You can learn a LOAD of useful business and creative things here www.tinhouse-studio.com/product-category/workshop/

Wow, a photographer who understands project management better than most project managers.

@kenmorrisproducer

10 ай бұрын

In your opinion why do you think that is? I wonder if the overemphasis on “certifications” is to blame. Agile, swift, six sigma, etc. All these process programs that get sold to companies as the answer to their workplace woes.

@jpdj2715

10 ай бұрын

@@kenmorrisproducer - the difference in this case is that Scott Choucino (Mr. Tin House Studio) understands the whole scope, schedule, resources, the risks, assumptions, issues, the communication, etc. In many walks of project life, that is all abstract for project managers and they become bean counters with spreadsheets that basically not in control. That is not a problem of process methodologies but the stupidity of people applying a methodology ín cases they do not understand enough.

Years back, when I was implementing IT Data Center enterprise management software, along with the project definition document, I found it often necessary to draft an "Assumption Document" which stipulated the resources, criteria, and prerequisites necessary to proceed with the project execution. For example, if a computer to handle specific tasks was not delivered and installed by the computer manufacturer, There would be nothing for me to do until such work was completed. Also, I documented each day's activity, or inactivity, which were sent to all parties involved. On one project which ended poorly, the client was pissed and wanted my employer to dismiss me. The review meeting included all parties and they brought a 18 inch tall stack of printed daily reports. When the client realized their own staff prevented my work and the most productive week was when that specific individual was on vacation, where I had no one to tell me not to proceed, they yielded to the situation. This applies to photography. Have a document signed and approved by the client defining exactly what the deliverables are. Have another document that separately signed and approved by the client defining the assumptions which must be in place for the project to even start. Then document each day's activity. If ever things go South on a project, these documents can be a life saver.

I was a software product manager for 20+ years. Scope creep was a daily discussion...every single day.

Excellent advice. There are also times when it is necessary to turn down work because you get a bad vibe from the prospective client. If you sense that they will be nothing be trouble, walk away. It may be that they are too demanding, too rude, or they keep making new demands (scope creep). You'll save yourself grief and potentially negative publicity.

I agree with you from my own experience on any project Scope creep during execution of the contract will take an effect on the time, budget and associated risks involved. For consideration adding a section in contract that addresses how management of change will be handled should give clarity to the situation at anytime should it arise post award.

I’ve had really wealthy and powerful customers, almost turn to tears and not know what to do when I have said “no”. Some of them then actually start to respect you for that and we can form a working relationship. If they don’t, you don’t want them as a customer.

Excellent advice and at some point I guess we are all guilty of allowing this to happen.

Sage advice indeed, this happens in just about every job, be it photography, production, what have you. Some clients like to move goalposts when they think you are vulnerable to accepting. They think they are getting a better deal, I call it taking the p1ss.

Incredibly important video.

If you are getting into photography with the goal of charging for your work, you WILL encounter scope creep. You might as well set your watch to it. I can't count how many times I've run into this situation and handled it badly, even terribly. (Stories? I got stories.) Even though the client may have been the creeper, it was ultimately up to me to know how to manage him or her and control the outcome. Thanks for devoting a video to this topic, an unfortuate fact of life for professional photographers, and presenting it so eloquently and succinctly.

Great advice. I used to work as a project manager in IT and this used to happen all the time - the client didn't really know what they wanted. I was absolutely adamant we didn't start any work until we had exactly spec'd the job first and it was signed off and agreed with the client in advance. If they wanted it changed half way through - yes certainly, as you're the one putting bread on the table but it will cost ... Etc.

@veivoli

10 ай бұрын

Preaching to the choir, brother! And this is explains the rise of "agile" - it enables an escape from the rigours of PM methodology! Far too many huge projects start off with no clear view of the end, but there have also been numerous cases of the technology advancing faster than the project's ability to deliver. The customer says "that's great, but could you make this one small change, please?" Exactly what Scott is saying. I suspect we could swap some interesting war stories over a few pints... I'd love to go for a walk with my camera but it's getting dark on this side of the world.

