Why not come to our website http://www.peopleperhour.com, its the online marketplace for freelance designer, you will find more customers there! Register now for free and bid for your project!

Happy Bidding!!

Why not come to our website http://www.peopleperhour.com, its the online marketplace for freelance designer, you will find more customers there! Register now for free and bid for your project!

Happy Bidding!!

Why not come to our website http://www.peopleperhour.com, its the online marketplace for freelance designer, you will find more customers there! Register now for free and bid for your project!

Happy Bidding!!

Apologies for the delay in replying. I think the situation probably comes down to what level of royalties you could get from the garment sales. How long would it be / how many would have to sell before you could get back the amount you would otherwise charge as a one-off fee?

Royalties are a sore issue for many freelancers (and inventors, too - see also this article I wrote for InventorResource), since companies/clients will often offer royalties as a way of reducing the up-front amount they pay. This only makes sense for the freelancer if the chances of the product succeeding are high; if they’re not, then it’s probably best to charge the fee upfront and decline the royalty deal.

I’ve met two people who’ve made significant money from royalties on products they’ve designed for others. Both have made much more than they would have by doing all the work for a flat fee upfront. But then I also know of a number of others whose royalty income on products they designed is very low, and who would have been much happier to have got a lump sum for their work.

Maybe ask your question of the guys at Freelance Switch - a great website, and there may well be other readers who’ve had a similar situation to yours and can offer better advice!

Best wishes

Dan

I am a custom clothier who frequently is asked to help with designs for which there is no pattern. I love that about my business, and because of that, I am an engineer of sorts and I do well at what I do.

Thanks so much for the triangle illustration — dead on. And as a fellow perfectionist, I plunge headlong into the learning curve. I think of it as a tool I acquire each time I take on something new. I may never use it again, but I would not charge anyone for that tool any more than I would expect them to pay for any of the physical tools I have in my shop.

Recently I was approached by a client who wants a prototype made up for a garment she plans to have patented. The design is a welcome challenge, but establishing my price has been difficult.

Thoughts of royalties come and go, but royalties will only happen if my client is successful in acquiring her patent, and then later with her marketing. Not appealing, either, from the standpoint that receipt of royalties would be ongoing, rather than a one-time entry in the books.

This garment could easily sell for $250 if all goes well, and I am wondering if I should make that a one-time charge for the prototype and close the file. My client has also mentioned that she may want me to reproduce these once she receives her patent.

I’ve printed out some material from your site and plan to study before I go any further with this project, however I am wondering if you know of anything that will help in my “engineering” situation?

Thanks so much, Dan -

Nancy

Allied to risk in many cases also might be the equipment/facilities available: there are things which will take me an age to make by hand, badly, which could be made in a few minutes on a CNC mill, say, saving time, effort and the risk of the prototype not working optimally. But unless you know someone with the equipment, who is willing/able to charge low rates, this can be a major hurdle.

Thanks for the compliment on the blog

Your blog’s very interesting - I think the ‘engineers solve problems‘ definition is a great way of explaining what you can do (again, it leaves us constantly open to pushing the boundaries of our expertise!).

My experience is that we as engineers like to do everything ourselves (I know I sway that way), even though that is often a bit inefficient. Again, there is always this tension - where is the balance between doing it myself, and getting someone else to?

This also strongly hits home. I’m pretty bad about trying to do everything myself, and I know there are occasions when I really should have got someone else involved. But then it’s very difficult to tell some clients that you need to get someone else involved; thinking of one particular example where I know I was hired for cheapness, I could almost see the alarm in the client’s eyes when I said “I’ll need to get someone else to do these aspects of the project.” Developing a network should be very important, as you say, and perhaps ideally one where everyone can look out for each other and direct appropriate jobs to the person with the best skills.

(P.S. apologies for the delay in your comment appearing - the spam filter didn’t like the multiple URLs in the post, and your comments came one after the other… I’ve removed the duplicate stuff!)

I’m in very much the same boat. I started my design company about a year ago, and the things you’ve listed are pretty much spot on.

What you probably haven’t mentioned is that to go with the challenges of being a designer and engineer, you (and I) are now also business owners, and that comes with a whole new ball of challenges.

When working for someone else it was easy to excel at the job because there were fewer balls being juggled - basically you can focus on getting the job done. Now that we’re business owners, it is more a matter of being Chief Accountant, Chief Engineer, Chief of Sales, Chief Secretary, Chief Etc. etc. etc. (well, you get the point), AND with all of those roles there is a whole new learning curve too (the sales is the one that constantly challenges me).

This leads to the whole issue of doing the work, vs. growing the business, and there is a constant tension between the two. I know that I’m constantly asking myself, “Is this moving me in the direction that I want to go?” It is a challenging question, and one that gets harder to answer the more pressure there is from the cash flow…..

What I think, is that often as small business owners, we tend to neglect our Network, especially growing our Network. (for more limiters read a really good article on http://www.theforumsa.co.za, about the Big 5 Business Limiters, http://www.theforumsa.co.za/index.php?page=5-biz-limiters).

Here is why I think the network can play a huge role….

As you’ve said, we tend to be jack-of-all trades, and a master of some - now for me that is a key issue when deciding HOW I go about approaching a project. I’ve got a reasonable idea of where my strengths lie, so I try to see how I can play things to my strengths. The other side of that is making sure that I know other people, with other strengths, and utilise those strengths to the best of my abilities.

My experience is that we as engineers like to do everything ourselves (I know I sway that way), even though that is often a bit inefficient. Again, there is always this tension - where is the balance between doing it myself, and getting someone else to?

I think I’ve rambled on a bit too much… This blog is a great way of building strong relationships (the quality is excellent). I’m also blogging (http://blog.engineersimplicity.com), and I’m part of a small business owners forum (http://www.theforumsa.co.za).

The internet is a great way to build our network, and due to the nature of engineering, there is so much that can be achieved without ever even seeing each other face-to-face - it is just a question of whether we are able to leverage what we have.

Rgds, duncan