A (photography) business lesson I learned the hard way at age 7
"The pattern has faded off the shell I bought from you last summer – do I get a refund?"
An unfamiliar man was looking down at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer a question I couldn't even comprehend as a 7 year old.
The summer before I had adorned sea shells with permanent marker, and sold them to people passing me by at a pier we had docked by for the weekend.
Well, not-so-permanent marker after all.
Ultimately my dad shooed away this man who was looking to get his 50 Finnish pennies back, and I could get back to whatever it was I was peddling that summer. (Sail boat drawings? Bracelets? Rocks painted with nail polish?)
Could not find a photo of me in charge of my shop – but here’s a pic of when I caught my first big fish.
Two-plus decades later, I started a photography business.
I wanted to give my clients a stack of prints as surprise gifts after their sessions from the very beginning – I was going to be different from all the other digital photographers!
As a budding photographer, I barely had the money to pay for my essential expenses, though. So I did what any “far-sighted” business owner would do: set course towards OfficeMax.
I picked out a beautiful thick matte photo paper, and they had a printer they assured me would work well for my photo printing purposes.
The prints looked beautiful, and my clients were always touched to get this gift.
Fast forward a year or so, and I was sorting personal prints that I had printed en masse in the same way. THE INK WAS FLAKING OFF and sticking to the back of the photo on top.
Suddenly I was back on that pier – except this time I could feel the embarrassment creep up.
This was not the quality I wanted my clients to associate with me – even if they had gotten their prints for free.
From that point on, I have made sure to only use reputable labs that guarantee that the photos last 100+ years – and gift one amazing (still deliciously matte) print instead of a stack of crappy ones.
Quality over quantity.