Michael [mahy-kuhl] – noun
1. A male given name. 2. A witty, charming professional wedding photographer who enjoys movies, exercise, romantic walks on the beach and large pepperoni pizzas.
Maven [may-ven] – noun
1. A connoisseur or trusted expert in a particular field who seeks to pass his knowledge onto others. 2. An intense gatherer of useful information. 3. An individual who demonstrates passion for learning and teaching a specific topic, particularly through a well connected social network.
Thank you for coming to my blog! I update it regularly, so if you ever want to know what I am up to, please come by and take a peek. Feel free to leave your comments below.
08.10.10
The Wedding Photographer / Videographer Scam
Wanted to give you guys a heads up- a good friend of mine got one of these emails this week. I have been seeing them for years, and started getting them when I was a videographer. It's a scam:
Dear (Photographer's Name),
This is a requisition for your fotography services. I am (fake criminal name here). Based in London. My wedding is coming up on October 9, 2010 (almost always within 2-3 months). I have been browsing the internet for a professional photographer in USA when I found your contact. Pleese I will want to hire your service to be the photographer on my wedding day in London. I am sorting an america photographer because I really want to make the wedding event a wonderfull day for my fiance. I truely love her.
You will cover the whole events from Getting ready, Ceremony, and the Reception. I want you to capture the atmosphere of the event so that we can relive the special day moment by moment, photo by photo, for a lifetime. Capture all those little moments that make the wedding day incredible. Also, I will want you to make an album from the event.I will prefer popular flush mount albums that are custom designed.
After a care review of your profile, I am of the opinion that you are capable to provide the incredible services as requested.Please accept my sincerest appreciation on behalf of my fiance, in advance for your willingness to render your services.
Kind Regard,
(Cyber Scammer Fakey Name)
The way it works is these criminals send out these very personalized emails requesting a quote for your photography services. They are getting more and more detailed, such as the description of services requested. This is an attempt of diversion to get the photographer excited about the potential gig, and overlook all of the red flags. (Misspellings, situational questions, rush to book, etc). Emails are exchanged back and forth until the "client" then asks for the photographers contact information, and in some more aggressive cases- bank account numbers, "In order to make a direct deposit to your account".
If they are legit, they will almost always call you on the phone and ask a lot of questions before deciding to hire you, and even in those cases, it is wise to exercise extreme caution. I still get these types of emails now, and I ignore all of them.
3 comments:
08.06.10
Moscow Fires
I got this image from a good friend who lives in Moscow. If you haven't heard there are over 500 fires in the Moscow area and they have been going on for some time now. This is a pretty serious thing, Moscow is an entirely HUGE city, as in GINORMOUS, both in population (official estimates are around 10 Million people, but its probably more realistically 12-13) and in actual area. Russian Officials have said that 10,000 firefighters are not enough.
Here is a link with some pretty crazy images. Having lived there and knowing where these places are, it boggles my mind that the whole city is pretty much under a thick fire smog. (My friend lives near Sveeblova Metro Station, on the outskirts of the Orange Line, the Kremlin and Red Square are nearly in the center).
We have all heard the saying that the “Customer is always right” and this is in most cases true. However, most business owners know the truth about this phrase, and they also know that the customer does have certain responsibilities. If this wasn’t the case, there would be no law suits against businesses. What this means is, no…companies and owners do not really believe it, its more of a general rule.
What the phrase means to most business owners is that, we will pretend that the customer is right, even when we know they are wrong, because the cost of losing that customer is greater than not losing them. In most cases, an upset customer will do much more damage to your business through word of mouth than a happy customer will bring. Some studies have the cost of an upset grocery store customer can cost up to $100,000 in lost revenue.
This is why managers and employees are taught this principle, they are not the owners of the business and for all intents and purposes, it isn’t their call anyway. The owner would be willing to take a small profit loss to help them instead of dealing with the bad reputation. All of the business owners I know have encountered situations where the customer is absolutely wrong, they know it – dealing with it just comes with the territory, and for the most part these cases are very isolated.
