Post: #1

I've been asked to create a Youtube channel for someone, and manage it. This person is, from what I gather, a manager or manager type person for various musicians (10 or so). I don't yet know what kind of music, but I'm guessing it's urban/hip hop, that kind of thing. And I don't know what scale/budget they're at. It's going to be about 3 or so videos per day.

I would create the channel on their behalf, and set up a couple of social media accounts. They would send me images to use for the channel's banner and logo, and I would name the channel, with their input.

Day to day, my tasks would simply be to :

- Upload videos as they are sent to me
- Do the SEO, thumbnails, title and description for each video
- Post a link to each video on Twitter and maybe other social media accounts
- Do SEO for the channel
- Maybe put some captions during and/or at the end of the videos

I'm not an expert an any of this, but I know enough to have grown my own Youtube channel, which is still in its early days (it's just over a year old) but it's always getting plenty of views and growing. I feel like I could handle this, as long as I'm not expected to do anything beyond my capabilities.

The above list of tasks I could handle as long as it's always kept fairly simple. My main selling point is that I can do it to some extent, whereas the potential client doesn't really know much about it. So I realize I'm fortunate to get this offer.

I'm estimating that with a couple, or maybe 3 or 4 videos per day, every day, all of this would only take me about 8-10 hours per week. In fact, a lot of it could be done very quickly and easily, especially since I'm very efficient and I work fast.

So, what should I charge? And on what basis? (retainer, or some other way?)

Sorry if I sound naive, but I kind of am.

Post: #2

Assume from the jump it will be 20 - 30+ hours per week.

Why?

While there might be 8 - 10 hours of cumulative "actual work", it's coming in dribs and drabs, and you're essentially on-call --

Put it this way: if accomplishing 1 hour of work requires 5 or 6 hours of "being available" to intercept bits and pieces of communication, being around a computer, it's really stealing 5 or 6 of hours you could be IN FLOW on something else productive (another client), or OUTSIDE living life and not being chained to a video editing setup.

It may be that they are trying to get a lot for a little, or they may have a budget. Either way it's good practice to conceptualize your value.

Now a good effect of selling "days" is that, while you may have to spend 5 or 6 hours on the computer to accomplish what cumulatively took an hour, you could load yourself up with additional clients of the same exact service, and intersperse that work into that same stretch of time.

In other words, charge a fair wage times the actual hours you are "tied up in order to accomplish the tasks", not just the actual clocked minutes of doing the tasks.

Then once you pile on more clients, all at FULL day rates, you now have plenty of extra cash flow to improve your setup, hire some video editor contractors to delegate your workflow and expand your pipeline. Etc.

--

Or you could just simply go by "whatever you think it'll take, multiply by 3" to account for unknowables, dependencies, delays, burnt "idle time" (even if you CAN use the time to do other stuff, that's your bonus and not their discount).

--

Re: pricing, consider that it looks a lot worse to promise low cost, then realize "shit I am way underpaid" and jack up prices later.

It's much better to come in at a rate you'd be happy to take even if the project takes thrice the effort.

Also frame less on justifying "but it takes long" because the client will only see the work as those cumulative "just upload a pic and make descriptions", and they will mentally discount all of the time you are between step 1 and 2 and waiting on them, or waiting around all afternoon because you know you have to do a video before you go out, but they haven't told you which one to do yet (or whatever).

--

USA? Near a major city? Retailers make $10/hr, and programmers make $50 - $100/hr? Split the difference as a video editor and aim for $25 - $30/hr or more!

Do that internally though -- externally, high hourly rates look bad, and low rates with too many hours look bad.

For the client maybe try per-video pricing (assume more than enough hours per video, like 6 when it could be as little as 2), then just tell them X videos per week = $Y per week, they don't need to know how you derived that, as long as they are happy with it. Or per day.


If they push back on per-video, weekly, or daily costs, it's easy to note that doing a small video one day means you can't take on a larger video that day, hence your per day or per video charge. (Easier than bickering about how many hours a video should take, or how much you should be making per hour.)


--

Final philosophical note -- you are a one man business, and a business should bring in enough to pay you a fair wage for your work and management AND turn a profit. So if you know that WORST CASE you'll take forever on each video and make a fair $30/hr, but slightly better, or best case, you are bringing in much more per hour the quicker and better you do the work. So that means that if you had the perfect worker, you could pay them a fair wage while you fuck off and earn only the extra profit... Not something that will happen off of this one client, but thinking that way helps justify why you aren't just charging them some hourly and putting them in the driver's seat. If they can afford X/week, they can afford it. No need to give them more power to nickel and dime.

Post: #3

Charge per minute of video and then extra based on results.

If you think the channel is going somewhere then set tier pricing as a you gain them subs and try to get a xut of the ad revenue once it comes.

