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So I've been doing commissions for around a year now with limited success. And it's not that I haven't had any commission requests, it's just that people always seem to back out. Usually someone contacts me or I respond to an ad looking for a commission painter, they find my painting to be adequate, we work out all the details, and then... Nothing. Even my trading deals are like this, and it's getting really frustrating.

Any advice on what I should do to get people to follow through with arranged deals?

People get free quotes for stuff all the time.

To ensure that you make a sale off your quote you need to follow it up hard. The best way to do this is by getting the clients telephone number and actually ringing them to follow-up any proposed work. It's much harder to say no to someone on the phone than it is to just ignore an email.

You could charge a consultation fee to weed out any time wasters. A £50 or more deposit for a test model, side of a tank, full colour swatches, freehand designs, basing example etc should be enough to only attract serious enquiries. If they pay for that promptly and you provide your sample pack in a timely manner then a successful transaction has been made. It's far easier to do a second transaction as trust between two individuals builds up.

Are you pricing your work correctly? The cost of commission work often surprises people so it's a good idea to show a priced example or two on your Web page or whatever platform you use.

Is your communication professional and clear?

Possibly you're spending too much time on your enquiries. Do you have a basic form for clients to fill out. That'll take a lot of the effort out of the communication phase at which point it doesn't matter if they don't take your quote as you've invested very little time in creating it.

Good idea, calling people on their phones. I'll ask for the clients phone number in the future, reaching people has been the biggest problem so far.
I don't think I'll be charging for a consultation, seems counterproductive, and wasting a bit of my time isn't a big deal.
The test model idea is great, I'll be using that one.
I do think I'm pricing my work correctly, it's pretty cheap, if I went any lower it just wouldn't be worth it.
My communication is good, I haven't had any problems with that, even with customers not fluent in english.
A basic form also sounds like a good idea, will set that up.

Few things I found that helped. I've only spoken to a client on the phone once (they rang my studio) - although I've made friends with and met several.

1) Portfolio. The bigger, better presented and more accessible this is the better. First point of cold feet is that you might not be able to do what the client wants. If you have something similar in the 'here's one I did earlier' folder / website, this helps stop client bounce as they've often already settled on your style as a goal.

2) Waste as little time as possible in the quoting process:

Give a ball park estimate (backed up with previous work - 'this cost x') before properly evaluating / talking through the job. Be as accurate as possible or highball this rather than underquoting. This filters out the cheapskates pretty quick. Only continue the process with people that state they're still interested.

Now you've got folks that are more interested, you can talk through the job and give a proper quote / payment structure.
I typically take between 20% and 50% deposit (sculpts / heavy conversions at the high end, stuff easily resold at the low). Once that's paid the job's in the schedule.

I've only had one person pull out after a deposit was paid in something over a decade now.

if you loose the client before they have made a deal with you after the quotation is completed, then that means they have found a studio that either are cheaper then yours or offers a better painting quality for the same price then you.

it is realy that simple.
so either you need to look at your product description/showcasing, prices or the quality of paint job you are selling. (aka personly when i scout for studios that offers tabletop or tabletop plus, i automaticly turn down any1 that charges assembly fee for plastic or white metal, no matter what the rep of the studio is)

allso big studios can offer bonuses that tiny studios cant match. discount on model purchase or army size job beeing the moust common thing, and that will be hard for your to compete against.

Be friendly, be excited. People love others that are excited by their project.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

To ensure that you make a sale off your quote you need to follow it up hard. The best way to do this is by getting the clients telephone number and actually ringing them to follow-up any proposed work. It's much harder to say no to someone on the phone than it is to just ignore an email.

For what it's worth, this would be practically guaranteed to make me say 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

If I'm interested, I'll pony up. If I'm not, or I was but I've changed my mind, trying on the hard sell is just going to piss me off, and make sure that I'll look elsewhere next time I'm looking around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
if you loose the client before they have made a deal with you after the quotation is completed, then that means they have found a studio that either are cheaper then yours or offers a better painting quality for the same price then you.

Or they had no idea what it was going to cost to get stuff painted, and have got cold feet once they found out.

People's expectations and the actual cost of having commission work done are very often really, really misaligned.

 insaniak wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

To ensure that you make a sale off your quote you need to follow it up hard. The best way to do this is by getting the clients telephone number and actually ringing them to follow-up any proposed work. It's much harder to say no to someone on the phone than it is to just ignore an email.

For what it's worth, this would be practically guaranteed to make me say 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

If I'm interested, I'll pony up. If I'm not, or I was but I've changed my mind, trying on the hard sell is just going to piss me off, and make sure that I'll look elsewhere next time I'm looking around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
if you loose the client before they have made a deal with you after the quotation is completed, then that means they have found a studio that either are cheaper then yours or offers a better painting quality for the same price then you.

Or they had no idea what it was going to cost to get stuff painted, and have got cold feet once they found out.

People's expectations and the actual cost of having commission work done are very often really, really misaligned.

