As a supplement to my full-time job, I do some video editing work. Most of it is for one guy, who writes and voices short real estate videos, paying another guy to shoot them and me to edit them and encode them for the web. He pays me on a per-project basis.
One day he asked me how much I would charge to append his client’s head shots and contact info for five seconds at the end of some of the videos. Because it would be such a simple composite, my pushover-businessman inclination was to say “nothing,” but I decided on a one-time fee of $20 for each agent’s informational screen, which I would save for future use at no charge.
So, the source material for these screens usually arrives from his clients via forwarded emails with pictures attached and contact info in the text. The latest one included the line, “Here is my picture and a link to my contact info. Do you need anything else? I’ll send the $40 right away.”
That struck me as funny. I realize he’s the owner of the business, and marking up services is normal, but he’s apparently getting an extra $20 just to forward an email.
So, what should I do?
A. Send the snarky reply I almost sent, saying “wow, that’s a healthy markup for pressing the ‘Forward’ button” followed by a dampening emoticon.
B. Say nothing, but raise my price for these screens.
C. Say nothing, but raise my project price (I’d been thinking of doing this anyway).
D. Do nothing, say nothing. It’s a fair markup, and the $20 I get is a steal as well.
E. None of the above.
As you can tell, I’m pretty inexperienced when it comes to conducting business, so I have no idea if I’m out of whack for thinking this is fishy. Until now I actually thought the $20 he paid me was coming out of his overhead for the entire project. It wouldn’t have bothered me if he charged $20 to break even, or $25 just because he’s the boss. But $40? He’s really capitalizing on my talents there.
