Says the little designer working for peanuts and has to resort to trying to pull down his competition with smarmy remarks for the crime of doing a better job for more money. lol. hahahahah. thanks for the laugh *sigh*

Designing isn't my full time gig, see.

edit: with that being said, I may hire you to do some work for me some day :winkwink:

Oh SNAP! Did he really say that?

Did you even read the whole thread? Did you see anywhere a post of mine where I said I was working for less money? Although I'm yet to charge as much as the more established design studios, I'm willing to go head-to-head with anyone, when it comes to results provided by our designs. Now laugh all you want, but if you want a design that sells, I'm your guy. And yes, I know my marketing damn well.

And if you had read MY reply... correctly.
You would have seen that I agree with you in the sense that a more expensive design WILL probably gain the client more business, not the designer.

And you will see that I am stating simply that many clients try to jew you down to a smaller price and even after the job is finished try to tell you that you told them an even SMALLER price.

I always ask for 50% down payment for this reason.

That was the point I was TRYING to make even if YOU missed it.

I'm well aware of the problem you mentioned and that wasn't even what I was talking about. Due to abovementioned issue I always charge up-front. If they're not happy, not a problem, I'll be happy to refund them. But I will not be put in the position of hunting down people for money I worked for.

In my experience 80+% of designers have no clue about sales.

I have had upwards of 30 designs done from around 12-14 different designers and in all cases except for 2 the paid for designs have done worse than the inhouse tours done by our Non-designer.

In fact some have converted so badly that we even removed them as second or third tour options! The designs themselves looked fantastic .. really nice and flashy, but the simple thing is flashy doesn't always sell.

wo0t! :thumbsup

I'd go as far as 95%.

Any designer (that doesn't have his own outsourced labor) working in the current adult market is working for peanuts. Anyhow back to point, if you read the reply properly you'll comprehend I didn't say they did a better job then you for more money than you, but their crime was doing better jobs for more money than they would for less.

I read the thread properly. You didn't say that anywhere. Well, except in the above post, of course. :)

maybe it was here in a post that you quoted me on? :) italics were to show context.

You win. I have better things to do that to argue with walls.

I gratiously accept.

anyways.. you guys should try dabbling in a less educated market where clients aren't exposed directly to the whole international market of prices.

You all must be aware of a simple thing: in the internet related domanin we have a global market. This means that people from all over the world compete for the same resources (money). This means that the market regualtes itself globally (meaning that the salaries in the 3rd world coutries increase and the salaries in USD ans EU will either decrease either there will be a lot of unemployeed people).

In other words: you get what you pay for. A well established company from any country in the world will ask you more money for a high quality design than a company that still has to prove that can make designs.

Moving to this case: from the designers point of view it is normal to assign less developemtn time for a design that pays 100$ than for a design that pays 600$. Or if I have more designers I assign the best for the 600$ one and the worst for the 100$.

I am new in the porn industry but I am running a succesfull business in software development for almost 6 years now. From my past experience I can tell you only one thing: do the things right and you will succeed in ANY business. You do not need to be better than the best, hell, you do not need to be as good as the best. All you need is to be as good or a little better than the average and you will make money.

Egomancer

Oh yeah...
I am average, never claim to be more. I charge what a job is worth to me for my time and efforts. I am reliable, fast and usually available because I am not a large company or an outsourced company. Sometimes a client pays more for the convenience of availability and getting the job done. And did I mention I speak english?

Yeah.. hence me suggesting looking into uneducated markets.. Even on a basic and very obvious level, most adult designers miss out on hosting revenue because all their clients have better hosting than they do whereas the similar sized and skilled mainstream team/sole operator the block over are charging 50 local businesses they've designed sites for $30/mo hosting and cramming them all on a $9.95 virtual account.

My guy charges $35 I think per gallery... I buy in bulk. I glady pay because his gal's kick ass

You shoul duse 'cheapp markets' not uneducated. Being uneducated means that they are not able to do the job that needs education (training).

The funny thing is that I started as an outsourcer and in 6 years I got to get local work and outsource it to cheap markets. So basically I switched places. All that I can say is that life is ironic!


