Chaos will find you. No matter how carefully you cross your t’s and dot your i’s, eventually chaos is still going to creep into your best-laid plans, hijack your time and energy, and derail your day and your psyche. There’s nothing you can do to avoid these occasional calamities — what matters is being ready to respond when chaos strikes.
Photo Shoot Disasters
There’s nothing you can do to avoid these occasional calamities — what matters is being ready to respond when chaos strikes.
You had a plan: wake up with the sun, enjoy a morning cup of chai tea on the balcony, watch the clouds slowly uncover the mountains like a blanket being thrown back. Then a brisk, refreshing shower and a breezy, traffic-free 30-minute drive to the perfect photo shoot location. Your glam team is meeting you there amid the picturesque rock formations, and the photographer you’ve been dying to work with for the past eight months will follow, squeezing you into his ridiculously busy schedule. Today the world is yours.
Then, just as your hair and makeup are perfect and the photographer’s Jeep pulls to a stop, a sudden harsh crack of thunder splits the morning sky, and the rain pours down. Within minutes, the ground is mud and you are soaked to the skin. Now what? Does chaos win?
This sort of thing happens more often than you might think. Options? Well, you could try to wait out the rain, but who knows how long it might last? Rescheduling seems like a good plan, but you’ve already incurred the expense of your hair and makeup team — plus you might be retired by the time that photographer is finally available again.
Photo shoot disasters can be soul-crushing, but if you have a backup plan, are open to improvisation and don’t panic, you can get through just about anything chaos might throw your way. It also helps to have a little luck! When this exact scenario happened during a recent shoot, we managed to find a huge cave and were able to shoot a stunning set of photos with the rain and rocks at our back. But you can’t always count on luck, so you might want to add “secondary location” to your prep list.
Conflict With Your Content Team
In the ever-shifting landscape of social media, the rules change as often as the weather. What was OK to post last week will now get your account flagged, and you end up losing a zillion followers in an instant. Because of this potential chaos supernova, many performers and models opt to launch their own websites. They invest a good deal of time and effort into mapping out the site they want and putting together the right development team.
Once the process starts, it should be smooth sailing — but in a lot of cases, it’s more like hurricane winds and rough seas. What happens when your relationship with your development team becomes stormy and troubles the creative waters?
You might think the only solution is to abandon the project and start over, even though that means losing whatever time, effort and money you already have invested. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Instead, think about bringing in a buffer or project coordinator, someone you trust to act as a go-between for you and your developer. Sometimes a different voice makes a huge difference, and improved communication will always win the day.
Odds are, your developer is just as frustrated as you are. While you shouldn’t expect a refund for work already provided, you might be surprised at the developer’s willingness to help you transition to a new developer — one who is a better match for you and your needs. In this case, chaos might just lead you to a silver lining.
Event and Trade Show Disasters
Trade shows and fan events are probably a huge part of your marketing and your business. As such, you likely plan far ahead, and may even have contingency plans just in case something goes bonkers. But sometimes, even being prepared isn’t enough.
You order your booth graphics and a few thousand dollars in merchandise to sell and/or give away. But the day before the event, you’re notified that your booth graphics and merchandise are lost in the shipping system. It’s a freaking nightmare scenario. Now what?
Sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor of what was supposed to be your booth space and crying might convince a few fans to drop a dollar in your cup, but that’s just giving up. Instead, run out to the nearest Staples and get a paper banner with your name on it. Below your name, have them print “booth disaster,” assuming you can clear this with the event host. This will draw some curious visitors to your booth. From there, you can wow them with your personality and offer free selfies with fans in exchange for their email address so you can send them the photos. You may not make any money, but you will absolutely endear yourself to a ton of fans who will be sympathetic. Then, ask some of your model friends to sit at your booth with you, sign a few autographs and maybe even sell their merchandise. The key is getting traffic; the win is what you do with that traffic.
Situations like these play out every day. From bad hair days and pimples to hacked websites to just plain bad luck, your most meticulous plans can go to hell in a handbasket. You can let the chaos overwhelm you and wreak havoc on your life and career … or you can get creative with a messy situation and just maybe save your day. The choice is yours, and how you respond makes all the difference in the world.
Danny Ferretti has over 25 years in the marketing industry and is the co-founder of GFE Model Services and Fangear.vip, a company that specializes in collectible calendars, branded merchandise and other model-centric printed products. He also offers free branding consultation to influencers of all sizes. For more information, contact sales@gfemodelservices.com or visit GFEModelServices.com.