Camera Samurai

I have had a number of people contact me about doing shoots, sometimes even comp shoots through special arrangement, and the people fail to show up. To me, that’s bad business. It’s one thing to annoy the photographer, who is like the hired help in terms of the flow of money and desire to serve, but what people don’t seem to understand is that every interaction is a two-way street.

Today, you pay me for a service. What is your business? Might I someday want to pay you for something? If you stand me up, probably not. If you decide you don’t want my services after all and call to cancel, that’s a different story. Even though this transaction did not come to fruition, we have still had a positive, professional interaction.

Maybe I will call for your services. Maybe I will refer a friend your way. The sky’s the limit. All it takes is common courtesy and a simple phone call to cancel an appointment.

I have long told people – employees, employers, students, colleagues, classmates and others – that the biggest key to success is simply showing up. What this does is it gives you an opportunity to do your job.

This works on both ends of the bargain. I show up for our appointment, take your picture and get paid. When you show up, I am impressed by your professionalism in keeping an appointment and recognize you as a person of your word. Because of this, I am happy to tell someone about you and your work, should he need your services.

So to the latest person who promised to come by and did not – for the second time, mind you – and even emailed that she was on the way, I say, “Too bad.” It is hard to think of this as a loss on my end, as the real loss would have come from working with someone so unprofessional.

All the same, if she gets in touch with me and has a reasonable explanation, I would likely set up a third appointment, albeit wedged between two others so as not to possibly squander too much time waiting when she again failed to show.

Those of you in the service field – how do you handle this type of encounter? What do you do to ensure your people with appointments show? What is the effect of having people not show up?

Technorati Tags: photographer, professional, service, key to success, professionalism, appointment, unprofessional

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