Blog

It’s April 1st today, but this is NO JOKE. Actually, quite chokingly real.

The pandemic has hit the creative industry to a level never seen before. We all had to regroup, rethink, reevaluate and for me largely reinvent.

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Prior to the pandemic I had a plethora of corporate clients for photography, videography and general commercial and corporate media work. That allowed me to be a little generous with private clients and startups. I would often discount my prices to enable them, the entrepreneurs and start-ups, to get off the ground with good images and showreels to use for the promotion and marketing of their business. The discounts weren’t heavy, maybe 10% to 20% but increasingly more than that off the actual price. The private clients too.

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That all stopped abruptly when the pandemic hit and the lockdown subsequently followed. So I had to reevaluate. All the corporate conference shoots, events and headshots stopped almost immediately and you could see my diary one-by-one with cancellations of shoots, commercial contracts etc. Remember, I had started on a roll with the big luxury hotels and small advertising pieces for them. Everything stopped. Nobody knew what was happening or what next.

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We all had to literally sit and wait – bake bread to kill the time or learn a new language.

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I had to refocus and with my media work I had to reevaluate what was beneficial for me and my business. Right! It was now only Corporate and Commercial work. I had my contacts in the corporate world and the commercial aspects were being solidified. When this whole Covid business is over, I said to myself, I would restrict my media work to Corporations and Commercial units (and one other genre, which I will not divulge for stalking reasons, is proving to be quite lucrative.) All my private and small business shoots stopped; or the discounts have stopped. They will now have to pay the full corporate sums paid by large multinational organisations, if they want me to do a shoot. Some corporate shoots have been charged CHF900 per hour in the past. So you see where I need to concentrate my work, service and time.

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This I’ve told to my previous clients, many of whom understand and are unable to afford the new standard prices.

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Along comes a client that I’ve had in the past requesting a shoot (this is not a corporate client). I outlined the situation and the new standard charge for my services, thinking that they will say thank you but no thank you.

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On the contrary, they replied back – We still want you and will be happy to pay for this!

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Ok, I said yes sure let’s sort out a date and talk about your requirements.

So the moral of the story is, my fellow creatives, remember if you value your work and the clients do too, it’s a beautiful thing. If the clients do not want to pay the sums you know are appropriate for your services, then THEY do not value YOUR WORK!

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It was a great shoot by the way and a happy 4 figure sum was received for 1 hour work without quibbling, questioning, quarrelling, quandary or quitting. That’s the way to do it.