At the beginning of my dance career, I worked for a Producer who stated, “It is our job to educate our audience.”  Today, after ‘educating’ my audiences for the past 43 years, I am now finding that I must also educate my clients, but I have to wonder … in educating my clients to what it is I do, am I giving away the store?

I recently completed a 3-year contract with a luxury cruise line.  The guests were all highly educated, well-to-do people, however, the majority hadn’t a clue as to what goes into making a good show.  Entertainment is subjective of course, but I was really surprised to listen to many of the guest’s conversations regarding the entertainment we provided.  They really were pretty uninformed as to much of what we do, so I took time to engage in conversation, and ‘educate’ them, if you will, as to what goes into putting excellent entertainment onstage.

My costume company, “Choozi by Design”, however is another matter.  As I delve deeper into marketing this arm of my business to a larger audience, I am mystified to find clients are also uninformed as to what goes into the making of a theatrical costume, most especially its cost breakdowns.  It is one thing to explain to an audience member the difference between the sound system in an opera house vs a small ship board theatre … yet quite another trying to qualify the cost of a costume without giving away proprietary cost information.

I start with a costume design of course.  Usually, the client or customer understands immediately the cost of my design as I produce a rendering that mostly appears to be a piece of art.  Easily understood … a pretty picture of what the costume is going to look like.  The fee I charge for a finished design is agreed upon before I put pen to paper.  However, to turn that rendering into an actual costume requires hours and hours of time and labor spent on things the client hasn’t even thought about, starting with something so simple as having to source the materials which will eventually become the finished costume.

My line item breakdown for labor alone includes such things as patterning, stitching, embellishments, finishing, millinery, etc.  Each of those line items then has a markup which includes labor fees such as worker’s comp, SSI, etc.  This does not include the actual cost of the materials, of course, which also receives a markup, inclusive of tax.  As you can imagine, the resulting final figure is quite high!  Which brings me to my current dilemma of how far I should go ‘educating’ my clients, especially when they say, “I can buy a gown with rhinestones, from the internet, for only $150.”  My knee jerk reaction is to say, “then go ahead and do so”, as truly, it would cost about $150 in my time alone, in which to explain the difference between a custom made gown vs ready to wear from China.

Years ago, when I was the Production Development Director for a very large production company in Las Vegas, we were at the negotiating table with one of the very well known casino moguls.  This was the final phase of a year and a half of negotiations with this man.  We were confident of walking out that day with the contract signed, however, never for a million years did we expect to hear his only question … “What is your markup?”  The deal was off unless we agreed to reveal our markup.  In the end, he gave us what HE thought was an equitable ‘profit figure’ which the CEO accepted and which allowed us to walk out with the contract signed.  To this day, I look at that meeting as the biggest business learning curve of my life … what we as businesspeople are willing to divulge to our customers regarding what it is we do.

When I was negotiating with Royal Caribbean to create the world’s first ever dive show on a cruise ship, my team advised me to pull back after the second meeting, as they felt I was ‘giving away the store’, while I felt I was ‘educating’ my customer.  Another learning curve for me, of which I have been forever grateful to my team for, as we indeed got the contract!

Companies who have turned out products that are well known and highly successful no longer have to ‘educate’ their customers to their product.  Their customer already knows what they are getting for the money spent.  In entertainment, you know you are going to see a phenomenal show when you buy a ticket to Cirque du Soleil, or something Disney produces.  In clothing and costume design, you know the garment is going to be gorgeous if it has a Bob Mackie or Alexander McQueen label in it.  Brand is everything now a days.

We small business owners, however, do not have the luxury of ‘brand’, therefore we continually have to re-invent ourselves to the next client, the next customer, constantly reminding them of our past successes.  It perplexes me that my customers and clients will still question my process when they have seen my results and want my services in the first place.  So I ask again my question, “Am I working for the wrong customer?”  What do you think?