Old adage about doing biz with friends....

[sarettah]

Jen has been working on putting up several new front ends to her jewelry empire.... Trying to take a different tact in marketing....

So, one of the things she decided she wanted was, of course, a logo....

Now, both Jen and I are artists of a sort, although my "commercial" work leaves much to be desired, but since we are both active in the arts community, we have many friends who are artists...

One of my friends has been out of work for a couple of years, struggling to get his own company up and running, doing commercial work....

We decided to throw him a bone and asked him to help work with Jen in putting together a logo... We had him over, discussed what we want over dinner, did a handshake on it, the whole bit.... I told him we could afford about 10 hours worth of work at his standard $50 an hour but that we wanted a good logo out of the deal.....

Found out last night, that he has spent "supposedly" the last 2 weeks putting together a "creative rationale" document... I read it last night, and it was quite simply, the answers that Jen had given him to various questions spit back at us in a formal document.... entirs document is about a page and a half and he claims he has 13 hours into it.....

So, at this point Jen has sent him a note saying "don't go any further" and he has sent a note back saying "sorry it didn't work out"... we have not discussed the money side of it with him, although he has a check for half the money that I gave him up front, knowing that he was cash short... He has not cashed the check yet...

So, even though there has not been any kind of blow up, it now has me in the very uncomfortable position of having to go deal with him on it.... If it wasn't a friend I could simply say "Fuck you, I am not paying $500 for a piece of shit right up when what we contracted for was a logo"... Instead, I am going to have to be politcally correct in my approach or end up losing 5 bills....

anyway, doesn't make for a nice start of the day to have to think through this stuff :unsure:

[DrGuile]

Originally posted by sarettah@Dec 11 2003, 07:29 AM
Found out last night, that he has spent "supposedly" the last 2 weeks putting together a "creative rationale" document... I read it last night, and it was quite simply, the answers that Jen had given him to various questions spit back at us in a formal document.... entirs document is about a page and a half and he claims he has 13 hours into it.....
Lol, we had a consulting company try that on us. Exact same thing, spit our requirements back to us in a fancy document.



They werent friends tough, so we happily told them to go fuck themselves!

[Richard N. Bush]

I really hate doing business with friends for this very reason. I've hired friends of many many years only to have them sit around on their asses doing crappy work, and giving me no choice but to "encourage" them to find a new line of work to get into.

Some friendships have survived this, some haven't. I partially blame myself for hiring them in the first place, and won't do that again.

I have occasionally still contracted some work to friends though, but it's been very specific work for a set price, no hourly fees. Strictly a "I want this in 2 weeks, and here's what I will pay for it." That works better, and I go into it with the attitude that if the work sucks I'll still be paying for it, but I won't contract them for anything else.

[sarettah]

I have always believed what goes around, comes around...

so, usually, when dealing with friends/family etc... I just do it gratis..

That way, nobody can possibly feel ripped off by me... If it takes longer than it should, that is ok because they need to understand that paying folks come first...

I have maintained this attitude within this industry to a certain extent (ask anybody that has gotten programming/html/computer help from me about what price I charged them) and it has only bitten me on the ass once so far...

I won't get rich that way, but it causes a whole lot less stress for me.....

:unsure:

[Carrie]

Sare check some of the samples and work in this thread and the people who responded - most of them wanted about $250 or so for a top-notch logo:
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.p...light=geek+logo (http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=166963&highlight=geek+logo)

Maybe with your friend you could tell him "we were expecting you to come back to us with some rough drafts, not repetition of what we said to you. When we talked in person we communicated what was on this paper; we already know this and don't need it written down. If your business isn't taking off, perhaps one of the things you should do is look at putting more rough drafts in front of people and get them excited about the process" yadda yadda.

It could be that he's just *too* stuck in big corporate thinking and needs someone to show him that when you're dealing with face-to-face people, it's the results, not the process, that gets the deals made.

Then again maybe he's just trying to fuck you over and milk the hours but if he's a friend I kinda doubt it. Sounds more like a case of not really knowing *how* to be out in the business world without having a big corporation with its paper trail bullshit slowing things down.

[sarettah]

Originally posted by Carrie@Dec 11 2003, 10:53 AM
It could be that he's just *too* stuck in big corporate thinking and needs someone to show him that when you're dealing with face-to-face people, it's the results, not the process, that gets the deals made.


Sounds more like a case of not really knowing *how* to be out in the business world without having a big corporation with its paper trail bullshit slowing things down.
That is pretty much the way I read it......

I just hate to have to deal with it, I don't like to have folks end up mad at me and I sure don't like being pissed at them.... :unsure: