the response on here makes me feel that may be its not a great idea. hmmmm??? 😕

I dont know what your overheads are Soyet, but £20 an hour is really like minimum wage if you work for yourself,

Peter

Its actually 2 credits per hour! Working for that must be below minmum wage but hey he will be eligible for family tax credits etc his wallet will be brimming with credits!

Soyet to take the stress out of this im going to do you a huge favor – give me £100 pounds and ill give you 30 credits! thats a few free credits you can then sell them to your customers and make extra money and it may just work? – I take cash or debit card not ‘credit’ card. I call this quantative pleasing!

Nigel

[Stuart Green]

Actually I,ve tried something very similar to this and it does have its benefits. It is definitely worth doing. It takes all the ball ache out of the technicalities in designing. its one of those things. works for some not for others. I do think you could bump up the design cost a bit though. It is a good idea mate!! 😀

[Soyeb Ravat]

Thanx Stuart. Might not do it though as it appears most signmakers dont think of it as a great idea (Especially Nigel). Just needed to find a way to as you say taking the "ball ache" out of the game. Working from home at the moment so dont really have any overheads which helps and no I dont claim "family tax credits". good feedback from all.

thank you

[Simon Clayton]

Sorry this has lost me or am i missing something, why would you not just say i charge £20 an hour for design work payable in 1/2 hour segments.
or i charge £10 every half hour for design work?
Why would someone go for credits?? the only way i could see it working is if you charge someone for a sign and gave them 2 credits per say every £100 they spent redeemable with next purchase.
or Buy one and get 20% off next purchase… TBH it sound a bit Tesco-ish

[Warren Beard]

The problem I see is if you send a proof and they bought a £10 credit and all they want is a small change like add an "s" on to the end of a word, they need to buy another £10 credit for you to do this?

I simply gauge how much I think I should charge for a design and quote that telling the customer he is entitled to 5 amendments to the submitted design before extra costs will be incured. This forces them to make sure they think long and hard about what they want and usually let you know what changes they want in full detail on the first response, instead of them just sending a quick reply and it drags on, it actually gets them to think about it reducing the chance of further costs and speeds up approval of job so you can get it done and invoiced, jobs are only good to us once the money is in the bank 😕

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

Thanx Stuart. Might not do it though as it appears most signmakers dont think of it as a great idea (Especially Nigel). Just needed to find a way to as you say taking the “ball ache” out of the game. Working from home at the moment so dont really have any overheads which helps and no I dont claim “family tax credits”. good feedback from all.

thank you

Hey Soyeb,

Im sorry for knocking the idea – honestly good luck mate dont let me put me you off – I just found the whole idea amusing and confusing – We have a currency – Sterling which is actually just a credit note it says so on the note! Just unsure why you would swap one credit for another ie create a new currency – particularly when the Sterling credit note is accepted everywhere and is divisible by 100.

Bear in mind too what Phil says. If you sell a load of these credits and they dont get used and inflation goes through the roof you could be working for nothing! 😉

[Soyeb Ravat]

The reason i was thinking of credits nigel is that when a customer asks you how much is a design they tend to pester you afterwards for changes which can take a long time regardless of how good you are as a designer. I myself for example have had someone with a banner who wanted it changing several times before it was printed. If a customer asked how much would it cost for the design then i could sell in increments which would be worthy of the sale and with the mention of credits they would certainly ask what a credit entails and how long it lasts for. I was simply thinking it would make it much more easier. It was just an idea hence the asking of feedback on the initial question. How wrong I was 😕

[Phill Fenton]

quote Peter Normington:

Why cant you just tell them design time is chargeable? cant see why you want to use credits instead of real money?
Peter

I really think you’ve been thinking too hard about this Soyeb. The result is you have come up with a complicated solution to a simple problem which is exactly as Peter has suggested. You just need to charge extra for extra design time. Calling it something else is just confusing and causes suspicion.

But maybe I’m (and others are missing the point)? Are there other advantages in using your system that we haven’t considered, that are better then simply charging an hourly rate for design time?

[Soyeb Ravat]

"If you sell a load of these credits and they dont get used and inflation goes through the roof you could be working for nothing! ;)"

with regards to the above I was thinking more like a marks and spencers voucher type of thing then creating an economic crisis lol!! credits being bought only with the print that the customer buys. 🙂

[Martin Pearson]

Sorry but I don’t think the problem is how good you are at designing or how long it might take but simply that you are not communicating with the customer properly.

If you ask the customer the right questions before you start then you should be able to design a sign which they are very happy with and will need only very small changes that can be done quickly and simply.
That’s my own experience anyway, it’s all part of the learning process and developing your business.

