I lost a job to someone else today. It wasn’t a biggie, so the pain was minimal. But still. I fuckin’ lost. I hate losing work. Hate it. To me it’s the worst thing that can happen to a freelancer. The good news is that I didn’t lose because my music wasn’t right or because I was difficult to deal with or anything like that. I was happy to hear the client tell us that. Here is what he wrote to my agent,
Deane is actually the best candidate for this. He’s so easy to work with and talk to and his music is right on cue with what we want, but…”
And there it is… the big butt.
… he’s a little out of our price range on this particular project.”
Argh. Seriously? Beat on price? Shit.
That’s the way this business has been going lately for everyone, though. It’s a price war. In many ways it’s a race to the bottom, which is a cliché I don’t really care for, but a reality nonetheless. I should have known. The crappiest part is that they went with someone who, according to their above statement 1) Isn’t the best candidate for the job, and 2) Might be less easy to work with than I would be. Both things mean that they won’t be getting the best they could get, as far as they know now.
Now, the composer they are hiring could surprise them and deliver the greatest experience they’ve ever had, but by their own admission (unless they are lying) they are already working against the grain and the job hasn’t even started yet.
Even still… I lost to someone else. Period.
What do you do when you lose? What can you do? There’s only one thing, really. Evaluate why.
How could this have turned out differently? Well, for starters, I could have dropped the price slightly for them in the end. In fact, we offered that, but the decision had already been made and a handshake had already been given to the new hire. I don’t like to do that because I’m worth what I’m worth and if the client cannot afford that, I’m not interested in eroding my price for the rest of the world by giving them a break. However, if they are smart negotiators, there are all kinds of ways around price. It rarely has to do with money. In the case of these folks, they are a mid-size animation studio in Tokyo. We could have worked something out. Maybe a partial trade of services against funds. Maybe a first-right-of-refusal against future projects. There were a lot of options, they just didn’t realize it. By the time we would have pitched one of those to save the day, it was already too late.
Which brings me to my last point.
What did I learn from all this? Three things. I knew them already… but I got cocky and didn’t pay attention.
1. Always educate your clients. Not only about what you can give them in the way of your services, but also, and probably more importantly, that you can make a deal work no matter what their challenges might be. If they are low on cash but high on resources that you could use for your own needs, then pitch those as practical funding options in lieu of real dollars. Money is only one way to get paid, and to be honest, unless you are starving sometimes it’s not the best way.
2. Always ask yourself how the next competitor could undercut your ability to win the job. Where are your soft spots? Maybe you are a killer artist, but you are expensive. Have a B-plan in place that addresses that concern for the client. A “second-tier plan”, if you will. Cable companies do this very well. They have Premium plans that include all the bells and whistles, i.e. HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Sirius Radio, etc., and then they have a second-tier plan for less than that (and more limited programming options). Further still, they’ll offer even a more basic plan for 20 bucks a month that includes just the bare essentials. Each plan is great and worth what it’s worth, but notice that they all include the mere basics of what every cable customer is looking for.
This way of operating requires you to get super honest about yourself, though. No content provider is perfect and if people are paying attention (and only the good competitors do, aka the ones you have to worry about) then they’ll find a way to capitalize on your weak points and pounce before you’ve even determined your asking price. A good way to manage any creative business is to mirror-check yourself at every step to identify any weak spots and get rid of them so as to not charitably give away any unfair advantage.
3. Always run your show like you are competing against the biggest names in the business. You might not be, but pretend that you are anyway. It will train you to be a harder worker, it will help you stay honest about the valuation of your own abilities and business practices, and it will prepare you for any surprise that could come your way. If you are up for a journalistic gig, you might not be in the league of a Bob Woodward or a Brian Montopoli. If you’re a composer, you might not be on the level of a Thomas Newman or James Newton Howard. So what. Act like you are. Because if you keep getting more things right than you get wrong, eventually, you will be. Then what? Are you going to keep operating the way you are now? Hell no! Of course not. So start to act now like you have everything to lose and everything to gain by becoming, in practice, and A-list talent (which you do, by the way). There is not a single thing that could hurt you by adopting the acumen of someone at the top of their game.
Now, here’s the rub: You can do all these things and more… you are still going to lose. It’s just a numbers game and you cannot win every time you leave the starting gate. But you can curb the numbers significantly in your favor by doing some of the things I’ve mentioned, as well as countless other things that will help you get a leg up when it comes time to sit down at the dealmaking table.
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By the way I just added I like this , not that I like what happened to you , but thanks for sharing , incidentally its seems to be a common problem , We"d like to use your services but we just cant afford it. It seems to be the song a lot of companies are singing in Japan at the moment.
Thanks for reading, bro.
Yeah, man… what's up with that lately? I wonder if the East has felt a bit insulated from the economic slowdown that the rest of the world has been in for 2+ years and maybe now the residual effects are starting to cross borders. That's all I got. You've been there a lot longer than I have — What are your thoughts on the origins of that attitude?
