Photographer Tries to Take Advantage of Wildfire Victims.

I recently saw a post in a photography Facebook group their client had lost their home in the wildfires in California they were had contacted the photographer to see if they would mind doing a re-shoot getting getting some of their images getting images printed out and the question was really about how much should they charge them to do like a re-shoot or do reprints of their wall art because quote uh my time isn't free and there were a number of people who were saying like you should just do this for them and there was a lot of push back on that a lot of people were saying absolutely you should be charging for this just because they lost their home doesn't mean that you don't have a business to run and I'm not going to mention the photographer's name or the group because I don't want to throw any shade on them this platform here is about educating people and maybe they'll see this and hopefully it will educate them the problem I find with a lot of photography business advice is that it comes from people who are photograph rers and don't have a background in business they they're photographers who've had to start a business many have started successful businesses but they've learned mostly like marketing and sales and haven't learned all the other aspects of business I went to business school I started my undergrad in Business Administration entrepreneurship marketing organizational behavior Human Resources all of that I eventually ended up with a communications degree specializing in business Communications when I was in school we learned about this concept very early on called goodwi and Goodwill is not I'm not talking about the nonprofit secondhand clothing store I'm talking about the concept of Goodwill what it means in business Goodwill is actually a line item on a balance sheet Goodwill is an intangible asset that the company holds and that can be tied to Brand identity Customer Loyalty business relationships and uh a few other things that are not related to this but they all fall under the concept of Goodwill and how much value that actually adds to the business if you think about a product like uh well let's see like Dr Pepper right owned by curig Dr Pepper I mean the formula is worth worth a lot but the brand and the customer loyalty of people who drink Dr Pepper is massive it it has an actual number value that goes onto the balance sheet of that business so what affects that reputation loyalty relationships if your client has had the most devastating thing happen to them in their life from a business perspective of Goodwill and establishing greater value for your company the last thing you should be thinking about is how can I get money out of them because my time is not free what you're going to do is you are going to decrease the amount of Goodwill that your business had you're going to decrease your brand reputation you're going to decrease your customer loyalty and you're going to decrease your business relationships in an industry where more than 90% of our business is not repeat business it's firsttime business people coming into us the most important piece of Capital that you have in your business is is reputation capital and that's Goodwill your brand reputation how your customer loyalty how much are your customers willing to brag about you there's a great book by Guy Kawasaki uh called enchantment uh the art of changing Hearts minds and actions I'll put it up on the screen with a QR code so you can check that out if you want to get a copy but the whole idea is like how to woo and influence and and enchant your clients that builds uh strength in businesses it builds better companies it builds better relationships it builds Customer Loyalty Word of Mouth Marketing in an industry where 90% of our business is new business is so important and so critical that the fact that you would even consider damaging your reputation risking your reputation by trying trying to exploit people who have just gone through the worst tragedy in their lives is mindblowing to me and quite frankly I think kind of vile and disgusting it's not a good way to do business it's not a good way to build your reputation and it's not any kind of way that I would ever want to do business when I was photographing weddings one of the photos that I photographed was the last photograph ever taken of someone's grandparent and they called me and said hey can we get like a print of that image and I said absolutely and instead of charging them I gave them the print for that image and that one act of of kindness and generosity and Goodwill returned dividends if you want to build a strong business that's built on relationships which almost all photography businesses are cuz you're building a relationship with your client it's a very intimate very personal relationship often times they're letting us into their homes you should be doing everything in your power for them to brag about you for the rest of their life we lost our home but our photographer did a complete re-shoot with us shot new images of our family for free and they will tell everyone about you and those people will be like that's the kind of person that I want to hire that's the kind of person that I want to work with that's the kind of person that I would trust with my family's photos so instead of trying to take advantage of people when they're down when they're powerless when they're weak even if you're struggling the best thing that you can do is support people lift them up and help them in a time of need Goodwill let me know what you think in the comments what would you have done and if you're not already subscribed please consider subscribing