Agreed with both these points. I'm not into pressure selling. There's no need. With the expectations thing, that's exactly why I put the initial estimate into a first-response email. There's a great number of people that think a high quality mini can be turned out in about 10 minutes by the time you crunch the numbers.

My brief foray into commission stuff ended after one client started calling me at 11 pm (my time) to talk about his army fluff, then sent back the item after receiving detailed pictures in advance of any payment. You have to love customer service and really want to interact with people about their hobby great deal I think, and that is not me, sad to say.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
My impression is you also want to position yourself at the high end unless you are just painting for your local community. If someone is going to spend big $ on commission then they are going be much more serious about the whole thing.

It seems my thoughts on using the phone to contact the customer has not been so well received. Possibly I didn't say exactly what I meant in my first post too.
I don't advocate pressure selling at all and it barely ever works on me too.
However, I don't see anything wrong with a follow up curtesy call 24hrs after having sent a quotation to ensure that the customer has recieved it and discuss anything that they may not understand.
It's a good way to get feedback and a chance to ask what if anything could be amended.
If a customer has said 'Actually I don't have that sort of cash', 'I've changed my mind', 'I was looking for something more high end', 'We've just found out that the Missus is pregnant', 'My car just broke', 'The dog is at the vets' etc or anything else that they may not want to put in to writing then you can sleep at night realising that you have done nothing wrong and that there may be a chance of the work at a later date when the client has his ducks in a row.
In short a follow up call is good communication, professional and shows willing to take on the project at any time in the future and will give you some closure.
I think the important part of this call is the tone with which it is approached and it may just lead to a sale either immediately or later down the line.

I'm surprised that people do commission work through e-mail alone. I'd absolutely want to talk to the customer via telephone at a minimum, because e-mail is such a slow medium for conversation. You also get to know the customer a lot better, either over the phone or in person, than through e-mail. The last thing you want is a miscommunication. Obviously your formal quote would be done via e-mail (for records purposes alone) at a minimum.

The high ballpark first quote seems like an excellent idea. Weed out those unable to afford it, and give them some reassurance when the actual quote comes down lower.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
i automaticly turn down any1 that charges assembly fee for plastic or white metal, no matter what the rep of the studio is)

Curious as to why this is. Is it because you think a proper professional would want to do the assembly themselves regardless (since it will affect the end product)? I can't see anyone expecting assembly to be 'free', however - they'll just roll it into the cost for painting.

 John Prins wrote:
I'm surprised that people do commission work through e-mail alone. I'd absolutely want to talk to the customer via telephone at a minimum, because e-mail is such a slow medium for conversation. You also get to know the customer a lot better, either over the phone or in person, than through e-mail. The last thing you want is a miscommunication. Obviously your formal quote would be done via e-mail (for records purposes alone) at a minimum.

Most of my commissions were from the UK or the US. I wasn't at all interested in clocking up international call charges, and it simply wasn't necessary. There was rarely a tight enough deadline that the slower pace of emails was a problem, and having everything in writing is much, much better for avoiding miscommunications.

 insaniak wrote:

 John Prins wrote:
I'm surprised that people do commission work through e-mail alone. I'd absolutely want to talk to the customer via telephone at a minimum, because e-mail is such a slow medium for conversation. You also get to know the customer a lot better, either over the phone or in person, than through e-mail. The last thing you want is a miscommunication. Obviously your formal quote would be done via e-mail (for records purposes alone) at a minimum.

Most of my commissions were from the UK or the US. I wasn't at all interested in clocking up international call charges, and it simply wasn't necessary. There was rarely a tight enough deadline that the slower pace of emails was a problem, and having everything in writing is much, much better for avoiding miscommunications.

Fair enough, though VOIP and/or Skype are also an option. Also, shipping charges from Australia to UK must be ruinous.

 John Prins wrote:

Fair enough, though VOIP and/or Skype are also an option.

Not so much back then I've been out of the business for a few years now... Skype was still a bit of a novelty that nobody was taking seriously.

Also, shipping charges from Australia to UK must be ruinous.

Not really, no. At least, not unless you wanted something trackable... But regular insured airmail used to be quite affordable. It's only in the last few years that everybody's international shipping went nuts.

winterdyne wrote:
1) Portfolio. The bigger, better presented and more accessible this is the better. First point of cold feet is that you might not be able to do what the client wants. If you have something similar in the 'here's one I did earlier' folder / website, this helps stop client bounce as they've often already settled on your style as a goal.

This is huge

 insaniak wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

To ensure that you make a sale off your quote you need to follow it up hard. The best way to do this is by getting the clients telephone number and actually ringing them to follow-up any proposed work. It's much harder to say no to someone on the phone than it is to just ignore an email.

For what it's worth, this would be practically guaranteed to make me say 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

If I'm interested, I'll pony up. If I'm not, or I was but I've changed my mind, trying on the hard sell is just going to piss me off, and make sure that I'll look elsewhere next time I'm looking around.