Deane . i dont know for sure on the exact origins of the change in thinking , it is in part as you say a residual effect starting to cross the borders. other factors are an increasing number of composers fighting for the gig . [its a global marketplace now } its certainly harder to stand out in a crowd these days . In the Past here in Japan it used to be that you set your price , and that was the price . If the company wanted you bad enough or if you wanted the gig bad enough , you would find a way to resolve the issue , maybe that client could recommend you to another company later , As Deane says and i"m paraphrasing here but there are other ways to reach a cordial agreement . {but and this is a big but the price was set in stone , then guess what happened .somebody said i can do it for less that . and here we are . Now its almost one of the first questions in the conversation . How low can you go . { Sorry for this answer being so verbose by the way }.
[...] original post here: What to Do When You Lose Share and [...]
The thing that really strikes me here is that their first response was "he's out of our price range" vs their first response being "he's out of our price range, but is there any chance he could come down just a bit on the fee?" And I've noticed this happening more and more in my own work… it used to be that you quoted a fee slightly higher than what you hoped to get, knowing you'd have 1-2 rounds of back-and-forth and you'd end up at the fee you wanted (and this applies to licensing lately as well). Sort of like buying a house: you put in a lower offer, they come back, you counter, they agree. Where you want to end up dictates where you start. The disconcerting thing here is that it feels like a one-shot deal, where you throw your best quote out there and if they don't like it they walk away. And it's usually in that middle ground of back-and-forth where you can say things like "I'm happy to take the lower fee if I can keep the rights to the music" or gives and takes like that. But the "back-and-forth" has suddenly disappeared. I'm not sure at which point the "let's negotiate" conversation left the building, but I've noticed this happening on multiple fronts: license deals and scoring gigs. There's definitely a "race to the bottom" thing going on on both fronts. I suppose there's always a chance that a response like this is a polite brush-off and maybe they weren't crazy about what you did, but I can't imagine they would do the "it's not you, it's me" thing to an agent: most prods are pretty upfront with an agent. This could be a good topic for discussion in a future Hangout or The Conversation.
It is interesting isn't it? I'm seeing it, too, and David Freeman mentioned in his comment here that he's seeing it a lot in Japan (where he's working) across the board too. I don't know what it is. As this business changes almost daily, it seems like weird stuff like this happens regularly and keep us on our toes, sometimes in ways that aren't too exciting or promising. I had a real solid two rounds of meeting with these guys — one round where we met first and got acquainted, and a 2nd so they could introduce me to the company's heavies in an effort to get the deal closed — and in each set they continually voiced that I was the guy they wanted, so it was a mystery to both me and my rep as to why it happened…. until I had a conversation with the project director yesterday (after I'd already posted this) and she told me that if they'd known I would negotiate on price earlier, it would have made all the difference in the world. She said that they looked me up in Google and saw my name where they saw it and just "figured" they couldn't afford me. So, this could be a couple things: It could be a case of my own social profile sabotaging my chances at a great little gig. It could be a case of my pricing structure not being clear and straightforward enough for my foreign clients. OR… it could be exactly what I wrote about… I fucked up and didn't educate them from the start about what it's like to work with Deane Ogden. I'm betting it was that, based on her comments… "if we would have known"…. "if we would have known"… Those damned words are going to haunt me until I have the next chance to NOT do it again.
Are they inexperienced producers? I think negotiation is the default for any agreement, whether it's for the actors or music or DP or editor or whoever. So for someone to say "oh we didn't know we could negotiate with you" kinda sounds like that's someone who hasn't done this for very long, y'know? It's always been my understanding (in both licensing and scoring worlds) that the first $ figure thrown out there is just the conversation-starter, since the producer is never going to approach saying "We have $___ budgeted for a composer, are you in?"
Right. But I think it's a little of both. As we;ve seen the erosion of negotiation in America as the economic climate has taken its toll, I think Asia (who formerly though they were immune) is now feeling the hurt. That plus the fact of what you say, but not necessarily just the people, the entire genre I'm dealing with here — Animation studios are not the old guard of Hollywood royalty where they are used to doing million-dollar deals every day. It's not like I was at FOX and dealing with a long historical pedigree of dealmakers in the film biz. This is Japan and these are animators. While most of them come from places around the biz that are notable and somewhat prestigious, they are now running their own shingle. Here comes "Mr. Hollywood" and they think they need to have their ducks in a row. (Which of course, couldn't be further from the case)
Negotiation is slowly being overtaken by the same beast that has slowly overtaken "quality control". It's slipping away. Just as "the gig is the gig, take it leave it", the price is the price.
All in all, just another new challenge for us all to deal with and overcome. It never ends!
Just to add a +1 to this sentiment, I have experienced this a lot in the independent world. I was always told to quote very high because you'll end up somewhere in the middle, but a very surprising amount of times people won't even give me the courtesy of a response. Only after I follow up do they say "oh that was out of our price range, we went another direction."
It seems like the right approach might be to quote several options at once, the "B-Plan" cable service Deane mentioned. But rather than using it as a counter to their "No thanks," which I think I tend to do, I would be wiser to present all the options up front. Then their decision becomes "Which version of him do we want?" Instead of "Do we want him?".