I started doing product photography for local makers in Portland about 6 months ago. My first gig was $50 for 10 photos and I thought that was fair. A friend who runs an Etsy shop said she pays $150 for the same thing and asked why I was giving my work away. I sat down and figured out my time plus editing was taking me like 4 hours per batch. I bumped my rate to $120 for 10 photos and actually got more serious inquiries after that. Has anyone else had someone close to them call out their pricing like that?
I had my pegboard up for about 6 months and thought it looked fine. Then a buddy (works at a garage shop off Central Ave) stopped by and said 'you got too much air between your tool hooks, you need to group them by job not by tool type.' It sounded dumb at first but I tried it. I moved all my wrenches and sockets near the workbench and put the hammer stuff by the door. Now I save like 15 seconds each trip, which adds up to maybe 10 minutes a day. Has anyone else gotten weird layout advice that actually worked?
A client straight up said my $500 flat fee for a basic site felt "uncomfortably cheap" and it made me realize I was undervaluing my time. Switched to hourly after that, and my first $75/hour job took 12 hours but paid way better. Anyone else get a wake up call from a client's honest feedback on pricing?
For years I grabbed the lowest premium bronze plan on the marketplace because I rarely went to the doctor. Then last June I needed an MRI for a shoulder issue and the deductible plus coinsurance hit me for $3,200 out of pocket. Anyone else find that a silver plan with a slightly higher monthly payment actually saves money in the long run?
Everyone in this group keeps saying slow months are your chance to go to every networking event and coffee meeting. I tried that last February in Portland and it was a disaster. I spent $150 on event fees and parking alone, plus 3 hours each time driving downtown. After 4 events I had zero new clients and had missed a chance to fix a bug in a client's project that blew up into a 2-week delay. That client left me a bad review and I lost two referrals from them. I think people push the networking idea because it sounds productive, but for me it just burned cash and attention I needed for existing work. Has anyone else found that staying home and doing admin work during slow weeks actually worked better than pounding pavement?
My old lamp died last week so I figured I'd grab a new one quick. Three hours later I'm still reading reviews about color temperature and arm reach for my tiny home office corner. Anyone else get stuck in this lamp rabbit hole or am I just overthinking it?
Bought that popular 15-page scope document template bundle last month and spent 3 hours customizing it for a client, only for them to ignore every section and add 4 extra deliverables anyway - has anyone else had templates just give clients more ammo to argue about what's included?
I set up automatic invoices through FreshBooks thinking it would save me time. Then I noticed a client hadn't paid for 3 months because their credit card expired and the system just kept sending failed notices to my spam folder. I didn't catch it until I was reconciling my bank statements for taxes. Now I manually check every payment every Friday morning even if it feels redundant. Has anyone else had automation backfire like this or am I just unlucky?
I was helping my buddy wire his basement in St. Louis last weekend and his dad walked in, been an electrician for like 40 years. He saw me reaching for my impact driver to put in the outlet boxes and just shook his head. He said impact drivers strip out the plastic tabs on cheap boxes too easy and he always uses a regular drill with a clutch. I argued that impacts save time but he pointed out that I’ve already snapped two box ears this year doing it my way. Made me realize maybe speed isn’t everything when you’re spending extra money fixing mistakes. Anyone else ever get called out by an old timer and actually changed how you work because of it?