Comments for Voodoochilli Design http://blog.voodoochilli.com Web design and development company blog Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:04:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 Comment on Should we be Increasing Rates in Line With Inflation? by Kay Jackson http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2012/01/04/should-we-be-increasing-rates-in-line-with-inflation/comment-page-1/#comment-129848 Kay Jackson Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:04:59 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=695#comment-129848 We tend to look at overhead costs yearly and decide on increasing hourly rate according to that yearly percentage increase. If this is low we tend to just take into consideration employees annual salary increase. If you have no employees and overhead costs are reasonably low it would be worth leaving costs as they are and loooking again in 6 months time. With regards to late payment charges, we tried that one when we had petrol accounts and some clients just knocked it off and was not worth pursuing. Also I believe that the Gov are soon to introduce a law that you can only pass on the admin costs to you re cheques and credit cards so eventually that path would not recoup much. Hope this is helpful. We tend to look at overhead costs yearly and decide on increasing hourly rate according to that yearly percentage increase. If this is low we tend to just take into consideration employees annual salary increase. If you have no employees and overhead costs are reasonably low it would be worth leaving costs as they are and loooking again in 6 months time. With regards to late payment charges, we tried that one when we had petrol accounts and some clients just knocked it off and was not worth pursuing. Also I believe that the Gov are soon to introduce a law that you can only pass on the admin costs to you re cheques and credit cards so eventually that path would not recoup much. Hope this is helpful.

]]> Comment on Should we be Increasing Rates in Line With Inflation? by Becky O'Connor http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2012/01/04/should-we-be-increasing-rates-in-line-with-inflation/comment-page-1/#comment-129846 Becky O'Connor Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:00:32 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=695#comment-129846 Nice article. We have been wrestling with these issues and need to put in place some measures to ensure smoother cash flow and stronger incentives for clients to pay on time. I like Chris's idea of the 14-28 day late payment fee, with the added flexibility of of agreeing separate terms with individual clients. My only doubt on this is if they are a client who already has a history of late payment and generally being a bit of a pain are you in danger of giving them more leeway to stall on prompt payment. I guess you would have to take it on a case by case basis. I agree that there seems to be a big discrepancy in peoples understanding of payments in the creative industry. Like you say no one would have any qualms about paying up front for a sofa or entering into a credit agreement in order to pay for it, but when it comes to websites and design, some people seem to have a problem. I wonder if its to do with the fact that its not something tangible, the benefits and value to their company are not something they can physically touch. The intrinsic value of a website to a company and the actual value a client place upon it can be wildly different. This opens up a whole new area of discussion which I think you may have touched on in a previous blog piece. Nice article. We have been wrestling with these issues and need to put in place some measures to ensure smoother cash flow and stronger incentives for clients to pay on time. I like Chris’s idea of the 14-28 day late payment fee, with the added flexibility of of agreeing separate terms with individual clients. My only doubt on this is if they are a client who already has a history of late payment and generally being a bit of a pain are you in danger of giving them more leeway to stall on prompt payment. I guess you would have to take it on a case by case basis.

I agree that there seems to be a big discrepancy in peoples understanding of payments in the creative industry. Like you say no one would have any qualms about paying up front for a sofa or entering into a credit agreement in order to pay for it, but when it comes to websites and design, some people seem to have a problem. I wonder if its to do with the fact that its not something tangible, the benefits and value to their company are not something they can physically touch. The intrinsic value of a website to a company and the actual value a client place upon it can be wildly different. This opens up a whole new area of discussion which I think you may have touched on in a previous blog piece.

]]> Comment on Should we be Increasing Rates in Line With Inflation? by Chris http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2012/01/04/should-we-be-increasing-rates-in-line-with-inflation/comment-page-1/#comment-129842 Chris Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:38:34 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=695#comment-129842 Generally not - they seemed surprised until went through essentially the same argument as you have above. I have to say that the majority now pay between 14 and 21 days, which is fine (and I do not impart a late charge for that). those that don't are the usual suspects shall we say and, as such, deserve the late charges!!! Generally not – they seemed surprised until went through essentially the same argument as you have above. I have to say that the majority now pay between 14 and 21 days, which is fine (and I do not impart a late charge for that). those that don’t are the usual suspects shall we say and, as such, deserve the late charges!!!

