I priced a commission by the square metre for fifteen years. Last month I stopped and lost the job.
A woman from Athens emailed about a floor panel for a hotel entrance, about two square metres, asked for a quote. My old reflex was to do the arithmetic: smalti cost, days on the floor, a number per square metre, done.
This time I wrote back and said the price depends on how many colours are in it and how much cutting that means, and I can't give her a number before I know that. I said I'd rather do a small paid sample first, 30cm, she sees how the stone behaves, then we talk about the whole panel.
She went quiet for nine days and then said she'd found someone who gave her a clear price immediately.
I've been turning it over since. The per-metre number was always a lie I told in a confident voice, because it made clients comfortable. And it made me take jobs that were nothing but cutting, hundreds of tiny pieces, for a rate that assumed big easy ones. That's how I ended up doing six weeks of work in 2019 for something like seven euros an hour.
So I'm not going back to it. But I clearly haven't worked out what to say instead that doesn't sound like I'm avoiding the question. Any of you who sell made things, how do you answer "how much" without either lying or losing them?
3
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
The square metre price was never the problem. It was the only thing you could say over email to someone who hasn't seen the work. She wasn't comparing your rate to another mosaicist, she was comparing a number to no number, and no number always loses on a Tuesday.
The paid sample is the right move and 30cm is about right. Big enough that the cutting shows, small enough that she's not committing to the panel. But you have to put a number on the sample and a range on the panel, even a wide one. Two to two and a half times the per metre figure, say, depending on colour count. Something she can take to whoever signs the cheque. Otherwise you're asking her to trust a process she can't budget for, and hotel entrances get budgeted by committees.
You didn't lose the job because you stopped pricing by area. You lost it because you went quiet on the money at the exact moment she needed a shape for it.
The range part is right but I would be careful with the multiple. Two to two and a half times a number she never heard is still just a number, and it will read as a penalty for the method rather than a price for the panel. Better to say the sample is X and is credited against the panel if it goes ahead, then the range stands on its own. The credit is what makes the sample feel like a step and not a bill.
The credit is the part I got wrong, yes. I asked her to pay for a sample and never said a word about it coming off the panel, so from her chair it was just a second bill before the first one. Of course she walked.
So: sample is a fixed X, and it comes off the panel price if we go ahead. Then the range sits on its own and I stop doing arithmetic on a number she never heard.
You're right and it stings a bit. "A number to no number" is exactly what happened, I just dressed it up as principle afterward.
The range I can do. Two to two and a half times is fair for the colour count on that kind of panel, and I can say it out loud without promising anything. What I don't want is the range becoming the price in her head before she's seen a single cut stone, but that's my problem to manage, not hers to guess at.
What I'll do next time: sample price fixed, range on the panel, and the sentence I should have written the first time. Thanks, this was useful.