I'm the worlds worst for this thanks so much for pointing me in the correct direction

In my industrial days - we called it Service Creep !! had to be managed very carefully ........ as the contract had already been agreed and we were providing the work - but as team-leads we had to strictly control what we provided. Obviously some autonomy for PR sake but had to keep it under control ............ I even get it now - in some form or another - that I've retired !! (Give an inch and they take a mile !)

Totally agree. Client management is a game changer

I love it when your photography advice is really life advice. Thank you.

@kingacastus8915

10 ай бұрын

Definitely agree, also the Konata profile picture is pure class

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

I know its feels like when friend that tells you to get your " Stop being stupid and get S***T together "

Our career paths are very similar! this is a very common occurrence as you obviously know & much easier to have a producer/agent on set to negotiate while you're concentrating on creative. They're alway squeezing for more in any case ;) how often do you remember thinking we'll smash this one out and be off for a beer! then the extra "pickups" get added in...lol

This reminds me of being a new photographer. Nowadays especially weddings when clients want all black and white in colour (I hate that) I add a fee for extra post production when I used to just supply the additional imagery free..

Great video, cutting through the nonsense of arbitrary brief changes with the clarity of extra cost. Brilliant!

Excellent advice, not just in the photography world, but in any business/service environment. I can visualise plenty of Scope Creep for Wedding photographer where the bride and that dragon, commonly known as the Bride's Mother, ask for all sorts of extras and more time to complete THEIR wish-list of images that had not been agreed..

@sethcashman1011

10 ай бұрын

Wedding scope creep? Never! 😄

Recovering people pleaser here. Need to work on my wording because I go to the other extreme and forget to leave the door open. Or need too much info and never hear back.

I am sure a lot of photographers have stories similar to yours I’ve been a fashion photographer in Los Angeles for about 30 years working on catalogs & magazines the one thing it always gets me is when a client says and while you’re here we just have a couple more things, usually the models will tip me off if there’s more outfits than they’ve guesstimated so I know when this act is happening! LOL

Even working primarily with people for headshots, family photos, etc… I’ve officially split my session fee from my deliverable fee. The logistics of if we have time to do the photos is its own thing, but it’s now well defined that every photo you want is going to cost extra. I take time on the photos, it’s not just a money grab, but I’m done with dropping 20-30 or even more photos to people.

This applies to a lot of businesses

Excellent advice. I've learned more about running my business from your videos than anywhere else. Cheers!

These have been some of the most helpful videos I've seen on KZread. I really appreciate your approach

Very good direct advice. Love it! 🖤

1. Too many agreements aren't detailed enough, 2. Clients (it appears) don't read contracts or just play dumb to get their way, 3. Get a retainer or a percentage up front in case things get out of hand and people walk away

Brilliant!

Great advice and... great to see u again

Great advice Scott, thank you. I get a lot of this I started my business at 26 (now 28) but a lot of my clients sadly try bully me because of my age, and request more shoots or try adjust the fixed packages. It’s taken time to build the confidence to not let them push me around and to say no, if you’d like to adjust the agreed that will be a additional cost and turn around time.

I suffered major burn out because of scope creep , I just broke a record, 15 months to finish a project ( true story )

excellent info!!!! THANKS!!!

I am so excited!

Excellent video! Very relevant to designers and creatives in general too!!!

Top notch advice as always. Thank you! 🤩

Thank you for this video. ❤

Very helpful insight. Useful in all sorts of areas.

Top top advice!

Great advice....

Love this.

I used to call this phenomenon "mission creep" or "The Afghanistan Effect". The worst one is when a project morphs into something completely different. That's when I start adding onto the bill big time according to my rates. If you let some people walk on you, they will eventually do a Highland Fling.

As tricky and tiring as it might be to manage client expectation effectively, cleaning up the mess from not managing expectations is tricky, tiring-and costly.

@TinHouseStudioUK

10 ай бұрын

So true!

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

Been their way to many times.

