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084 - You Can't Win Them All · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

0:09
Casey Fatchett: Hey everybody, welcome to the nerdy
0:10
photographer podcast. It's your host, Casey, and it's just me in
0:13
this episode. It's been hard to get other people around for
0:17
recording for numerous reasons. It's the summer. A lot of my
0:20
wedding photographer friends are busy, but also my neighbors have
0:24
been having some work done, and there's been jackhammering for
0:27
the last month and a half. So it makes it difficult to record, to
0:31
find time to record when there's hours and hours and hours of
0:34
jackhammering. It's, you know, real fun for me, but I wanted to
0:37
get this episode out to you, because I had these experiences
0:41
recently that I think would be really important for anybody,
0:45
just anybody in general. But I mean, especially if you're
0:48
running a business, and especially if you're running a
0:51
photography business, because these are things that it took me
0:54
so long to figure out that if I can help anyone get to this
0:58
place sooner than I did, I think I'll be doing a great service.
1:02
So let's just get into it. At the end of April, beginning of
1:09
May, I was on vacation, I was out of the country, and I got
1:14
two inquiries for weddings. They were coming up in about three
1:18
months, three months away, and they're both pretty big
1:21
weddings. They weren't like little, you know, like
1:23
elopements, where there wasn't a lot of moving pieces. They were
1:26
both pretty big events, big venues, lots of people they
1:31
needed, you know, video, second photographer, there's a lot of
1:35
things to sort out beforehand. So, you know, a pretty short
1:37
timeline for something that big, less than three months to do. So
1:42
I reached out immediately and said, Hey, listen, I sent the
1:46
same email to both couples. I said, Listen, I am out of the
1:49
country right now. I have infrequent access to email
1:55
because I don't know we know what I'm going to be, you know,
1:57
anywhere where there's Wi Fi, but I do have phone service
2:01
through my phone provider, and I'm getting text messages pretty
2:04
good. You know, the text messages are getting through to
2:06
me. So if you need to get in touch with me immediately
2:11
because of the short timeframe that we're dealing with, you can
2:15
text me. Here's my number. Get a hold me. Otherwise, what I will
2:19
do is I'm going to reach out to you in about four days or so,
2:25
four or five days when I get back into the US and I have
2:31
consistent access to email, just letting you know, send that
2:36
email out to both couples. Fast forward five days, I return to
2:41
the United States, and I send my follow up emails to both couples
2:46
saying, Hey, I'm back in the US. My trip is over. I'm ready to
2:51
talk. I understand. You know, our timeline is pretty crunched
2:55
here. So you know, if you need to, like, we need to get on a
2:58
zoom call or a phone call, or just you just want to talk about
3:01
it over email, just let me know what works for you. First couple
3:07
writes me back and says, Sorry, we already hired someone. We
3:12
were looking for somebody who's a little bit more available
3:16
given the short timeline. So okay, and not sure what I could
3:21
do there. Second couple writes me back and says, Sorry, we're
3:25
swamped with work right now, and we have family visiting us until
3:29
the end of the week. Maybe we can touch base after that's
3:32
over. Fine. That's great. Okay, for that couple, I reach out
3:38
again a week later, little A little over a week later, and
3:42
say, like, Hey, I hope that, you know, work is a little less
3:47
hectic. I hope the visit with your family went well. Just
3:50
wanted to touch base and see about, you know, getting the
3:53
discussion started, because there's a lot of things you were
3:55
asking for for your wedding. And you know, I want to, like, get
3:58
on that. I want to hire the best people who are available. But,
4:00
you know, availability is determined, but you know, we the
4:04
longer we wait, the less people are going to be available to do
4:07
this. And I want the, you know, the highest quality for you as a
4:11
as a client, to which the response was in less than a
4:16
minute. The the groom to be wrote me back and said, hey,
4:21
just letting you know we did end up going with someone else. I
4:26
always ask, and I think I've mentioned this before on the
4:28
podcast. If I have not mentioned it before, take note of it now.
4:32
Always ask people why they hired someone else or why they didn't
4:35
hire you. It will give you incredible amounts of
4:38
information and insight into a what you're maybe not doing
4:43
right to connect with people, or why people are making certain
4:46
decisions. I mean, you might be doing everything correctly, and
4:49
they're just making a decision that's personal, and it has
4:51
absolutely nothing to do with you. And to that end, after I
4:57
got that email, I sent an email back, saying, like, oh. Okay,
5:00
you know, I wish you all the best with the wedding if you
5:03
don't mind me asking, what was the deciding factor in choosing
5:08
whom you did to hire, who you chose to hire for the wedding
5:13
photography. And in less than 30 seconds, I got an email from the
5:19
bride to be saying, just to let you know, the reason we hired
5:24
the other photographer is because they left us alone. They
5:29
sent us one email and didn't contact us again. I know that
5:33
you are quote, unquote, desperate to book weddings, but
5:41
you know, you should have just only sent us one message and
5:44
then left us alone. So with these two couples, we have, you
5:50
know, completely opposite ends of the spectrum. We have the
5:53
couple who apparently wanted me to, you know, end my holiday.
