Best Business Practices for Photographers [128]
Sometimes you may be asked to shoot a pitch campaign, which is a situation where the client essentially wants to do the shoot they envision doing for the purposes of showing that imagery to the client they are try to pitch to win the account. In this case, the agency is underwriting the entire cost of the shoot, hoping that it will win them the overall business. In this case, the overall business could be a very lucrative revenue stream for you, so be sure to convey, "Hey, if you win this pitch, I hope you'll be calling on me to produce the image for it." Likely they will, but it can't hurt to ask. This also may be a reason why you might discount your estimate, and further, you may do it "bare bones" for the pitch shoot and with a much higher production level (car service and so on) for the actual shoot when the account has been won. That said, somewhere in your contract for the pitch campaign, you might want to note that this discounted shoot is in anticipation of being a part of the team should the campaign be won.
I will also make a point of asking who else they are talking to, and most of the time they tell me. If I know I am bidding against a former assistant and a weekly newspaper photographer 10 years my junior, as with editorial clients, I am likely to let them know that they're not really comparing apples to apples, that there is a breadth of experience differential between us, and that I will more than likely not be the least expensive.
On the occasions when I do not win the assignment, I will ask a few follow-up questions. First, I will call the client and thank them for the opportunity to be considered. I tell them that although this may not have worked out, I hope to work with them in the future. I then ask whether the main criterion for choosing the photographer was price. With that answer (regardless of the answer), I'll ask who they chose. I make an absolute point of not being petty and finding fault with the choice, although it might be easy to do when I know that the photographer in question, although having a great website, just graduated from photo school and will have challenges I don't think they can surmount for this assignment. I close the conversation by saying, "Thanks again; I look forward to the possibility of working with you in the future."
You'd be surprised by the number of times over the years that the client has come back a few days after the date of the shoot and hired me on an expedited basis because they did not get the results they needed from their first choice for the assignment. I am always gracious and enthusiastic about making the assignment happen. Not only was my initial observation correct (which I would never point out), but I know I have won a client for a long time to come. I have clients who have left over rights issues (in other words, they wanted all rights, and I didn't concede to that), only to come back after lackluster results from their choice, saying, "What do all those rights do for us if the photos are not as good as we need in the first place?"
One major caution when granting rights to event photography beyond editorial or "press" use: If you're licensing "all rights," which includes advertising, the web (which can be a form of commercial, corporate, or even editorial use), brochures, and so on, you must be absolutely certain you have releases from everyone in the photos that grant you the authority to license those rights. Imagine a scenario in which you buy a car with an AM/FM radio. You drive it for three months and then finally get around to listening to the radio, since you're mainly a CD person. You are greeted with a message that says, "The manufacturer of this car included the capability of FM broadcasts, but you must pay an additional licensing fee for the use of the patented technology that enables FM to work." You'd sue, and rightfully so—you bought a