It’s storytime and a lesson for all photographers. Always Exceed Expectations! In this video, you will hear about a drawn-out time our family had when hiring a service, and the lessons I hope to share with everyone from my experience.
Transcription was done by Descript‘s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar, and other errors, and is not a substitute for watching the video.
Don’t delay, don’t just skip out on your clients, don’t forget about them and don’t treat them like second class citizens, even if you’re bartering services. This is Scott Wyden Kivowitz, a storyteller with a camera talking about all the things photographers like you and I are thinking about in this video are going to be talking about something that happened to me recently and I don’t want you as a photographer to do it to your clients. Let’s share a story. Our family is part of a local barter system where we can. We have this pool of sort of virtual money that comes in from people who want to hire us or buy from us, whatever our products and services are, and we get that money, which is again virtuals Kinda. You don’t really see it and it goes into this virtual account that can then be used when you can go other places or hire other people for their products, their services, their restaurants, whatever it is, and it’s just virtual money going back and forth.
A good example of this is I can actually sell my photography services using barter. I can accept barter money and I can go to a restaurant who accepts barter and use the money that I got at the restaurant and I’m basically just paying tax in cash, but the rest of the bill is fully covered now. I worked for it because I did a photography job, but I’m not taking money out of my wallet. There’s also, there’s also not money coming into my wallet. It’s again, invisible money. Here’s the thing, we hired a painter, one of the only painters that’s actually in this barter network, and the painter had a fantastic reputation. The portfolio of work was really good and the guy was a veteran. We were very happy with it. The painter did not mark up the prices like a lot of barter. A lot of companies do when they accept barter.
The prices were the same whether we were to use barter or paying cash, but the main difference was that with barter his timing wasn’t more immediate, wasn’t urgent. So if we were to hire his painting company in cash, the job probably would have been done in a week. It’s been over a month now. We’re having a bunch of rooms painted and right now I would say half of it is done in over a month. There have been delays and delays with a bunch of different reasons and whatnot and the reason for the delays is because barter and now today we are about to have probably the busiest two rooms in our house painted the family room and the kitchen which are right next to each other and our house kind of looks more. Those two rooms kind of look a little discombobulated because they’re ready for painting and the painters not here.
You see we are also planning for. We also have the adoption agency. Yes. My family, my wife and I are adopting the adoption agency is sending over a video crew to make an a video profile for us for their website and that’s how that wall, by the time you see this video has already happened, but that’s happening in about a week and I’m. The painter is supposed to have that room done so that we can do the video in that room. So that’s why he was coming today and this morning, after half hour being a half hour late from the time that I was told he was coming, I gotta check that he’s at the gas station and his truck broke down. It’s waiting for the tow truck to come and take the truck to the mechanic and so on, and it’s now the day’s almost over and he’s still not here and well, as you can guess, the room’s not painted.
Sorry for the long story. My point of this story is basically to say, as photographers, whether you are accepting money in cash and check and credit card or even barter, as for typographers, do not do this to your clients. Do not do this to your clients. People are expecting you to show up at a certain time and a certain day. They’re expecting it to be done within a certain timeframe. Don’t delay, don’t give excuses. Don’t, don’t push things off just because it might be barter. Get things done in a good timely fashion. If you excel, if you excel well exceed over the expectations that that client has for you, then that’s just going to help your business down the road. Think about this. Let’s say this was not a painter. Let’s say this was a photographer and you didn’t show up and you didn’t show up and you didn’t show up and delayed any.
Push things back and you’re delayed some more, and am I going to leave you a good review? Am I going to tell my friends and my family to hire you or am I going to say, don’t hire this person because they won’t be done for two months or don’t hire this person because the job may never get done, or am I just not going to say a word and you’ll never get a job from me or from any of my potential referrals ever. Think about it. Don’t delay exceed expectations. That’s it. If you like this video, click the subscribe button below. Now. I published new videos every Monday and Thursday whenever possible. You don’t want to miss it.