]]> Comment on Should we be Increasing Rates in Line With Inflation? by Voodoochilli http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2012/01/04/should-we-be-increasing-rates-in-line-with-inflation/comment-page-1/#comment-129840 Voodoochilli Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:07:08 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=695#comment-129840 Thank you for your comment Chris. Did any of your clients take the 14 day change badly? Thank you for your comment Chris. Did any of your clients take the 14 day change badly?

]]> Comment on Should we be Increasing Rates in Line With Inflation? by Chris http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2012/01/04/should-we-be-increasing-rates-in-line-with-inflation/comment-page-1/#comment-129839 Chris Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:58:06 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=695#comment-129839 We have the same problem. Our answer has been to reduce payment terms to 14 days. Late payment charges are accrued from day 14 to day 28 at which point the charges go up. In addition an admin fee is charged for processing a cheque. I realize that the 14/28 day payment charges may appear harsh but it does mean that we can keep costs competitive and only those who fail to pay on time will be affected. You can agree separate terms if clients choke at having to pay late fees at 14 days by agreeing a 30 day payment plan but with late charges backdated to day 14 if the client does not pay within the 30 days. If the client is genuine and will pay inside his 30 day window then no probs. If he isn't, and won't, then I would have no qualms hitting him with a late payment fee as described. We have the same problem. Our answer has been to reduce payment terms to 14 days. Late payment charges are accrued from day 14 to day 28 at which point the charges go up. In addition an admin fee is charged for processing a cheque.
I realize that the 14/28 day payment charges may appear harsh but it does mean that we can keep costs competitive and only those who fail to pay on time will be affected.
You can agree separate terms if clients choke at having to pay late fees at 14 days by agreeing a 30 day payment plan but with late charges backdated to day 14 if the client does not pay within the 30 days. If the client is genuine and will pay inside his 30 day window then no probs. If he isn’t, and won’t, then I would have no qualms hitting him with a late payment fee as described.

]]> Comment on How Much is a Site Worth? by Voodoochilli http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2011/06/14/how-much-is-a-site-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-121132 Voodoochilli Thu, 16 Jun 2011 09:46:59 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=528#comment-121132 Thank you both for your comments. Davy, yes my question was deliberately vague. If you asked a professional web designer the same question they would consider photography and hosting costs as well as many others that I haven't listed since they are fully aware of all of the costs. The whole point of asking non web designers was to see if they were aware of the real costs. It is interesting that everyone I asked only considered time as the only chargeable cost involved. I think my main point here regarding costings is that the biggest single factor to affect the cost of a website, is not the raw costs and time, but rather the experience of the team creating it. You could argue there are raw costs involved in that, however my point is that this experiences has value in it's own right. As Davy says, it is possible to make a logo in 20 minutes, however, most likely it won't be very good. Any logo designer worth his salt doesn't "knock something up" in 20 minutes, but rather would spend a considerable amount of time researching the client's needs, competition etc., etc. even before actually sketching on paper or creating anything on a computer. Incidentally, £300 is cheap for a logo. We charge £350 and only if it's part of a larger website build. We probably wouldn't consider the job worth doing on it's own because of the initial costs of running any project (meetings with client, travel expensive, research, phone consultations, meetings with designer etc etc). As mentioned in my article, the logo is far more than a few pixels, it is the basis for a company's entire corporate image. When you sell it to the client, you are not only selling the work involved you are selling the rights to it's use and reuse. Just look at the new Olympics logo which cost £400,000 - and it's been confused with to Lisa Simpson doing something...! A good analogy is a celebrity photograph - it might only cost a few hundred pounds in raw costs to create a photo of David and Victoria Beckham doing something important (actually more like a couple of grand, although no doubt the paparazzi have lower costs), however when it is being sold to Hello Magazine the chief editor doesn't say "Well, I have a camera on my phone and it only takes a second to press the little button". He or she knows it's intrinsic value and pays for it accordingly as well as the fact that the photographer is most likely better at photography. The quality of this value maybe be a variable factor depending on the skills of the photographer and the cost of the equipment, but the vast majority of it's value is down to the subject itself and it's innate value to the person buying it. I know this is a weird concept to get ones head around and it makes more sense to just equate value as time = money, but it is far more complex than that. I completely understand why web designers starting out work for very little, they have no choice in the matter. They need a way of improving their skills and building up a portfolio and this is sometimes a great way of a start-up company getting a very cheap, and sometimes surprisingly decent website. It is very hit and miss though. My first few websites were done complexly free of charge. However, having now built well over 100 websites and having a firmer grasp on the costs involved I know exactly how much we must charge to make a profit. We still build some websites for essentially free - we offer a 50% discount (up to £1000) to registered charities, and what little they pay us merely covers our costs. Having charities on our portfolio is value in itself and it gives us a nice warm feeling in our tummies! After doing this bit of research I do think I have a better understanding of why people think the way they do about costs, and this is particularly down to the kind people that took the time to reply to my poll with comments. Someone that does not work in the web design industry simply cannot have a full grasp of the costs unless they have hired web designers already. I suspect this is not something that will change any time soon, however, as I said in my article, it is not something that we have to worry about immediately and most of our clients are well aware of the cost's involved (we rarely get turned down after a pitch due to costs, and in fact often win a pitch against several over designers because we are the best value for money). Also, here are some interesting links I have found that may be interesting to others. http://www.logodesignlove.com/how-much-does-logo-design-cost (in the comments people have listed how much they charge for logo designs) http://www.jpink.co.uk/blog/2010/05/05/how-much-should-a-logo-cost/ (Interesting article about logo costs) http://www.voodoochilli.com/costs.php (Our own costing page) Thank you both for your comments.