I still can’t see the point in calling it a credit either, you are selling design time. You tell the customer a simple design will take 1/2 hour and cost x amount, with that he will be allowed 1 or 2 alterations, if he requires more than that then it will cost extra. 1/2 hour is more than generous for a simple design so will cover the time to make changes as well.

[Stuart Green]

I remember back in the day there were companies who had similar ideas to this. I dont know may be its like toping up a mobile phone, collecting necter points or going to fill up at morrisons and getting a free £5.00 voucher. All of this is a form of credit. I do see your point that when a credit is mentioned a customer will ask what it entails and suspicion may be caused which could have a positive may be even a negative impact Soyeb. positive being they could ask questions and you explain exactly what it is. Ultimately I dont really see the biggy in this. its been done, it works so its already been tried and tested. Just a matter of whether it works for you!

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

“If you sell a load of these credits and they dont get used and inflation goes through the roof you could be working for nothing! ;)”

with regards to the above I was thinking more like a marks and spencers voucher type of thing then creating an economic crisis lol!! credits being bought only with the print that the customer buys. 🙂

I was kidding 🙂

[Nigel Hindley]

quote Stuart Green:

I remember back in the day there were companies who had similar ideas to this. I dont know may be its like toping up a mobile phone, collecting necter points or going to fill up at morrisons and getting a free £5.00 voucher. All of this is a form of credit. I do see your point that when a credit is mentioned a customer will ask what it entails and suspicion may be caused which could have a positive may be even a negative impact Soyeb. positive being they could ask questions and you explain exactly what it is. Ultimately I dont really see the biggy in this. its been done, it works so its already been tried and tested. Just a matter of whether it works for you!

Stuart the only thing opponents of this system are is – charging an hourly rate works so why change it?

[Martin Pearson]

quote Soyeb Ravat:

Thanx Stuart. Might not do it though as it appears most signmakers dont think of it as a great idea (Especially Nigel). Just needed to find a way to as you say taking the “ball ache” out of the game. Working from home at the moment so dont really have any overheads which helps and no I dont claim “family tax credits”. good feedback from all.

thank you

This might not be helping you at all either, doesn’t matter if you work from a shop, industrial unit or from home you still have overheads and these have to be taken into account when working out your hourly rate.

Depending on how much of your home you have declared for business use will determine how much extra rates you pay if any, then there is business insurance for your equipment, I doubt home contents cover will cover it if your using it for business. Public liability insurance that you require and even your car insurance must have gone up if you are using your car for business use.
Then there are other things like an increase in gas, electric and phone bills. All of these things are overheads, not having Rent, rates, phone etc for a unit helps keep your costs down but you still have quite a bit of outlay even if working from home so don’t forget that when working these things out.

[David Rogers]

Just read this thread.

What’s wrong with "it’ll cost you £100 if you supply ready to use artwork or £150 if I do the design work, for that you’ll get a couple of concepts and we can tweak the one you like in around 20minutes".

Some days you will be inspired & designs will simply flow from you – each one will be an absolute stunner & produced in record time.

BUT

Come in the next day, with a bit of a cold / hangover and you can’t ‘design’ if your life depended on it.

Are we to expect customers to pay good money for us to be ‘hot designers’ one day – but charge them ‘3 credits’ to design a "No Parking" sign because our brain wasn’t in gear?

I can see no advantage to buying say 2 credits for a designer to fritter away his time on. I expect results. If I did a design in say 30minutes, but still have another 30mins to kill to use up his credits (unless we are suggesting ‘stealing’ from our clients)…what exactly do I do to a completed design for half an hour? I don’t know any customer willing to have 30mins design credits floating around on the off chance he’ll use them. A £20 note handed back or a £20 credit on their account for TANGIBLE goods is a much the preferred option in my experience.

Simply by being up front and stating design terms. If I have to do it I say to them "you get 20mins in with the job – that’s often enough unless designing logos or there’s lots of revisions, after that it’s £x and hour – and I can do a lot in an hour. As a businessman yourself – you can appreciate time is money."

I’ve never had any complaints yet…

Dave

[Paul Bowles]

Hi Soyeb,

I think that you are just complicating things – and that should be clear to you now with all our questions.

you say "Initial design cost x amount, withing reason" ( your half hour cost) "and I charge x amount per hour after that on design changes" etc.

How are you going to get them to pay for the credit before you even start working for them… ? If they will be willing to buy a "credit"
then they are willing to pay for your time anyway, so just skip the credit thing altogether"

Start with talk of credits etc and they will be walking away.

Paul

[Karl Williams]

Not trying to insult your idea mate but I think it’s a pointless exercise. Try it but I think you’ll end up getting confused and confusing the clients. But who knows……..it may be a good move.