A guest post by Julie Green from Up Up Creative
To admit or not to admit that I bawled my eyes out as I wrote this?
To admit it is to admit that I'm not, perhaps, as brave as I may seem.
But on the other hand: to admit is is to admit that, yes, I wear my heart on my sleeve, even on the sleeve of my business outfit (which at this particular moment happens to be be-monkeyed PJ bottoms and a pink t-shirt).
I had my heart broken a bit this month. Or possibly more than a bit. But I also had it expanded.
Let me explain.
Back in August I was struck with what can only be called a completely crazy idea: what if I let my customers name their own prices on their wedding orders? For the entire month of September. I'm a graphic designer and stationer and I've been doing wedding stationery now for just over a year. I started doing it because people asked me to and I kept doing it because I really liked the clients. And then crazy things happened like one of my designs was featured in BRIDES magazine and the next thing I knew, weddings were kind of my main thing.
But for reasons many and varied, I wasn't feeling totally right about the way things were going with my business. As an artist who likes to put herself and her ideas at the forefront of her work, I felt a little bit masked. Hidden. Buried. I felt like I wasn't connecting with my customers as much as I used to. I felt like I needed to shake things up.
And thus the idea to have a month-long experiment in having customers name their own prices (there's a video about it that explains it better -- you can find it on my website) on anything wedding in September. I asked kindly that people please be fair, but I removed all of my retail prices and did my best to commit to the experiment whole-heartedly.
I liked the idea because it was daring and bold but mostly I liked it because I knew it could generate discussion (if I did it right) about value. The value of handmade. The value of working one-on-one with someone. The value of good design and awesome materials. Makers and artists spend an awful lot of time thinking and talking about value and I wanted to move the discussion further.
At first, while the response on blogs and in emails to me was tremendous, I was feeling a lot of reluctance from people. They didn't know what fair prices even were and were afraid to name an unfair price.
So I encouraged people to pay what they could afford. To pay what was in their wedding budget for invitations, even if it was a DIY budget. Because after all, as most people find out, even DIY invitations take a fairly significant investment of time, energy, patience, and yes, money.
Around day 8 of the experiment, orders started coming in. Most were low prices but totally doable. I was just so happy that people were participating. People were talking to me. We were connecting. Conversations were going on around the Internet.
And then I hit day 12. My first really awful day.
It was the day I cried. A lot.
It was the day I had a customer pay me $100 for what would retail in my shop for more than $1700.
It was the day I had my heart broken.
And no, my heart wasn't really broken by the money, although that's part of it. It was broken by the customer's response to me. By her refusal to have a conversation with me. By her refusal to consider this a person-to-person interaction rather than a pay-and-get transaction.
When I saw her order the only thing I could think was that you couldn't buy a stack of loose-leaf notebook paper and a bic pen and handwrite the stuff she was asking me to create for her at the price she was asking me to do it for. And it's true.
For $100 she wanted: invitations with envelopes, reply cards with envelopes, save the date cards with envelopes, custom-illustrated map cards, folded thank you notes with envelopes, strung gift tags for each guest, a custom flower illustration, and 25 table numbers. For her 200-guest wedding.
For $100.
So I thought that perhaps she just didn't know what she was asking. That maybe she really hadn't a clue. And because I emphasized conversation and dialogue every step of the way, I emailed her. I said,
I got your order and am working on your daisy illustration right now. I did just want to touch base with you to say that I'm excited to work with you and your fiance but I do have a few questions about your order. I'm not sure if you realize it or not, but you've ordered more than $1700 worth of paper goods. Even DIY these items, with the least expensive papers and inks, would be in the $600-$800 range. I'm happy to work on all of this for you, but it will be at a pretty major loss, meaning a big chunk of money out of my pocket.
My first question is whether your 100 number is for 100 guests or for 100 invitations (more like 200 guests). Sometimes in the early planning stages people get that part confused, and I just want to be sure I'm planning correctly time and resource wise. I'm guessing from the gift tag order that you're talking about 200 guests, but I just want to be sure.
