I have been tumbling a number of thoughts around in my head of late about the differences in working with men vs. women as clients. A recent corporate assignment highlighted a couple of observations for me.
I had a call at 9 p.m. on a Friday night a while back from a potential client who needed a portrait of the three top officers in her company created on the following Monday morning. I had been referred to her by another photographer who knows my work, so this was our first conversation. After giving me the urgent details, she, of course, asked about the cost. This allowed me to ask about the budget, intended uses and other needs she thought the company might have that I could take care of while I was already there. We discussed a number of ideas and I suggested a fee that would cover several variations and potential needs the company had. She agreed my proposal presented a better value and got the fee approved.
Normally, I would have confirmed the total budget in writing, but because of the late hour and the fact that it was the weekend, I was not able to get a written estimate into their hands until Monday morning. The expenses (assistant, travel and digital processing needed to meet a same day deadline) added another $293 to the fee I had quoted.
When the two top officers reviewed my estimate on the morning of the shoot, they immediately wanted the expenses dropped. I realized that miscommunication could erode the trust I had established with my contact and negotiated a drop in the price in exchange for dropping a couple of the additional photo variations we had discussed.
What was particularly interesting to me was my primary contact, a woman, was concerned with getting the best value for the money spent. The men focused totally on the price. She viewed the work I was producing as an investment. One that would save the officers (and her) time as well as money by not having to set up future photo shoots. Having a consistent look and high quality seemed to be important considerations to her.
Conversely, the two men were consumed with cutting the price. Cutting the number of usable images produced – or even having to sacrifice the quality of the images to rush the time – appeared to have no voice in the discussion of total value received. The only target they could see was price.
As a man, I hate to acknowledge this, but I think there is some genetic coding involved. Not only are women, by nature, better at multi-tasking, but they also seem to be able to see the big picture, including the details, much better than men. A man in general gets one thing, one detail, in his mind and that’s all he can focus on until he gets that task done.
I learned many years ago that price is but one factor in the total cost of a commercial exchange. Most women understand that. Many men don’t. I read sometime back that about nine out of ten photography buyers are women but that approximately the same percentage of the budget approvals are made by men.
Through the years, I have heard countless stories and witnessed numerous examples of corporate waste. I used to wonder how and why it occured so frequently. In time, I’ve begun to understand.
Charles Gupton