When I was five, my parents encouraged me to open a lemonade stand on our street. My dad had an MBA and my mom was in finance, so they thought it important for me to understand the concept of money at an early age. I opened a stand that summer and ended up making around $10 a day. Now, this was almost a 100% return (82% to be exact), since I had an overhead of $5.50 for cups and lemonade mix. My parents were delighted, and then proceeded to explain to me what all of this meant.
Since I was five years old, I have understood that the cheaper the overhead, the larger the profit margin. I hadn’t ever seen a fraction in my life, but I could understand logic and I could definitely understand money. Now that I’m legally a grown-up, money has become somewhat of a contentious topic and also the center of the universe. Money makes the stoplights turn green and makes your coffee hot in the mornings, it puts the beat in the rock songs and a spring in your step.
What took me a really long time to understand was the idea of spending more now to save money in the long-run. My teenaged brain couldn’t fathom a world further than 72 hours away, so why not take the best deal I could find? But as I learned the hardest way possible, the cheapest car usually has a busted carburetor and no tail lights. The cheapest apartment usually has silverfish and a cracked foundation. The cheapest pair of jeans will shrivel up and fall apart in the wash.
And most importantly, the cheapest offer for a service will usually yield the poorest results. The phrase “too good to be true” comes to mind at this moment. I had always thought that phrase had been invented by pessimists who just liked to rain on other people’s parades, that is, until my “lightly used” Volkswagen was totaled by maintenance costs after 15,000 miles. The risks to contracting the cheapest bid for any service far outweigh the appearance of a good deal. As an example, United Airlines notoriously offers low airfare but has been caught cutting corners and costing passengers in the end.
I’ve found that if you feel you’re getting away with highway robbery, it’s usually the other way around. I’ve been bamboozled enough times to report with a degree of certainty that this feeling is, in fact, a symptom of something too good to be true. So-called “cheap” contractors can keep their prices low through a few cut corners that end up costing their customers in the long-run.
Services like these keep their face-value prices low by using inferior technology, only to later tack on extra charges after the project is half-way done leaving you with surprising charges on the final invoice. Not to mention little to no project support or technical assistance if something inevitably goes wrong.
These hidden costs, be them in the fine lines or somewhere in your blind spot, are always there. Risking the pile-ups of these unforeseen costs can end up being much costlier than going with a more qualified service provider which will be upfront with their pricing and yield results that are actually worth the cost. The snake oil salesmen of video production may boast prices that seem too low to resist, but the quality assurance and sincere dedication of a contractor like DHD Films is worth far more than the high highs that come right before the low lows of those too-good-to-be-true offers. Our 2017 Highlight Reel below features a few of the industries that showcase our commitment to providing high-quality productions.
Let us help create a quality video that reflects your investment efforts and brand quality, by reaching out to us today!
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