The idea was sparked by the fact that tattoo artists usually do not charge for touchup appointments. This seems odd to me, since every other part is strictly hourly. I’ve never heard of a shop which charges by the piece, except for perhaps little pieces of “flash” from the wall which might have a minimum charge or a standard rate. But no one charges a flat rate for the custom jobs I always get.

When I was negotiating my rate for a layout job recently, I noted that the client was upset at having had to pay their previous, now fired, programmer to fix bugs. They are similar situations, bugs and tattoo touchups. Both are a natural consequence of the process used to create them. Both really don’t fit into an hourly model.

Jay Abraham says

“A business strategy that may be as common as dirt in one industry can have the effect of an atom bomb in an industry or business application where it’s never been used before.”

And of course, one of Alan Weiss’ major points about successful consulting is that you should never charge by the hour. It leads to a more strained relation with the client, who is always (correctly) concerned that the contractor is dragging things out for his profit.

So, I got to thinking that tattoo shops really should offer up-front pricing. They need to be good estimators, of course, but if they have been around for any time, they already should be. How much easier would that be for me to budget the huge back piece I’ve been wanting if I could get a firm price for it? How much happier would I be to make multiple appointments rather than try to tough out long ones just to make things faster? How much more likely would I be to actually buy the tattoo than to keep thinking about it? Fact is, I’d even pay a premium for such a straightforward fee.

Learning about business is such fun for me. Wow have I changed.

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