Davy, yes my question was deliberately vague. If you asked a professional web designer the same question they would consider photography and hosting costs as well as many others that I haven’t listed since they are fully aware of all of the costs. The whole point of asking non web designers was to see if they were aware of the real costs. It is interesting that everyone I asked only considered time as the only chargeable cost involved. I think my main point here regarding costings is that the biggest single factor to affect the cost of a website, is not the raw costs and time, but rather the experience of the team creating it. You could argue there are raw costs involved in that, however my point is that this experiences has value in it’s own right.

As Davy says, it is possible to make a logo in 20 minutes, however, most likely it won’t be very good. Any logo designer worth his salt doesn’t “knock something up” in 20 minutes, but rather would spend a considerable amount of time researching the client’s needs, competition etc., etc. even before actually sketching on paper or creating anything on a computer. Incidentally, £300 is cheap for a logo. We charge £350 and only if it’s part of a larger website build. We probably wouldn’t consider the job worth doing on it’s own because of the initial costs of running any project (meetings with client, travel expensive, research, phone consultations, meetings with designer etc etc). As mentioned in my article, the logo is far more than a few pixels, it is the basis for a company’s entire corporate image. When you sell it to the client, you are not only selling the work involved you are selling the rights to it’s use and reuse. Just look at the new Olympics logo which cost £400,000 – and it’s been confused with to Lisa Simpson doing something…! A good analogy is a celebrity photograph – it might only cost a few hundred pounds in raw costs to create a photo of David and Victoria Beckham doing something important (actually more like a couple of grand, although no doubt the paparazzi have lower costs), however when it is being sold to Hello Magazine the chief editor doesn’t say “Well, I have a camera on my phone and it only takes a second to press the little button”. He or she knows it’s intrinsic value and pays for it accordingly as well as the fact that the photographer is most likely better at photography. The quality of this value maybe be a variable factor depending on the skills of the photographer and the cost of the equipment, but the vast majority of it’s value is down to the subject itself and it’s innate value to the person buying it. I know this is a weird concept to get ones head around and it makes more sense to just equate value as time = money, but it is far more complex than that.

I completely understand why web designers starting out work for very little, they have no choice in the matter. They need a way of improving their skills and building up a portfolio and this is sometimes a great way of a start-up company getting a very cheap, and sometimes surprisingly decent website. It is very hit and miss though. My first few websites were done complexly free of charge. However, having now built well over 100 websites and having a firmer grasp on the costs involved I know exactly how much we must charge to make a profit. We still build some websites for essentially free – we offer a 50% discount (up to £1000) to registered charities, and what little they pay us merely covers our costs. Having charities on our portfolio is value in itself and it gives us a nice warm feeling in our tummies!

After doing this bit of research I do think I have a better understanding of why people think the way they do about costs, and this is particularly down to the kind people that took the time to reply to my poll with comments. Someone that does not work in the web design industry simply cannot have a full grasp of the costs unless they have hired web designers already. I suspect this is not something that will change any time soon, however, as I said in my article, it is not something that we have to worry about immediately and most of our clients are well aware of the cost’s involved (we rarely get turned down after a pitch due to costs, and in fact often win a pitch against several over designers because we are the best value for money).

