Cut Out The Middleman

If you’re an event photographer, you may have noticed there are some online businesses that offer to connect you with customers. How nice of them.

One such company, based in Europe, is currently sending emails to photographers in several cities around the world. This company claims in its email that it has a customer with an urgent need for photo services in the photographer’s area.

You might ignore this email because of its generic wording or because it looks like spam. But you’ll get more similar emails in the following weeks and months. The emails have a fake “unsubscribe” link that does nothing.

All these additional emails claim that the company has yet another customer with an immediate need for event photography in your area. Of course, there is no customer. The oddly worded emails are often the same with the name or date of the unidentified event changed.

The sole purpose of these emails is to lure photographers into becoming paying members of that online company.

One business model of sites like this is to put each job on auction and you pay a fee for *each* bid you make. You have no idea who you’re bidding against or if, in fact, there is anyone else bidding. You also have no idea if it’s a real job. To “win” a job, you have to quote a lower and lower price. Each quote you make costs you more money.

Let’s recap: You pay to be a member, pay to bid on a job, and pay a commission on a finished job.

Another business model is that the photographer pays a monthly fee to become a member, pays for a directory listing, and pays for each customer lead. Again, you pay and pay and pay with no guarantees whatsoever.

Don’t Work Against Yourself

This type of business inserts themselves as a middleman between photographer and customer. The business model, like that of a stock photo agency, depends entirely on volume. What creates volume? Low prices. Where do these low prices come from? From you, the photographer.

Businesses that insert themselves as a middleman between photographer and customer have come and gone many times. Why? Because this business model does not work:

1. The business model adds an unnecessary layer of business between you and the customer. This extra layer costs you money.

2. With no direct communication with the customer, you can’t differentiate yourself nor properly promote yourself to the customer. The middleman doesn’t care which photographer is selected for a job because the middleman gets paid no matter whom the customer chooses.

3. Customers are encouraged to shop price and you’re always pressured to offer a lower price.

4. It’s about flat rate or hourly fees. Specific job details don’t factor in.

5. The business model assumes photographers are interchangeable and photography is a cheap commodity like potatoes at a grocery store.

6. This offers nothing that you can’t do on your own.

If you’re thinking of joining an online directory or listing service like this, think twice.

Do you need a middleman between you and your customers? Why pay someone to be in your way?

Your customers deserve to speak directly with the person in charge of your business. Who’s in charge of your business?

Added January 2017: ASMP published a review of another “middleman” company that offers to help photographers find customers. The conclusion was: “I do not recommend this program as beneficial for photographers nor for the photography industry as a whole.”

Added January 2017: There’s another new Canadian web site that’s in the business of being a middleman between photographers and customers. I’m not going to link to this site because it appears to be a scam to lure in unsuspecting photographers.

This web site is trying to sell $100/month memberships to photographers. The site “guarantees” that each member photographer will get at least one photo shoot per month.

The site has stolen content from various photographer web sites including my own. It uses this content to make it look like these photographers are members. I contacted some of those photographers and none of them knew anything about this. They are not members and never approved of this.

The site has no email address, no street address, no names, nothing. Just a generic contact form.

Added January 2018: I received another similar e-mail from a company in France. This business owns a few dozen URLs, each using a different country code top-level domain, to pretend that it’s located in whatever country you’re in. It also inserts your location into its front-page headlines to pretend there are hundreds of jobs in your area.

This email started with a generic “Hello You” and then went on to praise my photography.

It claimed to be “in an urgent rush” to find a photographer to shoot a birthday party “in or around your area.”

The event had no date but it had a postal code for the undisclosed event location. Canada Post’s postal code system revealed that the location is an industrial area near Toronto’s Pearson Airport.

The email went on to say that they “have several other requests for other dates and cities” and that I should become a member of their service.

Added June 2019: One of these online companies is taking photographers’ names and locations from their web sites and posting them in its online directory to make it look like these photographers are members. A friend of mine, who is a well-known sports photographer, found himself listed for aerial photography, real estate photography and wedding photography, none of which he does.

Added May 2022: I’ve been getting several emails from a British web site that promises to “find the perfect professional for you.” The site is a middleman between customers and all types of small businesses.

Every email I’ve received from “Kate Potter” claimed that it has a customer in my area looking for a photographer. There is no Kate Potter listed in its company directory and “my area” is apparently anywhere in Canada.

These emails include a brief for the photography required. This brief is so vague, so generalized and so wide-ranging that it’s laughable. The customer always wants the photography to be shot indoors, outdoors, in a studio and any place else. The photography can be done nationwide or even shot online!

One such email included a customer’s website address so I contacted that customer directly. They were not looking for a photographer and they never heard of this British company.

A quick web search shows that other small businesses around the world have been receiving the same or similar emails since at least 2019. There are many complaints about this British company.

Companies like this do not refer customers to you for free. This British company requires you, the business owner, to purchase non-refundable “credits” which you use to buy customer leads. Companies like this serve no purpose in your business other than to take your money.