Hi Jeff,
It's been my experience that most clients prefer to have quoted a fix price with everything included and not to be charged for individual expenses or by an hourly rate. The only times I haven't done that was when I traveled from California to New York for a client - for that I quoted production fees and travel expenses separately. Quoting fixed price is good practice for really understanding your true costs of a project as it forces you to think about every aspect of the production and the post production process and what it will cost you in time and materials. Most importantly - you want to make the buying decision as EASY for them to understand and say yes to as possible - charging hourly plus expenses leaves the client on the hook for any bad or overly expensive decisions you make - of course on a fixed priced bid you have to be very clear on what is and what is not included, that's to protect you - otherwise they can say "oh I thought we were going to film that on the beach in France with swimsuit models, I didn't realize we'd be filming at our local river front.
I don't have any strong advice for you on how to approach companies as sales is my weakest skill set...after a while some work will come to you "for free" just by people knowing what you do and seeing your work....past clients will often come up with the new ideas for projects. I'm a big believer in sharing what you know so try offering free workshops to the business community on video marketing - I've done this through the Chamber of Commerce and I made some great contacts that way.
You will find endless ways to spend all the money you made on new and better gear....it's fine if you are not relying on the jobs for income to live on - in that case it's always better to rent gear or get by with what you have until you can really really afford it.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com
