Good Designers Should Be Compensated Properly:
 

When I was in college I sold cars at a Ford Dealership. I noticed that salesmen who work on commission always out perform salesmen that work for a salary.

That lesson stayed with me.

How does that relate to designers? In a round about way. Please stay with me.

In my opinion, Fletch XXX is the best designer in the business. I approached him with an idea I had. I told him I'd pay him (XX) amount of money to begin creating alternate tours for my websites. In addition, he would receive (XX) percent of net sales that resulted from that tour. He would be responsible for creating all hosted galleries promoting that tour, banners, etc.

There are more details to it, but that's the basic overview. Fletch and I agreed on what the XX's above should be, and away we went.

Fletch chose to start with my Naked College Girls site. The first alternate tour he created is beautiful:

http://tour1.nakedcollegegirls.tv/

I love it! And Fletch has also created some beautiful hosted galleries to match it.

Fletch would have given his best whether or not he received a percentage of net sales from the tour, but I believe that since guys like him make guys like me a lot of money with their designs, he should be compensated beyond the usual set fee.

Thanks Fletch! You're the best!

Money Talks and Even more money Talks :thumbsup

Fletch is da man.

:glugglug

:thumbsup

good idea, it certainly makes sure the tours aren't just pretty but actually convert.

good idea way to keep Fletch happy

PS congrats Fletch.

Contrary to popular belief content isn't king. With awesome content and a mediocre design you're just like every other site out there :thumbsup

Not entirely true, great content will certainly help with customer retention, it just wont give you any sales boost. Meanwhile an awesome design and crappy content and you end up with every member cancelling after the first month. Find a happy medium with both, or better yet, excel at both. :winkwink:

Looks nice Fletch

yesterday i visited a designer friend of my wife's. he is _very_well known in the
computer game box field...and he makes an incredible amount of cash, per design, per game, plus royalties in some cases. And all he does is put
the bits together, with some filler illustration and padding. Like $40K
per job, with a one week turn around.

today, not 10 years ago. Designers, get
a clue and charge what your work is worth.

As he is promoting the tours he's making, I agree totally.

I'm in for that too. So if anyone interested in hiring us for a percentage of your sales, hit me up. There are also monthly rates, if you don't want to go with a percentage. We haven't updated our site yet, so if anyone interested hit me up.

agree, right on.

Donovan,

That's cool about the partnership with Fletch, but you know as well as I do that it won't happen in most cases.

We do tons of paysites for some of the largest companies online, I just can't imagine there face when I say can we have a cut :)

Raising prices might be an idea down the road though, dunno forsure.

Can you belive some people still bitch about a 1500.00 tour design, but if you think about it, it's a one time buy, and if they run there program right, how long does $1500.00 take to make back... With more competition out there then 2-3 years ago, guess we all have to go with the flow.

peace

Todd

fletch does AWESOME work

he doesn't get his jobs in an online forum competing with romanians and 3rd world inhabitants.

Can you believe people still bitch about a $550 tour?

Seriously some people always think I am in a desperate need of money because I have these (lower) prices and think they can throw me around.

As my work is on a diffrent (lower) level (graphicwise) than webincs or bluedesignstudios work I simply don't want (can't) to ask more for it. My pricing in combination with my work speed made me where I am now, a fulltime designer. Sure I can always need more money but at the moment I can't realy complain.

Lots of time I work with recurring customers who realy appreciate my work and don't bitch, but there are always people who think they can get a $550 tour for $350.

:2 cents:


BTW good job on the tour Fletch, keep up the good work :thumbsup

I see that Lightspeed is following a similar path with galleries. I made this agreement with Fletch well over a month ago. If he had declined I would have asked someone else to do it, but Fletch is my favorite designer so I would have been disappointed.

One person on this board told me, "You just like to give away money, don't you?"

He's a highly respected individual. He's chastised me in the past for sharing a large percentage of single-girl site revenues with the girls.

I see where that person is coming from... but he is right. I DO like to give money away. My reasoning is very simple:

I remember back to the days when I was dirt poor. My dad was pastor so growing up. Before selling cars in college (I made decent money at that) I worked the night shift at a saw mill. But while working my mind was constantly wandering... trying to figure out how to "get ahead". I hit up a few of the "rich" guys I knew with my ideas. They kept telling me "not interested", but also telling me that someday I'd find an idea that would launch me on my way. That someone would eventually want to invest some money.