Also, here are some interesting links I have found that may be interesting to others.

http://www.logodesignlove.com/how-much-does-logo-design-cost (in the comments people have listed how much they charge for logo designs)
http://www.jpink.co.uk/blog/2010/05/05/how-much-should-a-logo-cost/ (Interesting article about logo costs)
http://www.voodoochilli.com/costs.php (Our own costing page)

]]> Comment on How Much is a Site Worth? by Davy http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2011/06/14/how-much-is-a-site-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-121118 Davy Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:54:09 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=528#comment-121118 The thing is it totally depends on how much time you're going to put in, what quality they're willing to accept and what additional things they require from you (the original question made no mention of hosting costs or photography costs or domain name costs. Just buliding a website.) If somebody sent me the text for the ten pages I could make a basic template and send it back to them in a day. As for a logo, it totally depends on what they're willing to pay. It's easy to make a logo in 20 minutes. It just won't be very good. But if the person has a £300 budget then clearly they're not paying for quality. Consultations and the like are of course going to add to the cost but I wouldn't call that building a website, my quote was purely for the time it'd take to build the site :) In practice I remember making one 5 page site, I emailed them a couple of times to send me the content I needed and clarify some details. I then built the site with a reasonable logo (considering what they were using until then) in about 5 hours tops. Then it was just a matter of asking if they had a host of their own or if they wanted me to sort that out for them at a cost of X extra a year. Now I had no office, or income tax returns to file and it was an unusually undemanding job, but I still ended up making like £15 an hour and only charging £100 for the site. Not indicative of all jobs, but I think it shows it's not so crazy for the uninitiated person to think about £300 "feels right" especially if they haven't considered the extra costs you mentioned (which I didn't when I heard the question originally). Nice, well written article btw! The thing is it totally depends on how much time you’re going to put in, what quality they’re willing to accept and what additional things they require from you (the original question made no mention of hosting costs or photography costs or domain name costs. Just buliding a website.)

If somebody sent me the text for the ten pages I could make a basic template and send it back to them in a day. As for a logo, it totally depends on what they’re willing to pay. It’s easy to make a logo in 20 minutes. It just won’t be very good. But if the person has a £300 budget then clearly they’re not paying for quality.

Consultations and the like are of course going to add to the cost but I wouldn’t call that building a website, my quote was purely for the time it’d take to build the site :)

In practice I remember making one 5 page site, I emailed them a couple of times to send me the content I needed and clarify some details. I then built the site with a reasonable logo (considering what they were using until then) in about 5 hours tops. Then it was just a matter of asking if they had a host of their own or if they wanted me to sort that out for them at a cost of X extra a year.

Now I had no office, or income tax returns to file and it was an unusually undemanding job, but I still ended up making like £15 an hour and only charging £100 for the site. Not indicative of all jobs, but I think it shows it’s not so crazy for the uninitiated person to think about £300 “feels right” especially if they haven’t considered the extra costs you mentioned (which I didn’t when I heard the question originally).

Nice, well written article btw!

]]> Comment on How Much is a Site Worth? by Chris http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2011/06/14/how-much-is-a-site-worth/comment-page-1/#comment-121069 Chris Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:45:48 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/?p=528#comment-121069 Great blog entry. The more a piece of commercial creative work can be broken down into time scales, materials and expertise the more it validates itself to the client. The more the client can get involved in seeing the physical process unfold. Once all of this can be seen in a non-abstracted way, with no smoke and mirrors the clients will be much happier with the service. If you can also prove to new clients how much previous clients' revenue has expanded since completing a website for them, surely it should be a no-brainer for the new clients. All is then as quantifiable as it can be. Great blog entry. The more a piece of commercial creative work can be broken down into time scales, materials and expertise the more it validates itself to the client. The more the client can get involved in seeing the physical process unfold. Once all of this can be seen in a non-abstracted way, with no smoke and mirrors the clients will be much happier with the service. If you can also prove to new clients how much previous clients’ revenue has expanded since completing a website for them, surely it should be a no-brainer for the new clients. All is then as quantifiable as it can be.