Yes, exactly this happened to me already, doubling overall post production time, or even 3x the time

I was starting to miss your daily stories and pieces of advice Scott, nice to have you back! Really like that you tackle subjects which actually go beyond photography and deal with human interaction and psychology as that's applicable to most aspects of life and entrepreneurship ;) On a similar note, in my very short freelance photographer career so far, I had a small shop as a client and they sold cards, gifts, decorations, all sorts of little things like that. I gave them a quote (way too low now in hindsight) and a few days before the shoot I was told that the shop owner would email me examples/moodboards/ideas of how they would like the products shot. Come to the day of the shoot and I have not received any further instructions so I just proceed with what I am given which is a random amount of items to shoot, with the owner adding a few more every now and then. Fast forward to delivery of the shots and the client says they're not really happy with the shots as it's not what they were looking for. To which I replied that I had asked for guidance multiple times and did not receive any and therefore did as I could at the time, so as you said Scott, they are NOT a client and it was truly their fault. I took it personally at first, as anyone would - granted I could have probably done something better but I had limited time - and despite the initial frustration I then realised that I had really done my "best" in the situation. All in all a good learning curve for future clients!

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

Yes that why going forward I'm geting a 1st payment.

@jonathanpivot164

10 ай бұрын

@@matrixphotodesign thankfully I did get paid as I had drafted a contract, that probably shows that they half admitted it was their fault! 😅

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

​@@jonathanpivot164 Don't feel bad , These kind of lessons that what make us better business owners.

It’s a bit like for me working as a consultant in software development. Oncall is common for the production of a system. I have to make them be very explicit in the contract how that work and that they have to pay extra if they contact me after the set work hours, (this does not work for 100% of the contracts but for the most) the result is i don’t get contacted outside of working hours since it comes at a cost

As an hobbyist photographer at first glance this does not apply to me. But still I was very interested on your vid and advice. Actually it is not only photgraphers confronted with this behavior, it also applies an many other work fields. So, there was good advice for me and I'm sure, also other people here ... Thank you! Thinking about it a bit more, it does apply to hobbyists: some shootings among friends/relatives have suddenly became a big task, as they start asking "can we do this pose?" or "Let's take some pictures over there with this... and that...". As a hobbyist this can be interpreted as a compliment, them liking the pictures, but they sometimes seem to forget, that there is some post processing involved (I shoot raw-files, and hardly use presets etc). So, yes, happened to me too.

That’s exactly what he said

Brilliant. Thank you....the "can you just......" culture is in every trade.

You could basically say… 1) this is how much it will be per edited shot, take as many as you want but it will be P x Q, or 2) you can say it’s value based pricing. It has no direct relationship to the number of shots and finished product and you say you are getting my services for this amount (usually an outrageous amount)

OMG I remember those days..."Scope creep" is sure is.

I guess the thing to do is when giving a price for a job is to mention that any additional request will result in a new price for the project.

thanks so much for your helpful videos, Scott. One thing I'd like to hear you discuss further: In your videos you often refer to the distinction between shooting for local businesses and national brands. I would love to hear more about how these are approached differently. Both in terms of business, which you have already talked a little about, but even more in terms of photoshoot practicalities- Assuming one always tries to do their best work on either occasion, how does shooting for next-tier client look different?

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

Hi , I had the same question , And I used to make this mistake thinking because its smaller client and smaller job I didn't have to worry about the details as much. Boy was I wrong. I came to the conclusion that you treat them the same , You still need Budget and a Project brief or Outline with specific shots listed for every Project . With smaller clients you have to be very specific on what's possible for their budget.

A fairly straightforward contract matter; which is not unique to photography.

Thank you for the great advice. I would like to know how we can keep our photography business going if we're in a place where most clients are looking for the cheapest prices. If we refuse to take their work, then we wouldn't have any clients. What do you suggest?

I think in this particular instance a photographer needs to be specific in the quote. I always write 'based on the information provided to date' when quoting. If you're expecting to deliver ten final images then this needs to be in the quote. Very few clients have any real experience in buying photography, they're in and out of jobs too quickly to build any knowledge and even fewer have any comprehension of post production as they never see it.