The reason the customer is right 99% of the time is because they have invested time, money and most importantly TRUST in your company. I see this all the time with the DVDs, you purchased this DVD online and in so doing I know that you took a chance on me, you demonstrated faith in me and therefore, I want to retain that trust, I want you to know I greatly appreciate your support and that is why I am so devoted making GREAT products. I want my customers to look forward to the next one. Building trust, making quality products and having fast, speedy service are the best ways to get repeat business. Sometimes things go wrong, its bound to happen, if I can make it right- awesome.
Having said that, there have been at least 3 or 4 instances I can think of when the customer was not correct, and it was time to walk-away. Over the last few years, I have “blacklisted” a handful of customers. This means they are blocked from future purchases and I not longer want their business.
Here are some general rules on when it is time to walk away:
1. You have made at least 2 or 3 legitimate attempts to satisfy their needs and they are still demanding more. This is a good indication you are being taken advantage of and the customer has overstepped their bounds.
2. They are threatening, swearing at you or calling you names.
3. You have physical proof they are intentionally trying to deceive you.
4. They are no longer a customer. This can happen once you have refunded their money, or the expense of meeting their needs has far exceeded any profit you hoped to gain from the original transaction.
I think the best policy is to always try to work it out, but yes, there may be some more situations where the customer is no longer right. Always be sure to have contracts signed- it’s your best insurance against problems, even if you do not think they will happen, they can and they will.
1 comment:
05.04.10
How many times does the average person check Email and Facebook per day?
Email as we know it has only been around on a large, general use scale for about 15 years and Facebook just a few. As such, there are some extremely interesting behavioral phenomena associated with how humans interact with these amazing tools. One survey I haven't seen however is how many times a does the average person check his or her email? I think we need include Facebook because it has sort of taken over the social aspect of email.
It's very important that you are honest in your answers.
If you do both, add them together, and it if you use something like "Outlook" (a mail service that stays open all day long) add "12" to your facebook number.
3 comments:
05.01.10
The Difference Between Surprise and Suspense
"Four men [are] sitting at a table playing poker. The scene is rather boring. Suddenly, after 15 minutes, we hear a big bang - it turns out there was a bomb under the table. This is called surprise as it isn’t what we expected would happen. If we watch the same scene again with the important difference that we have seen the bomb being placed under the table and the timer set to 11 AM, and we can see a watch in the background, the same scene becomes very intense and almost unbearable - we are sitting there hoping the timer will fail, the game is interrupted or the hero leaves the table in time, before the blast. This is called suspense."
- Alfred Hitchcock
1 comment:
04.28.10
Keen Shoes
Bought a pair of these for my Haiti trip, and while I didn't end up bringing them, Ive been wearing them since I got back and I have to say, they are ridiculously comfortable. I have the brown ones above, but if you have never heard of them, you should visit their website because they have styles and sizes for everyone, including dress shoes, hiking boots, water proof diving boots, kids, womens, etc. Ive seen them popping up in sporting goods stores now too, try them on if you get a chance!
"No" makes it easier to build trust. Let me explain:
I have a photography friend who just cannot say no. She says "yes" to just about everything. One thing I have noticed about her is when she says "oh ya for sure" that means no, but to most people, that sounds like "yes". Her problem is, for whatever reason, she thinks its mean to say "No" and leave a person feeling rejected, so she reluctantly accepts, and then leaves the person hanging. I believe leaving someone hanging is much worse than saying no in the first place. "No" eliminates expectations. In fact, if you are saying no to a friend or client, they will also respect you more for having the courage to straight up tell them and communicate openly with them, even if it is something they didnt want to hear.
