Raffle prize win - what would you do

[ihaircut101]

Writing this without saying which side I am, would be interested in knowing who you think is 'right'.

Jill won a raffle prize of a cut and blow dry at a new salon owned by Mary. When Jill attended to claim her prize she also booked in for a root tint, which she expected to pay for.

During their session Mary mentioned business was not so good and she thought it partly due to her website content. Jill told her that her business was website marketing and offered to take a look at Mary's website, which she did. Jill made a lot of suggestions, she rewrote some of the content and suggested mary implement an online booking facility. Mary was very happy with the changes and as a thank you waived the cost of the colour.

About a month later, Mary contacted Jill and asked her to set up the online booking system, Jill was agreeable to take this on and explained her fees. Mary was taken aback at being asked to pay as felt as she had waived the cost of the hair dye treatment, that should cover the cost of the website work.

What do you think? Should Jill charge for this extra work? If yes, would it be ok for Mary to ask Jill to now pay for the colour treatment she had?

Regardless of raffle prize, Jill still got a hair dye, cut and bow dry for no charge

No she didn't , the cut was donated as a prize to encouraged a mass of people to give money for a cause. She paid a nominal amount as others also did to help that cause.
The person who gave the hair cut ( willingly) gave their profession to help .

Lol no, Mary now needs to pay for work on her website. She has been given more than enough marketing information for free.

Mary has just lost a potential new repeat customer in Jill as well getting a bad reputation as Jill tells her mates. I understand she may be desperate if her business is struggling, but it was a poor decision on her behalf to try to get more for free.

Jill could negotiate further free hair services from Mary in exchange for the online booking system work.

The cut and blow dry is completely irrelevant as it was a prize. They are given away in the hope that somebody will buy more treatments, or become a regular customer. Mary had "lost" that anyway and it is a cost of advertising effectively.

Jill decided to have a colour, gave some great advice on the website and Mary said have the colour free. End of story.

Anything beyond that should be paid for. If you like Mary and want to help her, maybe suggest having a coffee and a nice chat about it all. What is the value of the hair colour compared to your costs?.

Can you swap services, so you get a couple more free treatments to cover the extra time you spend on the website?

Can you arrange a trade for trade? You’d charge £* thats = to x amount of hairdressing services? Then Mary doesnt need to find a huge amount if business is struggling, you dont need to pay for hair services for x amount of time?

Yes. It was free because it was the raffle prize. If I won it as a prize I wouldn't expect to then be charged for it.

The Cut and Blow dry fee is irrelevant as that’s a prize.

I think it depends on the price of the colour compared to the work Jill did . Did Jill look at it whilst in the salon , make some suggestions and do some work there and then and then Mary said that she didn’t have to pay for the colour ? Or did Jill say she would have a look and change some things and Mary said that she would do the colour free as a thank you ? Maybe Mary thinks that the suggestions were an offer ? However , as it’s been a month I would have thought that it was all done and dusted and any further work would be charged.

Ultimately, how much does Jill charge per hour? How long did she spend on the site originally and what was the cost for the colour ? If Jill has not spent as long - hourly charge wise - on the work as the colour would be ( eg if she charges £20 per hour and the colour was £60 but she only spent an hour ) then I would say it would be decent to do some more work . But if Jill charges £20 per hour , the colour is £60 and she has already spent 3 hours on the site then this should be explained to Mary .

I knew you were Jill because no decent hairdresser would ever use the words “hair dye”.

I don’t think Mary is a CF. Mary donated the raffle prize so didn’t earn anything for the professional haircut she gave you and she’s given you a free colour too, so she’s doubly out of pocket.

I think in your shoes, I would do this extra work for free, because if Mary’s a good hairdresser, she will have lots of clients that she can advertise your services to for free, inc. having your business cards on a little pot on her counter. Word of mouth recommendation is extremely valuable and you definitely don’t want her grumbling about your lack of transparency before you’ve got established.