YESSSS!!!!!

I bet you've seen a fair few clients chins drop when you say " Ill amend the estimate".

Haha happened to me when I was shoting video they asked if I can shot also photos i had 2nd camera with me I told them well you can use camera if u wish but I focus on video. Photos went terribly but video was good :)

Ah, the old, "While you're here, can you do this....?" With the expectation that you somehow magically work for nothing. I learned to politely turn them down, and none of my regular customers ever pulled that one on me anyway. Funnily enough, it was always chancers who did it.

As a (retired) software engineer, I'm sadly familiar with scope creep. 😢

Would you ever work without any real estimate and just contract on the basis of a daily or hourly rate to include editing time? Then the client is free to change scope at any point? But of course if the client is an organisation not an individual then it can be difficult working out which representative(s) of the client to listen to when they ask for something that will affect costs, and the photographer might have to do a bit more to adopt the client's ideology and make some cost related decisions on their behalf. Would be a small step down the road towards being a temporary employee instead of an independent contractor in terms of the way of working.

I would let them know as soon as they open their mouth - the estimated price is for what was agreed on anything extra will be extra.

Do you charge a deposit or a retainer once the agreed upon estimate is signed? If so would you send an additional estimate to make a change or change the existing one. Just looking for a way to keep this process as streamlined as possible. I really appreciate all that you do regarding the photography community. Your videos have been some of the most valuable I’ve ever watched. As much or more so than Mark Taylor’s. Cheers.

@matrixphotodesign

10 ай бұрын

Hi Kyle , Going forward I'm calling it a 1st invoice and using phase billing on my projects.

I call it change request and I have a backlog for it and while we are in a sprint nobody can raise anything new. Yeah, I work in IT

Hi! You asked about the problems we have... here is one: I am finding my images on various websites around the world... without my knowledge, without my prior permission, without any compensation... I don't know where do they get the high resolution data... sometimes it looks like some publishing houses did sell the content of their printed magazine to some other publishing house = another company... another country, another language... but it's my images, printed 10 years ago.... sometimes it's even obvious someone did 'take' the CMYK data I delivered to the original magazine 10 years ago... amateurishly converted, with wrong ICC profile, from CMYK to RGB for that website... FACEPALM... and it’s getting more and more, recently... how exactly would you deal with that...? Thanks in advance...

Wow 10 shots for $1000 a day? I was getting $1000 as a day rate 20 years ago and that was for one editorial portrait...but yeah they were always trying to add extra shots on for free so that hasn't changed

I have a client who wants me to make a change to a photo that will frankly make the image ugly. It's not in the style that I normally do and I think it looks like poop. It's not an image I'd be proud of delivering. Do you just suck it up and deliver the image the client wants (and hope no one credits you for it) or do you stick to your guns and deliver a quality image?

This is an issue anytime a pro works I had this happen in Aquarium services. "Can you come at 10?" You mean am yes? Ummm No. Pm"

Can you shoot a bit of video while your here 😊

☆☆☆

Scope creep isn’t limited to photography, by any means.

I expected a different kind of "creep".

It's not just in photography where scope creep happens. In my experience in any industry the client will always try their luck to get more, especially government types. Those words "Oh, could you just.." always make me cringe and my stock answer is always "Sure. Let me just cost that for you". More often than not that usually makes them back down.

@barneylaurance1865

10 ай бұрын

Just is a four letter word.

You bring the bill after the shoot? What kind of bull* is that?

@TinHouseStudioUK

10 ай бұрын

Yeah estimate first, then reconciliation and final invoice.

This is easy..There's a word called NO. There's a thing called a contract, and since I am doing the work, I call the shots. How about you give me my money first, and then if you want to play games, I will leave you standing there by yourself...If you want something extra you pay for it.. I do not argue, you can simply meet Jesus, or leave me alone,respectfully....

How much a day? I'mma be a photographer. Oh wait, that means I have to deal with clients. Never mind then.