Absolutely agree with insaniak here. I commission 99% of my paint work, and have never had someone call me to follow up on an inquiry. If that did occur it would immediately turn me off of that service, I'd likely block the number, and feel creeped out by the hard sell.

If you get discouraged because people don't make contact back this might not be the line of work/hobby for you. I have done commission work for years and I get perhaps 30% of my jobs to stick. I don't loose sleep over non contact I just focus on other jobs.

Also DON'T do the hard sell, you will turn people off.

Thank for all the replys guys! I'll think over all the information.

Since you seem to have got what you need Power Elephant, I hope you won't mind if I piggyback the thread with a related question:

How on earth do you work out how much to charge for commission work? I can't paint for toffee, but I've had a few comments recently that make me think my conversion/sculpting is getting to the point I could offer my services for some extra hobby cash...but I've no clue what to ask for if I did make myself available and someone was actually interested. A few hints I found on the blogs of folk doing similar work suggest their rates are *much* higher than I initially thought(being surprised by the cost of commission work seems to be a common occurrence), but most folk are perhaps understandably quite cagey about their rates with anyone other than clients, and TBH I'd feel like a bit of scumbag pretending to be one to get more specific info.

It just seems like something you really need to get right, or close to it, first time around - if you lowball it won't be worthwhile and people might assume you'll do a shoddy job and go elsewhere, but if you pitch too high and have to drop your rates a few times you'll end up looking desperate and, again, folk will go elsewhere. Or maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing, that's eminently possible too.

I think you are overthinking it a bit!

*IF* you set it too low - you'll know on that project and can adjust your prices up accordingly.

I've seen your work, and it *does* in fact look good, so let me know when you open up shop, please!

 Yodhrin wrote:
Since you seem to have got what you need Power Elephant, I hope you won't mind if I piggyback the thread with a related question:

How on earth do you work out how much to charge for commission work? I can't paint for toffee, but I've had a few comments recently that make me think my conversion/sculpting is getting to the point I could offer my services for some extra hobby cash...but I've no clue what to ask for if I did make myself available and someone was actually interested. A few hints I found on the blogs of folk doing similar work suggest their rates are *much* higher than I initially thought(being surprised by the cost of commission work seems to be a common occurrence), but most folk are perhaps understandably quite cagey about their rates with anyone other than clients, and TBH I'd feel like a bit of scumbag pretending to be one to get more specific info.

It just seems like something you really need to get right, or close to it, first time around - if you lowball it won't be worthwhile and people might assume you'll do a shoddy job and go elsewhere, but if you pitch too high and have to drop your rates a few times you'll end up looking desperate and, again, folk will go elsewhere. Or maybe I'm just overthinking the whole thing, that's eminently possible too.

The golden rule is 'Charge what you can, you ain't a charity'. Of course 'what you can' has some limits set on it by your quality of service and the market in general.

Experience is key here. Getting the price 'formula' is easy - multiply your price per hour by how long things take, add on a bit to cover overheads and consumables.
The difficulty is figuring out how long something takes - and only doing it will tell you how long *you* take to do something.

In terms of raw numbers; I charge a minimum of about £20 per figure and it increases sharply with complexity. Most of the work I do rolls in at an average of around £40 per model for 28-32mm infantry.

That's not overly high for professional high standard, quick turnaround work. It's not the cheapest, but cheapest doesn't always make for a service that will still be there in a year or two's time. Stability of a business (a factor of it's profitability) is, on its own grounds, a selling point.

By the time I take off my studio overheads and consumables, this *still* puts me at not much above minimum wage (before tax). You can alleviate the crap money somewhat by writing off what you can as expenses (you should do this as self-employed anyway). You still better enjoy the work and the impoverished artist lifestyle.

As someone who has paid for commissions more than a few times, here are my thoughts:

Unless the prospective client is a game company, expect the process to be slow: tardy responses, changed plans, etc. It's not ideal but that's the reality of dealing with normal people rather than professionals.

Important: you should expect most requests to fall through. Come up with a way to ballpark estimates very, very fast. Don't commit your time until the customer commits their money.

I don't like the idea of callbacks unless I'm committed and it's a larger project. I prefer communicating via email so I can stew on it, compare pictures, etc. But do follow up.

As a (non-hobby) small business owner, I disagree with the advice to estimate your price based on time and materials. Charge based on the value provided, not the time it took. You're not flipping burgers for minimum wage - you're selling a service, and an art. The client doesn't care how long it takes, they care about the finished product. In business, charging more is a great way to get rid of the cheapskate customers who love to eat up time/attention, too.

The emphasis on a portfolio is a good one. There are a lot of commission painters out there so you need to find ways to differentiate yourself. It also helps to have a website that isn't an amateur hackjob. Push this along with a local angle. I'm struggling to find local painters because every time I find one, their work portfolio/presentation is junk.

I would say another good way to differentiate is to provide accurate timetables. Most of the painters I've dealt with severely underestimate their schedules. Not professional, and it means I won't use them in the future.