Trista (my fiance) and I just came back from a fairly long trip to her hometown of Sheboygan, WI.  We were there to attend a friend’s wedding, but we were also there to start planning our own.  We met with caterer’s and hotel mgmt., venue coordinator’s, etc.  And the one thing that really struck me at several of these places was how flippant and over confident many of them were.  Maybe the wedding business does this to people because it’s a market that rarely goes dry, but I couldn’t believe how some of these people were dealing with their potential customers (namely, us).

Without boring you with too much detail basically we were surprised how quick people were to just flat say “no WE don’t do that” or “no YOU can’t do that” or caterer’s saying “we don’t normally DO tastings…Pasta with Red Sauce is Pasta with Red Sauce if you’ve ever had Pasta with Red Sauce before you know what ours tastes like”…bullshit!  Take out the fact that these were people we were meeting with the intention of possibly spending thousands of dollars with them…I just couldn’t believe these people had absolutely no selling points.  Just because your business has a reputation of being a “nice place” or is considered “elite” in some way doesn’t mean that you can just write your actual product off!

Dealing with these people made me realize that as photographers (or any freelancer for that matter) it’s important to realize the mistakes these places are making.  You’re never going to be able to ride on your name alone, I don’t care how big you get.  You HAVE to have something of QUALITY that you are actively providing to your clients.  It became readily obvious that many of these places have lost their sense of pride in what they do, and for whatever reason, be it cost or time, etc. they have let their services/product slip because of it.

This is something I vow to never do.  I will never let the quality of my work degrade because I think I can afford to.  I will always provide my client’s with the absolute best service and the best product that I can.  I will custom tailor any and all aspects of a job to fit my client’s needs and to help define and fulfill THEIR vision.  And I will never assume that I’ll get your business simply because my name’s Chad McClarnon. I say all this because I have pride in my work and respect for those that seek my services.

This shouldn’t be something that’s out of the ordinary, this is how good businesses are run and how they’ve always ran.  I’m a firm believer that if you have pride in your own work and a passion for providing REAL quality that your potential client’s will see and appreciate that.   It’s definitely step #1 in getting that job over the next guy.

All this being said, we have found some wonderful passionate people and some glorious places in Sheboygan for our wedding festivities…running into the aforementioned problems actually made it quite easy to narrow things down.  For friends and family reading this, they’ll be more to come on that front soon .