Quote from: cthoman on July 31, 2012, 10:40

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If you want an anecdote, I turned down a job a few months ago. They wanted me to meet them at their office. It was about a 30 minute drive to the north side of town where their office was. In the time it would have taken me to get ready, drive there, have the meeting and drive back, I probably could have finished the job. I turned the job down. It just didn't make any sense to spend all that time to meet for such a small job.

Now you can hear someone say: You never know, if you met them it might have led to many more lucrative jobs on an ongoing basis...

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on July 31, 2012, 11:30

Quote from: click_click on July 31, 2012, 10:47

Quote from: cthoman on July 31, 2012, 10:40

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If you want an anecdote, I turned down a job a few months ago. They wanted me to meet them at their office. It was about a 30 minute drive to the north side of town where their office was. In the time it would have taken me to get ready, drive there, have the meeting and drive back, I probably could have finished the job. I turned the job down. It just didn't make any sense to spend all that time to meet for such a small job.

Now you can hear someone say: You never know, if you met them it might have led to many more lucrative jobs on an ongoing basis...

Thats why you qualify it and ask for enough detail to determine if there's a bigger opportunity or just a one hour job that will be unprofitable.

I wonder what percentage of photographers do any job that pays even if it loses them money.

Some clients are clever in that they say they have a small job and little budget bbbbutttttt in the future they expect to need more shots for which they'll have a normal budget. 'Course the big job in the future never materialises!
I got roped into something earlier this year by a client who sells golf equipment. He was opening a new store at a city 9-hole course/driving range and the management of the course needed some shots for posters at an expo. They got my name via the client and, of course, the shots were needed yesterday. Budget was too low but to have not done it would have meant that the expo at which my client was also present, would have been a little bare. I realised that these were cheapskates when I enquired about the haste involved for the shots.....the expo was 10 days away after all. That was because their printer in Poland needed at least 7 days from order to delivery of mounted prints on board!

I didn't make a loss but thought that whilst I was there, I might as well do some shots for stock, one of which has already sold a couple of times. Still waiting for their BIG job with budget to match though. Dunno if I would be tempted to do similar again. If the location offered a fairly unique opportunity to do stock that I ordinarily wouldn't be able to do, I would consider it. Actually working at a loss......not so sure about that though.