I'm also wondering if you and your fiance might be willing to meet me somewhere in the middle on the loss. If you were to DIY this you'd be paying a lot more and with such a big wedding I think the $100 for everything is just a bit impossible.
I really hate writing this email because I am really committed to this experiment, but since a part of the experiment is about getting a discussion going and since I'm actually worried that I may have to stop the experiment in order to avoid further losses like this one, I thought it couldn't hurt to write.
And she wrote back:
You were correct with the number, it is 100 invites for 200 guests.
And as far as trying to meet you in the middle, there is no way I am able to afford anywhere near $600-$800. The reason I put down $100 is because that is my budget at this time. If you are unhappy with that, I'm sorry, but maybe you should change what your website says because you advertised for customers to pay what they can afford.
And I cried.
Partly I cried because I was so disappointed in her response. How could she expect me to pay probably $700 out of my own pocket, not even considering my time, which for this job would be significant, when she could only pony up $100 of her own money.
And partly I cried because this is my family we're talking about here. I'm a mom with two kids and a husband and we can't even afford, well, anything right now. And how could I? How could I do this crazy thing and not put any limitations on it and then end up with this major loss that I absolutely could not afford and that would negatively affect my family? How dare I? What kind of mother am I? What do I think I am, playing with toy money or something?
And partly I cried because I was scared that doing her order would mean shutting down the experiment, which was supposed to last through the end of the month. Until day twelve I'd been having the most awesome time with it (not financially by ANY means, mind you). I'd had so many people write with questions. I'd had so many amazing conversations with people about money and value and art and design. I'd been making connections with people over this. And it had been awesome. And I cried because I was so mad that one person could singlehandedly ruin it for all the others. One person could so badly impact my business that I would have to end it and tell anyone who was hoping to order in the next 19 days that it wasn't happening anymore.
All day I went back and forth on what to do. Clearly this customer wasn't going to meet me halfway. So do I refund her money? Do I take the financial blow and stick to my word for this one person but end the experiment for all the rest? Do I risk that this might happen again and just keep on going? What's most important, here? My word? My word to this one person or to everyone else? Or maybe is the important thing generating the conversation? Or connecting with people? Or all of it together?
It's funny. I wouldn't have been able to do this experiment a year ago. I was still in that place where you equate your personal worth with the worth of your art. A year ago I would have bawled my eyes out for such totally different reasons. I would have questioned whether I should be in business, whether I should just throw in the towel and take my whole website offline. And today? Today I'm bawling my eyes out over what? Relationships. Connections. Conversations. And yes, my own gall.
I waited a day and approached the customer again. I apologized and gave her a few options of ways to make this possible (by decreasing her order to something more manageable, for example, or by having me create a complete digital suite for her to print, etc.) or I said I would gladly refund her full purchase price and we could part ways. In the end she took the refund and we did part ways.
I'm on day 22 now and I'm glad that everything happened the way it did back on day 12. I'm glad I did what I did and I'm glad I continued the experiment (at the advice of several colleagues, friends, and yes, even some of the name-your-price customers who I informally polled as we emailed about their own orders). I'm glad I had that experience and that I was forced to have those really awkward and difficult conversations with the customer.
I'm busy as hell right now working on staying on top of all the experiment work that's come in. And I'm still feeling terrible about having to refuse the customer's price. But somehow I feel like that one day and its aftermath have taught me more about my business than the previous three years combined. About professionalism. About connecting. About what happens when our idealism doesn't jibe with reality. About saying yes and saying no. About the value of what I do and how I do it.
Perhaps most of all it has taught me that I'd rather be the kind of business person and artist who admits that she's bawling while she writes her guest post than the kind who doesn't.
And in case you're wondering? I'm currently working on a plan to make this name-your-price experiment a more permanent part of my business model. With limitations, of course.
xo,
Julie Green
Julie Green is marvelous designer behind Up Up Creative + a self-proclaimed creative junkie - you know the kind - the person who skips out on her real work just for the chance to make something. To learn more about Julie, check out her personal blog or connect with her via twitter @upupcreative.
