Welcome to our forum.
speaking of freebies......has anybody else seen a large increase in the last few years of clients.....large clients asking for donations to their Company Christmas Party?we did not see much of this a few years ago, but now we get alot of requests (pressure) for donations of like gift certificates that they can give away to the employees at the annual Christmas Party.Dear XYZ,The Law Firm of Jones, Smith, & Jones is planning a company Holiday Party on December 10th. We are seeking donations from vendors for the holiday raffle we have at the gala. If interested please forward a gift certificate and your name will be announced as a donor at our party.
4 spas a year?wow....at what 6-10K each?that seems like alot for a spa store in tyler, texas
We donate 4 spas/year for fundraisers: The Cattle Baron's Ball, The Museum of Fine Arts fundraiser, the Beat Up Women's Shelter, and I think one for wayward teens.Term
In my industry we do a LOT of work for the major cellular companies. They often EXPECT lots of things for free that were not listed in their Statements of Work (SOW). The PURPOSE of an SOW is to define and price services UP FRONT. If it's not in the SOW, it's not included. Unfortunately, this doesn't always hold water and there "big boys" are sometimes heard saying things like "Well, if you EVER want me to sign another SOW you will do this for free...". We've come up with a great way to handle it. We simply write out a normal statement/invoice outlining what it would NORMALLY cost and then stamp "Goodwill" on it. This serves a number of purposes. The first is to show that there is ACTUAL real costs associated with the pro-bono efforts (in the event they ever DO realize that they SHOULD have paid for it originally) and secondarily, it gives you documentation to pull out the next time they ask for more free stuff. In our case, we may have 20 or 30 of these documents for $5K or $20K here or there. When they DEMAND we do a $100K effort for FREE, we simply pull out all the prior "free" efforts and demonstrate that we have ALREADY given a LOT of little stuff for free, it's now THEIR time to compensate us properly for this "bigger" effort.Bottom line = Sometimes it is just easier and smarter to "give away" the little stuff (trip charges) so that you can get them to pay for the bigger stuff later down the road (i.e. their next tub)
Our town doesn''t have a beat up Women's Shelter, but I do donate to the Tempura Foundation. (it's for lightly battered women).
I'm just glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that!
But what happens when you don't want it for free???...I have a good friend whose husband had a horrible accident (a tree that he was cutting fell on him). He is in a wheel chair and no use of his body below his waist. They have been trying to hire friends to revamp the bathroom so he can get his wheel chair in a handicap shower and the burdon of moving him won't be on his wife. It has been very hard for her; he is a big guy. they are asking contractors that are friends because they know they won't be ripped off and they can trust them in their home. No one ever comes through. It is not that my friends don't want to pay full price or want a favor, they just feel more comfortable explaining the husband's needs to a friend. Well they have just about given up because NONE of their friends (and they have talked to about 5 different guys) have gone beyond saying yeah they would do it. NO plans, no bids nothing. My friends have the money to pay and are more than willing to pay whatever is necessary, so what's up??. I think their friends feel guilty taking the money, but on the other hand they want to be paid... :-/