]]> Comment on 10 reasons I hate Facebook by Dude http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2008/02/29/10-reasons-i-hate-facebook/comment-page-1/#comment-116895 Dude Tue, 29 Mar 2011 20:31:51 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2008/02/29/10-reasons-i-hate-facebook/#comment-116895 i HATE FACEBOOK with a passion! they cant stop changing things! they are always fixing what isnt BROKEN! and i hate that when i closed my account and decided to try it again, i keep getting a message on top of my profile- Re-Confirm your email? no thanks, i have done that once! until i do it i cant use Facebook, what a shame not! BY FACEBOOK! KISS MY A**E FACEBOOK, TOTAL S**T i HATE FACEBOOK with a passion! they cant stop changing things! they are always fixing what isnt BROKEN! and i hate that when i closed my account and decided to try it again, i keep getting a message on top of my profile- Re-Confirm your email? no thanks, i have done that once! until i do it i cant use Facebook, what a shame not! BY FACEBOOK! KISS MY A**E FACEBOOK, TOTAL S**T

]]> Comment on 10 reasons I hate Facebook by Peter http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2008/02/29/10-reasons-i-hate-facebook/comment-page-1/#comment-114561 Peter Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:45:08 +0000 http://blog.voodoochilli.com/2008/02/29/10-reasons-i-hate-facebook/#comment-114561 I couldn't agree with your more! I like to add a few more. 1.I hate facebook because I am sick of seeing people peruse other peoples pages because they have nothing else to do. Seriously, all they do is look at other people's pictures who they barely know. 2.I hate facebook because it's nothing but a popularity contest. 5000 friends? Are you shitting me?? I don't even have 15 friends. How do you get 5000 or even 500? 3.I hate facebook because facebook doesn't care about me or you but their bottom line. All they wnat is your information so Mark Zuckerberg get sell it to advertisers and app developers so he can be richer than the Google guys. 4.I hate facebook becasue facebook is a tool for losers who they they are not losers. "Yea look at me I have a facebook account! Just like everyone else, so I must be popular!" 5.I hate Facebook because facebook are making people like zombies. It's like people who are on facebook has become zombies or robots. "Oh let me get on facebook because ..I don't know..I just need to get on facebook." 6.I hate facebook because everyone is on facebook because everyone else is on facebook! You know it's true. 7.I hate facebook because instead of making my friends closer it is making my friends and I further apart! Seriously. I'm now getting fucking birthday invites from facebook instead of a courtesy phone call or email? 8.I hate facebook because it is meaningless to use. There are no thought provoking debates except to peruse pictures and dumb idiotic statuses. I don't care you're pissed off at your sister who I have no idea who she is. There is another website out there that claims as the Anti-Facebook website. It is called Koowie. It connects people based on each of our thoughts. So it is a more purposeful website. Check it out <a href="http://www.koowie.com" rel="nofollow">Koowie.com</a>. Let the revolution begin! Peter I couldn’t agree with your more! I like to add a few more.

1.I hate facebook because I am sick of seeing people peruse other peoples pages because they have nothing else to do. Seriously, all they do is look at other people’s pictures who they barely know.

2.I hate facebook because it’s nothing but a popularity contest. 5000 friends? Are you shitting me?? I don’t even have 15 friends. How do you get 5000 or even 500?

3.I hate facebook because facebook doesn’t care about me or you but their bottom line. All they wnat is your information so Mark Zuckerberg get sell it to advertisers and app developers so he can be richer than the Google guys.

4.I hate facebook becasue facebook is a tool for losers who they they are not losers. “Yea look at me I have a facebook account! Just like everyone else, so I must be popular!”

5.I hate Facebook because facebook are making people like zombies. It’s like people who are on facebook has become zombies or robots. “Oh let me get on facebook because ..I don’t know..I just need to get on facebook.”

6.I hate facebook because everyone is on facebook because everyone else is on facebook! You know it’s true.

7.I hate facebook because instead of making my friends closer it is making my friends and I further apart! Seriously. I’m now getting fucking birthday invites from facebook instead of a courtesy phone call or email?

8.I hate facebook because it is meaningless to use. There are no thought provoking debates except to peruse pictures and dumb idiotic statuses. I don’t care you’re pissed off at your sister who I have no idea who she is.

There is another website out there that claims as the Anti-Facebook website. It is called Koowie. It connects people based on each of our thoughts. So it is a more purposeful website. Check it out Koowie.com. Let the revolution begin!

Peter

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