You tell Mary that you value here work.
That you considered the free advice you have her during the hair cut was a trade, but you can see she had not understood you do this as your job.
Since your friends and you know it took her time and effort to colour your hair, you will give her a mates rate for on going work on her site and knock 2 hours off her bill to acknowledge the hair colour she did...
This way she can see your willing to bend and she can see your not trying to take advantage.

Depends how much the IT work is worth versus the cost of the root tint.

I can’t imagine the cost of a tint is the same as building an online booking system?

Jill is entitled to bill for her further work. The reduction on colour was against the design work already done. Mary can equally get someone else to do the work and pay them instead.

There may be some misunderstanding here. We weren't privy to the conversation so Mary may well have believed that Jill was going to include the booking system as part of the original work.

But Mary has also probably zero idea of how IT development works and how much work is involved in developing, testing deploying and then providing support after release.

Maybe this needs to be broken down for her so she understands the 'cost' in hours for your work.

I understand your reasons for wanting to help her out though. Maybe you could offer her a discounted rate, and then you can also use her website as a case study for new customers and ask her to promote you on her social pages as a Web developer?

I think people are missing that Jill already did some work on the website in return for the cost of the colour and the billing system element is clearly separate and more onerous.

It like me as a lawyer 1. providing general advice on what legal policies and contracts a business requires 2. actually writing the terms and conditions.

Jill should absolutely charge for the extra work and absolutely no way should Mary charge for the colour.

Mary is not "out of pocket" twice, or even once for that matter.

Mary donated to a local raffle. That was her choice, and only she knows her motivation for doing so, but as I said before, there should only be three reasons for doing so -

*To support the cause

*To win new business

*To get rid of something she doesn't need.

Alas, in this situation, we don't know what Mary's reason(s) was/were. Given that she allegedly told Jill that business wasn't great, I'd hope it was for reasons 1 & 2, but I suspect Mary did so without giving it a great deal of thought.

Once the gift was donated, it was then down to Mary to mentally write it off, in the same way that those who bought raffle tickets & didn't win will have to do too. Although in contrast to the purchasers who didn't win and are therefore "out of pocket" (though they supported the cause), Mary got the chance to promote her business, she won a new customer, and the customer also upgraded the service taken (which she was prepared to pay for).

Mary waived the fee for the colour, in exchange for the help and advice she received from Jill. So again, she isn't out of pocket.

The contents of your last paragraph are not lost on me, and I agree with all you say about the word of mouth, however, it very much cuts both ways, and has to be remembered that it was Mary who was touting for business, not Jill. Added to which, it is very unusual for hairdressers to not have enough work, goodness knows where I live you can frequently find two or even three in the same row of shops, all working flat-out.

Your mistake is mixing business with friendship. If you want to be friends with someone, don't offer them free professional advice as a way in. It's different if you're already friends perhaps.

She might have misunderstood and thought that you were offering the booking system along with the advice at the time of the haircut.

You should have declined the free hair tinting I think. Or do the booking system for free if it's going to take less time than the hair tinting.

No she can’t ask for money retroactively for the hair done!! And no, it wasn’t in exchange for new copy. She can take the service or not. Her choice

Yes, I have to said in these circumstances I wouldn't have taken the free colour, not if I was happy to give the advice & help willingly, before a trade-off was mentioned.

Not sure why Mary is miffed; she’s already got quite a bit for free! How long did she think this was going on for?! She either needs to upskill and do it herself or pay the going rate to you or someone else. You quite possibly make it look easy as you’re good at what you do but obviously your skills and experience count for something or she could do it herself (but she can’t!)

Mary gave Jill a free tint in lieu of Jill's professional advice and help.
The slate was cleared at this point.
Any additional services between parties should be at normal rates.

Jill exchanged her advice for a free tint - the cut and blow was a prize she won fair and square. That’s the extent of it. Any further services provided on either side are on a professional paid basis in the absence of any prior mutual agreement.

Mary is in the wrong! Waiving the tint fee was in response to the IT advice. To do further work, Mary should be paying for it!

Thats completely irrelevant!

Looking at your username, I guess you are Mary?!