I lose deals occasionally because of this, but I sleep at night.

And I have a passion for my customers in a way that always makes me want to help them.

Ask your producer for options & prices based on your initial ideas.

If the job is complex, a ballpark price will do at this stage, so you can get a reasonable idea of the difference in video style costs

- without requiring the producer to spend ½ day or more researching exact costs for something you’ll never be able to afford.

I won one of my biggest ever German projects because I sketched out a menu of prices & options that helped them a great deal to decide what their choices were

- and the cost implications of those choices. I got trusted.

One last thing: Even if your heart is set on the expensive style you can't afford, don't be spurred into inaction or indecision.

Develop a brilliant message for your video, the killer script of all killer scripts.

This will almost always compensate for lack of budget.

Although I've worked on many pricey projects, I personally I love brilliant cheap short highly-creative videos. They can often outshine the big budget efforts.

And when you win on a tiny budget, the pleasure is all the greater 🙂