5:58
You know, end my vacation and make myself completely available
6:03
to them at any time of day by both email, phone and whatever
6:08
other means of communication, without telling me that they
6:10
that's what they wanted. And then we have the couple who
6:13
apparently just wanted me to respond to their email and then
6:16
never contact them again again without letting me know. So what
6:24
is the important lesson to be learned from this? Lesson is you
6:29
can't please everyone, especially when they don't tell
6:35
you what it is they want. Have I learned something from this? Am
6:38
I going to change things a little bit in the way that I do
6:41
business. I actually am going to change things a little bit. I'm
6:44
going to change my on my contact form, on my website, about how
6:48
frequently people want to be contacted, or how they want to
6:51
be contacted, whether they want to be contacted via text, if I
6:54
don't hear from them, do they want me to follow up, or do they
6:57
want me to leave them alone? Because you know what, I don't
6:59
want to bug anybody. But at the same time, if you wrote me back
7:03
and told me, let's check in again next week, and you really
7:06
didn't want somebody to contact you, you should, probably should
7:09
have let me know that I can't read minds. And you know, you
7:11
can't read minds either. And before this, I mean, honestly, I
7:16
can't remember when it started to change, but for many, many,
7:20
many years, I would have beaten myself up over both of these
7:25
events, both, both of these interactions, would have caused
7:28
me emotional turmoil, emotional damage, for sure, because I
7:34
would have thought, Oh, I did something wrong. I screwed this
7:38
up. It's totally my fault. I you know, there was something I
7:41
could have done that would have ensured that I would have gotten
7:43
the job, or at least been able to talk with these people. No,
7:46
there's not. There was, like, look, looking at this. There's
7:49
nothing I could have done differently that would have, you
7:52
know, changed this. I handled both situations as well as could
7:56
be handled, and it just didn't work out. Honestly, I feel like
7:59
I dodged a bullet. Dodge two bullets. You know, couple a, who
8:04
wanted someone who is more available is going to want
8:07
somebody who's available to them all the time anyway. And I don't
8:10
want to live like that. You know, I have boundaries.
8:14
Couple B, apparently wants someone who can read minds,
8:18
because there's going to have to be some communication going on,
8:20
but they don't want to be communicated with. They don't
8:23
want someone to, you know, reach out to them. And you know what?
8:29
I found that kind of the I know you're desperate to book
8:33
weddings, like I'm not desperate This is three months away, like
8:36
I'm not. I wasn't planning on having, you know, this gig. What
8:40
I'm desperate to do is help people. And when you've created
8:45
this truncated timeline to do the job and crunched everything
8:51
down, you know, I want to give you as much of the benefit of my
8:54
experience as possible, and when you told me it, you know, I
8:58
should have just left you alone. Well, how are you going to get
9:00
in touch with this photographer after the wedding? Like, what if
9:03
there's issues? Like, if you don't want somebody, if you want
9:06
someone who won't communicate with you? I think that's just
9:08
gonna lead to problems. But I think the most important lesson
9:12
here is that I didn't beat myself up afterwards. You have
9:15
to know when to let go and just be like, you know, I didn't do
9:18
anything wrong. Here I am like, I can't please everyone. And I
9:23
think what that also helps reinforce is the notion that you
9:27
you shouldn't be trying to get hired by everyone. You need to
9:31
find your market. As my friend Spencer lum says in his sales
9:37
courses, he's like, you don't need to get, you know, people
9:40
always say, like, oh, you only need to get 2% of the market.
9:45
And it's not that. It's not that you need to get 2% of the entire
9:49
like, the whole market. You need to get 100% of that 2% you need
9:53
to focus on that to you're not casting this giant net into the
9:58
world and thinking. Oh, I'm only gonna, I'm gonna catch 2% of
10:01
these fish. Like, no, you have to be focused on that 2% that
10:04
are the people that you know are interested in your work, that
10:08
you are delineating yourself from the rest of the the market
10:13
out there. As far, whether you're a photographer or
10:15
whatever it is you're doing, you need to separate yourself from
10:20
them, so that you can get everybody in that 2% of the
10:24
market, or actually be talking about that on another episode
10:28
coming up soon with one of my guests. But I, you know, I'm so
10:36
happy with myself for not tearing myself apart and tearing
10:40
myself down and thinking that I had failed, because, I mean,
10:45
technically, whatever I would probably I lost out on two jobs
10:49
that would have been my thought process earlier on in my career.
10:54
I can't, like I said, I can't even remember when that changed,
10:58
but knowing that I didn't do anything wrong, and just it just
11:04
went another way. It could have been for any number of reasons.
