The day after my son was born, Jackie and I were in the hospital room watching him sleep. A woman in scrubs came in the hospital room and told us that she's the photographer and do we want pictures of our baby? She was stonefaced and abrupt. I was taken aback, because I thought she was another nurse, because we'd been taking all kinds of pictures with the iPhones, the point-and-shoot, the family's cameras, etc. And also, I'm a photographer.
But it was a valuable moment, because for that moment I was the photography buyer, and I got to see what a sales call might look like. And it was really bad. It seemed like she didn't want to be there, wasn't interested in us or our baby, and was totally closed down.
Was that nerves?
It made me realize how awkward it can all be, especially now that the ratio of content creators to professional content buyers is so high.
Based on this experience, it looks like the best approach is to be curious about the buyer and the situation. Interested. Open. Personable. But that only works if it's authentic. And it can only be real if it comes from confidence.
So, yeah, everybody is a photographer. Anybody can point a camera at a subject and stand a good chance of getting a fine photograph.
But not everybody is a salesman, a businessman, a marketer, a leader, an accountant, and an artist.