• I had a prospect call me to ask our hourly rate. It’s not the type of question you like to hear up front. The person is already caught up in a comparison of apples to lemons. It becomes complicated to explain our schedule of fees, which primarily serves as a basis for estimating a total project. I had a follow-up question for him:
“If you find someone who charges $30 per hour, and it takes them an hour to come up with an idea, but it takes me 15 minutes to develop a concept based on a track record of effectiveness, which is the better deal?”
I didn’t get to ask it. He’d already hung up as soon as I said our top charge for creative consultation is $100 per hour. As much as I hear about how design conscious our society has become, I rarely find evidence that people understand more about my profession than they did when I started out 30 years ago, but I’ll shut up now, because you didn’t visit this site to hear me whine and complain…