11:06
People just could have been like, hey, you know what? Your
11:09
photos aren't my style. That's totally fine. It's totally fine
11:13
that you can't please everyone. You just need to focus on the
11:16
people who are into what you do. And that brings me to it
11:21
another, another instance of something that happened
11:25
recently, that again, where I previously would have blamed
11:30
myself. I had done a shoot for this client. We were doing some
11:34
some business headshots. And throughout the shoot, I was
11:39
showing my client the photos. And this client had told me, you
11:45
know, I stopped coloring my hair over the pandemic. I decided to
11:51
go natural with my natural hair color. And I haven't had
11:54
business headshots done in a long time, and I want head shots
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that are gonna reflect this new, more natural look. Awesome,
12:03
great. So we set up the shoot. I do the headshots. I'm showing my
12:08
client, these photos throughout the shoot they're giving me
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great. Oh. Love the photos. Love these pictures. Awesome. I
12:19
delivered the photos the next day, because they were on a
12:22
short time crunch for another, you know, needed the photos for
12:25
a PR, for a PR opportunity. A week later, I get an email that
12:32
says, I'm not going to be using any of these photos because, you
12:36
know, you just lit this wrong. And it really highlights my, you
12:42
know, gray hair and this like you, you did this wrong, you,
12:46
you, you did it wrong, and you should have done it differently.
12:51
And so it didn't accentuate that I have gray hair. And again, in
12:57
the past, I would have beat myself up over this and said,
13:01
Oh, you know, I should have done something differently. Or, you
13:03
know, do you want to reschedule? You want to reshoot this? But
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the thing is, you came to me originally saying that you
13:10
wanted to showcase this look. I showed you the pictures while we
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were shooting it. My guess is that while they get afterwards,
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they were showing these photos to someone, and someone said,
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Wow, you really look old, is my guess. And we all have
13:27
insecurities. That's fine. If he came to me and said, like, you
13:30
know, oh, like, is there something we can do? It's fine.
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But instead, he tried to blame me, like, I did my job wrong.
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I've been doing this for over 20 years. I know how to do this.
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The photos are lovely, like, they're really good. There's
13:45
nothing wrong with the pictures. This is a matter of personal
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preference, whatever. I wouldn't even call it preference, because
13:52
we wanted this originally you, this is what you wanted. And
13:56
younger Casey would have gone out of their way to, like,
13:59
reshoot this and, like, somehow do something else, which, you
14:02
know, there wouldn't be anything unless they color their hair. I
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don't know, I don't know what color of light I could use to,
14:08
like, you know, make this some sort of soft, dark, very dark.
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It'd have to be very dark. Shoot with professional, you know,
14:18
standard business headshots, just the two just don't, don't
14:22
blend together. But to sum up and final, like, bring this
14:27
episode to conclusion. Stop beating yourself up. You can't
14:34
please everyone. There are going to be the clients occasionally
14:37
who like, again, you can't read their minds. They are. They're
14:42
just not going to be happy. You can't make them happy. They're
14:44
gonna be the potential clients that you were never going to
14:47
make happy. They're just not the people for you. And you have to
14:50
find some way to let go, and I know that it's very, very
14:55
difficult, especially when you're an solopreneur, when
14:59
you're a sole prop. Writer, when your name is the one on the door
15:02
and that's the one I think I always try to tell people, is
15:04
why I generally take these things so personally is because
15:07
my business is my name. It's Casey Fatchett photography. So
15:12
when someone doesn't like that, it always it's personal. It
15:16
feels personal because it's about me, it's my name. So I
15:20
know how hard it can be to let go of those things, but you need
15:24
to find ways to let go if you make an honest mistake. Yes,
15:28
that's your fault. That's the or you you do something wrong. You
15:33
know when you did wrong, but if you know that you did everything
15:37
right, and somebody's just not pleased, like, stop beating
15:43
yourself up. It doesn't mean you shouldn't, like, do what you can
15:46
to make the situation right for your clients, especially if
15:50
there's people you want to come back to you if you want to
15:53
continue working with them. Like I said, I feel like I dodged a
15:57
bullet with those two wedding couples, because I don't think
16:00
personality wise, we would have been a match anyway, and with
16:03
this other client, I don't think that you know if you're going to
16:05
come back and blame me for honestly, what was the decision,
16:10
instead of coming to me and wanting to work with me about
16:12
it, just saying that it was my fault again, probably somebody I
16:18
don't want To work with ever again. So take your time when
16:23
you can't find yourself in these situations where you're feeling
16:26
like it's it's your fault, and you did something wrong and
16:29
you're hurting your business, take a moment. Take a deep
16:33
breath and really consider like what's going on and whether it's
16:37
just a matter of you can't please everybody. All right,
16:41
folks, more episodes coming in the near future. I will be
16:45
trying to get things out again. Like I said, it's the
16:48
summertime, and I am busy with weddings and such, but I'm going
16:53
to do my best to keep the the episodes coming out regularly.
16:55
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