As a photographer, spouse, friend, business owner, etc- it is incredibly important that those with whom you associate respect your "word". Some countries dont even sign contracts, they believe a man's word and maybe a handshake are all you need to make and keep an agreement. Your "word" should be your "bond"- if you tell someone you are going to do something or be at a certain place at a certain time, it should be paramount that you keep your word. "Why?" some of you may ask- one of the main reasons is because when you keep you word, it becomes more powerful and increases trust, which is HUGE. Trust is not an easy thing to build with someone. Trust is efficient- it makes all of our social and economic transactions happen faster. If your customers trust you completely, it will be easier for you to get repeat business
Another thing is, if they are unable to keep their word in little, simple things, how in the world can they keep their word for the large, difficult ones? I take little notes on who keeps their word and who doesn't, if someone lets me down time and again, I naturally think "ok...this person cannot be trusted" and my relationship with them fizzles and disappears, simply because I am not interested in a "one-way" street of trust. (This is where I keep my end of the bargain and they do not).
For example: If you play games with your customers, and they have the impression services or products will be provided when they in fact wont be, they will be upset with you when you try to "upsell" those same products and services and you wont have repeat business. Once you have landed a customer, it is of paramount importance that you keep that customer happy. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to find and land customers, and it is much more profitable to work with repeat business than to spend your time constantly hunting for them.
Sometimes customers will ask for products or services you cannot or do not want to provide, this is where "no" comes in. I would also like to point out, that you do not have to say the word "no", but there must absolutely be a clear understanding that "no" is what is meant, phrases such as "Im sorry, I wont be able to do that" or "We can add that for an additional fee" or "Im so sorry my schedule is already booked".
Sometimes customers will show enough red flags that you shouldn't do business with them in the first place, micro-managers (they determine every shot) or hagglers (they want negotiate every cost of the package) are two that come to mind.
This is one of the hardest things for beginning business photographers to do, is turning away "bad" business, because all they see are $$ signs and not the trouble it will take to keep this particular customer happy. Every photographer has different red flag customers, but not every photographer will politely turn their business away. I would also say that you do not have to give them a specific reason, which if you do, can open another can of worms. Always be polite with customers and potential customers, but you do not have to say yes to everything they request.
If you aren't already doing this, I would definitely suggest at least trying it.
Just for fun...without looking up or checking anywhere on the internet, what do you think the average focal length of typical human vision is? Add your comments to guess! Ill post some interesting specs on human vision later.
Here they are:
Notes on the Human Eye:
Equivalent Lens Focal Length: ~22mm
Aperture Range: f 2.1 - 8.3
Equivalent Mega Pixels: ~576MP
Dynamic Range- 10,000 range in contrast detection
ISO Range is changed by amounts of Rhodopsin levels
I rarely watch television, but when I do its usually either college football or some learning channel like Discovery, History Channel, TLC, or A&E. "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is a reality TV program about Duane Chapman and his bounty hunting team tracking and capturing fugitives, mostly on the Hawaiian Islands (but they have started branching out). Call me crazy, but I find the show absolutely engaging simply for the fact that I believe Dog has probably the very best people skills I have ever witnessed, and the way he does it is so subtle its very hard to see. Nearly all of his work revolves around dealing with people and communication skills.
There have been countless episodes where he tracks down a fugitive and during the apprehension he is yelling, cussing, wrestling with, talking down to, and by the time they drop the guy off at the jail house they are hugging and crying together like they have been best friends since birth. He is able to convince close friends and even family members who are initially helping their friends hide, to turn them in. Its a trip to watch.
I haven't picked up all of his strategies, but I know this is something he is consciously doing, because we see it over and over. From the way they dress (to "appear" as police officers, which they aren't), to the "attitude" of the take down, to calling his enemies "my brudda", to why Beth talks to some informants and not to others, to offering them to use their cell phones before the drop them off, to offering them a smoke, to praying with them, etc. I do believe what he is doing is sincere, extremely effective, and also very planned and intentional. You can never underestimate good people skills and if you want to see someone who is extremely good at it, this is your man.
