I was watching Rick Restorations show on the television the other day: it’s a kind of reality show about a restorer, who obviously restore old objects to their initial state, and make them a piece of art. Not being too manual, I’m always amazed to see the work they are doing: it’s quite amazing…
In most episodes, the customers are surprised by the high cost of the restoration. I was too, but there is a lot of work, even for a small object: they disassemble the object, fix holes, shine metal, bumping them, put new paint, add missing lettering, and put back all the pieces together, just by following some pictures they took during the process! There is a lot of work done, and the result is always beautiful. That remember me when I was building software: prospects were constantly asking me for what they were calling easy thing to do. Firstly, if it was that easy, why wouldn’t do it themselves? They were also always surprised when I was giving the estimation: this amount of money for a small mobile application or website? Yes, because there are many things to think about when building an application, like Rick is doing with his restoration. You are not just paying for my skills, but you are also paying for my expertise: it wasn’t my first application, I know the pitfall, I’m conscious of all the steps we have to think about, and you’ll be happy with the result. So in everything in life, whether you are looking for a service, or you are selling your expertise, think about this.
The expertise has a cost! On the consumer side, there is always a way to pay less, but you’ll get what you pay for…
P.S: I know this can feel contradictory with my previous post on my logo, but I really wanted to test 99designs.
