On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, John Carmichael wrote: > Hello Sundial Sellers and Buyers: > > I used to be afraid to ask my clients for 100% thinking that it might scare > them off from purchasing. So, I only collect a 50% deposit from my customers > when they order. This worked fine until my last order when my customer got > fired from his job as an American Airlines pilot and then couldn't afford to > pay the remainder (a thousand dollars) after I finished his dial. So here > it sits, unclaimed. (It's for Bixby Oklahoma, so I'll never be able to sell > it to someone else). This is the first time after 76 dials that someone has > reneged on an order after paying the 50 % deposit.
Can you say "wedge"? Can't that dial be mounted on a plane parallel to the horizontal at Bixby, OK? Move it +/- 5 degrees and it would hardly be noticeably off level! In some cases, the angle would add to the skulptural appeal. > Do you think I should change my policy to 100% like Jim does? What do you > do Tony or any of you other sellers? Do you think that it makes a > difference if the sundial is very expensive (Jim's sundials cost about one > tenth what mine do). Do you think the shaky economy means that 100% is > advisable? I am an engineer, not an artist, so I do come from a different financial world. (One could say smaller paychecks, but more reliable ones!) In my business, I and my customer are bound by contracts. Creating a custom skulptural design needn't be all that different from creating a custom piece of electronics or software. Perhaps you need to move towards more formalization of the implied contract with your customer, with payment in phases. Off the top of my head, there would be design study resulting in an initial proposal; this is sometimes "eaten" by the contractor, as a cost of doing business. Once you and the custoemr have an initial agreement on the scope and general layout of the project, you should draw up a specification that is detailed enough to ensure both parties have a clear understanding of what the finished product will look like, exactly what it will do, and what you will do, in terms of installation, maintenance, etc. At that time, you should be funded through the detailed design, in advance. When detailed design is completed, both parties agree on it, and you should be funded for time and materials to build it. That, of course is probably the biggest chunk of payment. Finally, once the dial is completed, you should be paid, in advance, for installation. One significant point comes up in these mental wanderings: You need to establish a fair price for your artistic labor, and estimate (I'm sure you already do) the hours it will take to complete a job. Those numbers should produce a straight-forward hourly rate, clearly explained in the contract. This would be a repeatable basis for estimating the initial cost or value of your art. As with other art forms, any subsequent *change* in value is almost completely driven by subjective issues of artistic merit and supply-and-demand. > p.s I had another customer die on me last summer during the design phase > before his sundial got built. His name was Paul Ecke Jr. (a very famous > poinsettia grower and my former boss) and he was going to fund a monumental > sundial to be built at California State University in San Marcos. He didn't > provide for it in his will, so it's unfunded and probably won't get built. I HATE it, when that happens! If you have any written correspondence from him, you might be able to convince his executor(s) to consider funding the monument in his honor... Dave 37.28N 121.97W -
