When it pays to pay a pro

6/11/2018

Sometimes DIY marketing
isn’t such a great idea

THE DIGITAL AGE provides easy access to toys that were once the exclusive domain of professionals. Nowadays you can shoot and retouch your own photos, write your own copy, and design your own ads, brochures, and websites.

But whether you should shoot and retouch your own photos, write your own copy, and design your own ads, brochures, and websites is another matter.

Thing is, when you purchase the toys, professional touch isn’t included.

Now, if your work rivals that of any pro, more power to you. Three of my clients are brilliant writers. Lucky for me, they’re also busy, which is why they pay me to write for them. On the flip side, I have met a dismaying number of freelance so-called writers whose work is not quite pedestrian. They have some nerve calling themselves pros.

Some people have trouble telling good work from bad. More challenging is telling great work from good, and in knowing when great is worth paying for and when good is good enough.

To illustrate the need to call in a pro, you will forgive me, I hope, for resorting to a too-easy example, namely, Mexican food photography. It takes a good deal of skill to shoot Mexican food so it doesn’t look like someone’s dog took ill. I shall leave it you to determine which of the photos posted here was shot by a pro.

For more on food photography, I commend you to Victoria Brady’s recent post on ez.cater.com, “The Restaurant Owner’s Guide to Food Photography.”