Who You Know
How many times have you heard the phrase: “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
Personally, I have heard it all my life. It’s one of the main pieces of advice that my father would tell me when I was growing up and it’s the one piece of advice that I personally use all the time. Why? Because it’s true.
Everybody knows something. If you compared 100 photographers that all had approximately the same skill-set and compared their income, I bet you that you’d receive some very interesting results. Most likely, and you may disagree with me on this, only 5% of those equal-leveled photographers would be making a significantly higher amount of money than the rest. Most of them would be in the “average” range while a few would be at almost nothing (using their ability as more of a hobby than anything).
The difference between the money-makers and the rest is that they have gone out and made the business connections. They have done the work to ensure that they are in demand. You can’t be asking for a lot of money if you’re the one begging for the jobs. However, if you’re the person that people want then they will pay you a much higher price than they would pay somebody else with, quite possibly, the same skill set.
There are many ways to build your reputation so that you will “know” people. I’ll cover that topic later this week.