Theres no set pricing for this kind of work. Range is $20/video (small time low editing for small biz) to $200,000+/year (Fortune 50 channel management)

Post: #4

(01-15-2019 11:51 PM)456 Wrote:  Assume from the jump it will be 20 - 30+ hours per week.

Why?

While there might be 8 - 10 hours of cumulative "actual work", it's coming in dribs and drabs, and you're essentially on-call --

Put it this way: if accomplishing 1 hour of work requires 5 or 6 hours of "being available" to intercept bits and pieces of communication, being around a computer, it's really stealing 5 or 6 of hours you could be IN FLOW on something else productive (another client), or OUTSIDE living life and not being chained to a video editing setup.

It may be that they are trying to get a lot for a little, or they may have a budget. Either way it's good practice to conceptualize your value.

Now a good effect of selling "days" is that, while you may have to spend 5 or 6 hours on the computer to accomplish what cumulatively took an hour, you could load yourself up with additional clients of the same exact service, and intersperse that work into that same stretch of time.

In other words, charge a fair wage times the actual hours you are "tied up in order to accomplish the tasks", not just the actual clocked minutes of doing the tasks.

Then once you pile on more clients, all at FULL day rates, you now have plenty of extra cash flow to improve your setup, hire some video editor contractors to delegate your workflow and expand your pipeline. Etc.

--

Or you could just simply go by "whatever you think it'll take, multiply by 3" to account for unknowables, dependencies, delays, burnt "idle time" (even if you CAN use the time to do other stuff, that's your bonus and not their discount).

--

Re: pricing, consider that it looks a lot worse to promise low cost, then realize "shit I am way underpaid" and jack up prices later.

It's much better to come in at a rate you'd be happy to take even if the project takes thrice the effort.

Also frame less on justifying "but it takes long" because the client will only see the work as those cumulative "just upload a pic and make descriptions", and they will mentally discount all of the time you are between step 1 and 2 and waiting on them, or waiting around all afternoon because you know you have to do a video before you go out, but they haven't told you which one to do yet (or whatever).

--

USA? Near a major city? Retailers make $10/hr, and programmers make $50 - $100/hr? Split the difference as a video editor and aim for $25 - $30/hr or more!

Do that internally though -- externally, high hourly rates look bad, and low rates with too many hours look bad.

For the client maybe try per-video pricing (assume more than enough hours per video, like 6 when it could be as little as 2), then just tell them X videos per week = $Y per week, they don't need to know how you derived that, as long as they are happy with it. Or per day.


If they push back on per-video, weekly, or daily costs, it's easy to note that doing a small video one day means you can't take on a larger video that day, hence your per day or per video charge. (Easier than bickering about how many hours a video should take, or how much you should be making per hour.)


--

Final philosophical note -- you are a one man business, and a business should bring in enough to pay you a fair wage for your work and management AND turn a profit. So if you know that WORST CASE you'll take forever on each video and make a fair $30/hr, but slightly better, or best case, you are bringing in much more per hour the quicker and better you do the work. So that means that if you had the perfect worker, you could pay them a fair wage while you fuck off and earn only the extra profit... Not something that will happen off of this one client, but thinking that way helps justify why you aren't just charging them some hourly and putting them in the driver's seat. If they can afford X/week, they can afford it. No need to give them more power to nickel and dime.

I'm considering charging $1100 - $1300 per month. It sounds like a lot to me, but maybe it's reasonable, I have no idea. As I say it's probably going to be 10 hours a week max.

I would be willing to work for 1 calendar month, then invoice him. That way he gets to see some results and hopefully credibility from me in advance (to offset the fact of what is probably quite a high price). I'm totally prepared for the possibility of him not paying. I accept this. If that happens I'll be pissed off but I'll move on and just learn from it, it's not a problem. Especially seeing as it's not going to be super hard work, plus I'll be getting some experience.

If he pays at the end of the month for what I've done, we just continue like that, with me invoicing him at the end of each month that I work. If at any time he stops paying, I'll stop working and that will be that. I won't even bother chasing him for the money, it's not worth the effort, i'll just let it go.

Honestly me personally I don't know why anyone would pay $1100 - $1300 a month for this, but it surely must be worth something to him to have it done.

What do you think?

Post: #5

"Probably going to be 10 hours per week max" -- famous last words!

I hope you are right.

Post: #6

To whoever knows about this stuff : How much would you expect to get for posting 3 or 4 times per week on someone's social media accounts?

Post: #7

^ I strongly suggest you fallow our member WeekendCasanova for that type of info. Of course he's got products to sell... but if you enroll to his email list for a while... you'll definitely get some gems out of them for free! If you want to Google him his real name is Ryan Holmer.