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Posts Tagged PrivateShoots

Posts Tagged ‘PrivateShoots’

Without Quibbling, Questioning, Quarrelling or Quitting

It’s April 1st today, but this is NO JOKE. Actually, quite chokingly real.

Thats All Folks Mic Drop GIF by Kehlani - Find & Share on GIPHY

The pandemic has hit the creative industry to a level never seen before. We all had to regroup, rethink, reevaluate and for me largely reinvent.

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Prior to the pandemic I had a plethora of corporate clients for photography, videography and general commercial and corporate media work. That allowed me to be a little generous with private clients and startups. I would often discount my prices to enable them, the entrepreneurs and start-ups, to get off the ground with good images and showreels to use for the promotion and marketing of their business. The discounts weren’t heavy, maybe 10% to 20% but increasingly more than that off the actual price. The private clients too.

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That all stopped abruptly when the pandemic hit and the lockdown subsequently followed. So I had to reevaluate. All the corporate conference shoots, events and headshots stopped almost immediately and you could see my diary one-by-one with cancellations of shoots, commercial contracts etc. Remember, I had started on a roll with the big luxury hotels and small advertising pieces for them. Everything stopped. Nobody knew what was happening or what next.

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We all had to literally sit and wait – bake bread to kill the time or learn a new language.

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I had to refocus and with my media work I had to reevaluate what was beneficial for me and my business. Right! It was now only Corporate and Commercial work. I had my contacts in the corporate world and the commercial aspects were being solidified. When this whole Covid business is over, I said to myself, I would restrict my media work to Corporations and Commercial units (and one other genre, which I will not divulge for stalking reasons, is proving to be quite lucrative.) All my private and small business shoots stopped; or the discounts have stopped. They will now have to pay the full corporate sums paid by large multinational organisations, if they want me to do a shoot. Some corporate shoots have been charged CHF900 per hour in the past. So you see where I need to concentrate my work, service and time.

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This I’ve told to my previous clients, many of whom understand and are unable to afford the new standard prices.

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Along comes a client that I’ve had in the past requesting a shoot (this is not a corporate client). I outlined the situation and the new standard charge for my services, thinking that they will say thank you but no thank you.

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On the contrary, they replied back – We still want you and will be happy to pay for this!

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Ok, I said yes sure let’s sort out a date and talk about your requirements.

So the moral of the story is, my fellow creatives, remember if you value your work and the clients do too, it’s a beautiful thing. If the clients do not want to pay the sums you know are appropriate for your services, then THEY do not value YOUR WORK!

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It was a great shoot by the way and a happy 4 figure sum was received for 1 hour work without quibbling, questioning, quarrelling, quandary or quitting. That’s the way to do it.

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