Yes, when I did calendars, that was how I figured out quotations: added up everything that I could foresee that the production could cost, and then simply added my percentage on top.
When you broke it down to a per item basis, it still looked reasonable compared with stock calendars, but on my side was the advantage that none of the ones I could find to price as competition involved the complex double-binding system that one of my series had, with the second wiro binding carrying the months, suspended from the bottom of the backing board that ended just below the upper picture section. Expensive, but it allowed the client's clients to change images to mix any picture with any month. That way, if the guy was a bank manager, for example, he could display a headshot if a female client was coming to see him, or a topless number if it was somebody else. It made shooting more interesting, too.
Best of all, for that calendar I was able to access the top of the tree, the guy had no desire that I present a costing breakdown; bottom line was what cut it or killed it.
And that's one of the examples I was thinking about in another thread, when I wrote of chains of coincidence and pure luck playing their part. I met this client because I had been an apprentice in an engineering company, changed direction and moved to their photo department. The chap who was doing the company's PR used to come regularly to the studio to pick up pix and chat with the photo staff. One day, a year or two after I left the company for the commercial world, the same PR man knocked on my studio door. He had also left for private practice and my calendar client-to-be was one of his clients. He introduced me to the chap for me to do some industrial shots for him, and I noted the Pirelli calendar on this man's wall. He was open to it. The rest was personal history for me. Little acorns, and the right place at the right time.
I have told the story before, but for years I had chased my beer client and got absolutely nowhere. One day, out of the blue, I asked my wife if she'd take my portfolio to the company. She had never done any selling in her life, having trained in chemistry. To our mutual surprise, she said okay, and went out one day with my book, and returned to make lunch with an appointment for me with the Marketing Director. Fed us for years! That's not luck? Of course you have to be able to produce the goods, but lots of pros can do that and still get nowhere.
If you watch the William Klein documentary that the BBC made some years ago, there's a moment towards the end when Klein is at a barber's shop in NY and one of the guys says William, you got a good eye! William replies, quietly and honestly, it takes more than that.
Rob
