| Re: Happy New Year
Perhaps Andrew the problem is that some may see your offer of help to be little more than a thinly disguised marketing exercise? This may come about by the fact that you have a slickly designed site which is geared to selling products and services which you do indeed charge for. Added to this, the tag line on your signature could be seen by those with some marketing experience to be another clever marketing ploy about having your studio on a list which is an obvious bait to get people to your site. Some may think you may not be as genuine as you make out taking these things into account.
If one looks at your original post, when coming from someone representng a company to whom photographers here would be ideal sales prospects, again this may raise the suspicion of some people. Given that your post is a classic open ended question and could even be seen to be little more than a lead generator for you, again you may be able to see why some people would think that your Motivations are really just about selling your services and products rather than a genuine desire to freely give help.
If people do in fact believe this to be the case, they may also presume that your reply to Joy could also be little more than a thinly veiled opportunity to again promote your business and services partaicularly as you go into great depth and explanations about what your company provides service wise. I would suggest that some people may also see this as completely self serving in that the problem you say you want people to overcome would of course come with a price tag.
As everyone here in general provides others the benifit of their experience and advise free of charge and out of their pure desire to help, perhaps again your offer to do so when attached to a lead line for your business does raise some suspicion. I am sure no one has a problem with anyone trying to make a living or provide them with services they could benifit from. I would suggest that people do not come here wanting to be sold anything, especially when it appears to be from someone that is trying to be clever or as some may see it, doing it in a sneaky way. You know the old saying, " there's a time and a place" Further adding insult to injury may be that some may think you are trying to put a completely different spin on what you are doing and not believe your wanting to help them is genuine. This may cause some people to feel some indignation as they could think that you are playing them for suckers in that you hope they will not recognise what is happening and you are in fact doing a sales pitch on them.
To avoid people having these misconceptions, I would suggest that if you were to remove the leading question tag line from your posting signature and therefor detach and distance yourself from your commercial interests, many people would not get the feeling you are trying to sell them something. While many people have their studio URL in their signature, I would think as they have nothing to sell people who frequent this site or in fact encourage them to visit it, their signature is taken as a reference rather than a sales pitch or lead generator. As you have a successful studio, why not take more accepted approach and post the link to that rather than to your marketing site? This way people could see the methodology and presentation your studio uses and learn from that. No doubt this would be of great interest and benifit to many particularly some of the newbies to the industry who would be helped the most.
I feel that by removing your reference to your business interests, your help and advise would be taken more sincerely and in fact given more credibility. As many people here enjoy helping others as you do yourself, I am sure you would be able to help many more by removing connections to commercial interests that may cause some to call your motives into question.
As you would well know Andrew, perception is reality..... While your motives may well be pure, If people don't believe they are, they are not. Given this and the desire you have to help others with your knowledge, I am sure you can see that removing your tag line would give you much more credibility and allow you to give many others the help and advise they need and will appreciate.
It is the desires to help other and grow our industry that makes sites like this and the people that contribute the great and benificial resource they are. [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]  | 
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