To make a long story short, I started shooting content in 1996 for a few of the larger adult sites. I left a consulting job to go full time into content. I made very good money. Six figures per year. But then my BIG break came along. That break bore the name Gary Kremen (sex.com owner). This was RIGHT BEFORE he won the domain back. Just a few months before. He liked my content enough to make a SMALL capital investment into my content business.

But the best thing he did for me was to take an interest into my (very suck-ass at the time) Naked College Girls site.

Gary told me he'd give me a link on sex.com. Whereever I wanted it to be. So for several months my site was at the VERY top of sex.com. That was back when it was a banner farm.

I looked around and noticed that a lot of free sites had banners up the ass, just like sex.com. But the main entry was always a text link with the words "enter here" or something similar.

SO, I told Gary I wanted a text link at the TOP of sex.com, that stated in LARGE, BOLD letters "Enter Naked College Girls Here".

The traffic came in droves! Things were great until SE Guru took over sex.com. Gary gave him complete control. The first thing he did was remove my link. That's why I hated his ass for the longest time (I like him fine now... we talked things out).

IN A WAY, SE Guru also helped me out. Gary owned 51% of my content business AND my pay site. But since part of our contract was that I'd keep my sex.com link, when SE Guru removed the link the contract was voided. I lost a lot of traffic, but I regained 100% control of my company. Now I have several pay sites and several free sites as well. Life is good.

Anyway... that's part of the reason I believe in sharing. I'd love to help several people rocket ahead, just like Gary did for me.



(Hey, I think this story deserves its own thread).

wow! Your idea is wonderfull !

What does a woman's car have to do with this?

He's subtlely trying to tell us he's gay.

I just did what was expected of me.

You're the one that hit me the offer.

I should be thanking you. ;)

:)

Fletch Rocks! Does he have a web site!

Damn, a design like that with net sales commission?

Hook me up, I'll design till my fingers bleed. :Graucho

I can do something comparative to allinternal.com, if that's the sort of tours you're looking for.

#106164875

Good idea - but if the site is a success, in the long run you'd end up overpaying the designer.

wow.. cool story.. yeah definately deserves it's own thread :)

How do you know how much he is paying Fletch for commission?

Not if i am actively involved with the site and its promo nearly everyday vs handing over a psd and a tour and saying see ya in 2 years when you want a new tour?

think past the curve.

i predict more deals like this.

as the cost of design goes down, and more and more people swarm in the industry, deals like this will become more common.

past the curve ;)

:thumbsup

Wow !!


http://tour1.nakedcollegegirls.tv/images/keera-main.jpg


:thumbsup

His post didn't even merit a response. He's probably one of the people that thinks it's ok to pay a model $50 to take it up the ass so she can feed her kids.

I agree. There is no such thing as overpaying someone who's design continues to make money for you.


If you're not already an affiliate, sign up using Fletch's ref code:

http://tour1.nakedcollegegirls.tv/fletch/

I think the best thing you can do is to learn Photoshop and make your website designs for yourself, then you don't have to share anything with designers, and you can follow your own tastes.

:2 cents:

uh no

software (Photoshop) technical familiarity alone does not a designer make.

I totally agree. It only took me 2 days to fully learn all Photoshop secrets (Illustrator took another 2 days) and I got my design degree out of a Cracker Jack box for only $1.29 (it was a 2 for 1 deal at Walgreens) :thumbsup

Damn man, you have a coupon for those cracker jacks?

last month Fruit Loops had the same offer in the box, except with the free window sticker and decoder ring.... I couldn't pass it up.

That's a reasonable alternative to the many "designers" who think that a cool PS collage equates to design. But a design that is likely to sell needs elements to be present and placed in ways which non-designers are not even aware of.

I haven't made very big money in this business is because I retired into it, so I didn't want to be hiring employees, contractors, services, etc. But in the past I always did as little as possible, and concentrated on ideas and getting the right people to carry them out. Believe me, you make a lot more money that way.

I got the decoder ring, I might put it on to learn Flash real quick

Donovan: I think the same. Recurring on something they did is always nice.
Not to mention they will make something absolutely stellar and continue to keep their quality up for the extra cash involved.

see sig :glugglug

Does anybody wants to realize this idea too, like Donovans do? Icq me (92252723).

do you offer indeed lively porn where only here everything can be presented?

Why do you think so?

much would I love to see your internets.