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Mar 19, 2012

As we get ready for the 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston, we’re doing a podcast interview series with our speakers! Recently, we featured Dyana Valentine, Mark O’Brien and Shane Pearlman.

Today, we have Jonathan Cleveland, Principal of Boston-based Cleveland Design. With a staff of five, his firm fills an important need for large corporate clients who, interestingly enough, also have in-house agencies AND ad agencies. (Does this make you less timid about approaching prospects who already have an in-house team?”)

In our 13-minute interview, Jonathan (who will be participating in the upcoming CFC panel discussion, “Perspectives on Money and Pricing”) talked about a recent pricing issue he encountered:

The situation: A client hired them to do a corporate video project which had a generous budget, then wanted a companion print brochure, but started to nickel and dime them on price. Then before the print brochure was resolved, the client came back and was ready to put a larger budget toward more videos.

The disconnect: Why there is such a big difference in perceived value of print design and digital design? Jonathan says:

“In today’s day and age, with computers and personal layout programs, the more unsophisticated marketing client thinks they can layout a brochure or flyer themselves … There is a perceived notion that ‘I can do something, throw it together and print it out.’ They sent us a PDF of a very nice brochure and said ‘Just copy this.’ We couldn’t get through to them on the value of the brochure, but when it came to the video, they were more than willing to open up and say ‘Let’s just do this video’—budget wasn’t an issue. The print brochure seemed to be all about budget.” 

Listen to find out Jonathan’s strategy for dealing with clients like this… 

And if you aren’t yet registered for CFC, sign up here and take advantage of the combo $100 discount: $50 early bird before Mar 30th + $50 Marketing Mentor discount with promo code “CMM12