Egomancer

best converting design for me when I used to push adult sites was shit that looked like it cost 12 bucks

35$ for a TGP? Hmm, I charge one of my present clients 1.5$ per gallery, but the work is not exactly top of the line. The guy knows it, I know it, but when I make him like 1000-2000 galleries per month I do not think that I can handle so many at the 35$ price (and consequently quality).

As long as the request meets the demand and everybody is happy then all is fine!

Egomancer

Hell a $600 dollar job is not worth getting out of bed for. Average contract for me is $8500. But then they are typically mainstream full dynamic sites. Don't know how a designer can talk with someone abou what they want and make it for $100, since that is 1 hour of billable time.

nono.. by uneducated market i mean the CLIENTS are uneducated. GFY is an EDUCATED market.. all the clients KNOW EXACTLY how much everything costs and how much they can get away with paying.
Local businesses are an UNEDUCATED market because they don't have a clue how much the site and hosting they need to get done costs.

Bhuto - ok, then I suppose you are right!

Egomancer

Yes, but remember, anyone who is trying to market a brand, branding can be negative OR positive... If you give your surfers a reason to associate your brand with negativity, they will do so.. people are more likely to jump the negative gun than the positive one.

It's very difficult to continue to be creative and original, at that point.. It can be very tedious.

Lady, try to make 2000 FGHs per month at a top quality and we talk after that. Not to mention that you need to pay for that ;)

Egomancer

Although I agree with you, I couldn't help but laugh at this one. :1orglaugh

MARKETING is the bottom line in "design". I almost hate the word designer, and the stigma that seems to be connected to it. A "designer" in this business also has to be a copyrighter, marketing director, market research analyst and a lot more. They have to know the market, know how to sell to the market, AND know how to create a visually pleasing presentation that will induce a "customer" to make a purchase. THAT isn't design, it's not making pretty flashy pages, it's MARKETING.... Far too many designers do great work, but can't market things. No matter what, I would take a design that was created from a marketing standpoint over a design created from a purely artistic/aesthetic standpoint anyday, and it will do better every time.

Correct!

Egomancer

Why would I ever argue with you? :winkwink:

You sell yourself and all the other designer in the biz short doing that. Seriously. :)

I would never even attempt 2000 in a month because I refuse to put out anything below a certain standard of quality, no matter how many bulk orders I take on... I refuse to shortchange my clients when they're paying good money.. I might make 500-600 galleries in a month, but they work, my clients are happy, I'm happy, and it all works out well.

You wouldn't..you and I think with the same mind when it comes to marketing, half the time :P

No, he's not. He's not doing the galleries himself, he most likely has some poor sod churning them out, paying him $3-400/mo. Add taxes for that employee (if he pays any) and he's up to say $6-700/mo tops. I'd say that's a decent profit. Get ten of those and it's a very decent living.

Heh.. back to oursourcing. I don't think I could in goo conscience put my work in someone else's hands, claim it's my own, and guarantee the quality. When I can clone myself exactly, then I will let someone else do my work, but until that point, I do everything all on my lonesome.

Lady, these are different demands, I mean he wants tons of pages sumary designed while you do pages that have more work put in them. Of course I think I can handle more advanced work but first I want to know the basics, only after you get to more evolved things.

Doing this I do not risk to blow my entire business up because I start doing things I do not know how to complete and destroy my client base.

Egomancer

P.S. I do not think that we compete for the same jobs ;)

DamageX you understood the situation perfectly. This kind of deals is developed by people that are payed with around 600-700 USD per month. I keep a guy doing this up to 3 months. If I see that he is hardworking and competent he moves to more advanced designs. If not then he will stay doing this forever (m,eaning a few months until he quits).

I like to keep my employees happy but everybody needs to start from somewhere.

Egomancer

I'd like to believe you on the start-up pay of $6-700/mo, but I know for a fact that the job market in Romania is less expensive. You can get a qualified designer/programmer for that money. Grunt salaries start at around $250-300/mo. Even lower, most of the time.