How do clients deal with you and how to deal with them?

As a single self-employed photographer, getting through to clients can sometimes be a nightmare - here are few of my thoughts and experiences that I have gathered over the years. And yes, majority of clients are good with their responses/payment.. but as always it is the bad experiences that stick with you the most.

Case 1 - Late responders!

This group is by far the largest that I have come across in my time as self-employed. As a photographer I need to seek my clients myself, so I write thousands of letters/emails/etc every month offering images from events/tournaments. 

For example I wrote to a national newspaper enquiring if they would have liked pictures from a game I was planning to attend in a two weeks time, in the next 13 days I received no reply. Then on the morning of the game - a desperate sounding Email drops to me. "Hi! You said you were at the XX vs XX game tonight, we would love to get pictures from you from the game. Please let us know the price" 

Say What! Now, of course as I hadn't heard from the prospective client - I had booked another client for the same day at a different game, I do got to earn my living. But the newspaper sounds almost angry that I am not at the game even if I said I was PLANNING to go to it.  Yes, I was planning to go and would have gone, if you had only replied when I wrote to you :-)

Another way the late responders act is sometimes to my advantage - normally I have more than one client at an event/game, so let's say I already have two clients for a game - meaning I will get a decent pay-out from it. And weeks in advance I have offered the game for £XXX for any number of clients.. then on the game day morning/afternoon I get another late response saying how they would like images for £XXX from the game/tournament.. I quite often say that.. "Sorry, that was a 'pre-booked' price for the game, now I will charge my normal per image rates. which are £XXX per image".

This usually ends costing the client more - and earn me more money, just like with trains/planes.. BOOK EARLY FOR BEST PRICE!

Case 2- NO REPLY!

This group is by far the most annoying - at the age of E-mail/txt and so on, how long would it take to send a 'Thanks, but No Thanks!' message back. 

And this group usually only is the clients side who 'can' do this, it would reflect very well on MY business if I would not respond to people who write to me asking for my images/services. If I would not respond to newspaper X when they contact me - I doubt they would be in touch with me ever again. But why is it OK for the papers/clients not to respond to photographers??

Even if it is a standard response email - saying "NO" - it better than having no reply what so ever.

The strangest Email I have had no replies to has been very recently when I have been writing to a certain photographic store asking to buy a camera and lens for a little over £XX,XXX. After six Emails, four phone-calls to answer machine.. I still haven't received a reply.. obviously this store is doing rather well and doesn't need small time clients ;-)

Case 3 - Yes, but...

Here is the one many will recognise - you start reading the reply to your email.. all sounds positive, they've seen your photos and absolutely LOVE them and think you are just the right person to provide the images they need - by now you start to get a little suspicious and you are right to.

The next line reads : Unfortunately our paper/agency/website/etc does not have any budget for pictures... (but we would like all rights to your images, might not print your name at the image credit, will hold you responsible for any future issues that may arise due to us selling your image onwards and would like you to come and bring us coffee and donuts to the office every day next week)

And the next day you pick up the paper in question, after the game, and the image they use with the article is either from a game two years ago.. or a nice 'crisp' iPhone snap by the reporter from the stands... NICE!

So - there three groups most of us have probably seen at some stage in our career - if not, well done!! But, having said all this - the big majority of clients do respond promptly and politely.. but it is nice to have a little moan/rant every now and then ;-)