The lure of the friendor
When couples or customers choose to have a friend or relative do some part of their wedding or event for free, or cheap, it can be frustrating. Have you ever been a friendor, or used the services of a friendor? Have you ever had good results being or using a friendor? Is the problem really using a friendor, or getting bad results?
Listen to this new, 8-minute episode for a little tough-love perspective on this topic.
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– The “Lure of the Friendor.” Ooh, listen to this episode. Hi, it’s Alan Berg, welcome back to another episode of the “Wedding Business Solutions Podcast.” “The Lure of the Friendor,” the friend who’s also a vendor, the friend who provides those services. I think just about everybody listening to this has been a friendor at some point. Whether it’s your main business that you do, or where you’ve helped somebody else out. So let’s think about basic stuff. Have you ever helped a friend move? Yes, you were the friendor because you were the mover who was a friend. Have you ever helped a friend paint their house or their apartment? Maybe yes, you’ve been a friendor, right? Have you ever provided your service that you charge other people for, to a friend or a relative at no charge, or lower price? You have been a friendor. So while we complain about the friendors, most of us, if not all of us listening, have been a friendor at some point to someone where they could have paid someone to do what we did for them.
So I have a hard time with this complaining about friendors when I’ve been one, and when I’ve asked friends to do things with me or for me where again, low price or no charge they’ve done things like that. Many of you got into the industry by being a friendor, you were a DJ in college, and a friend asked you to do their wedding and you did, cheap, no charge, whatever, you’ve been the friendor. You were the photographer that everybody knew that you always had a camera with you, and you took pictures for somebody for a wedding, friend, relative, whatever cheap or no charge. You’ve been the friendor, and that it pulls you into the business because other people see the great work that you do, and then they want you to do it for them, and they’re going to pay you. And now you have a business, which is where my business comes because you kind of fall into business in this industry and I want to help you, have a profitable, successful, long-term business. So the Lure of the friendor is just a human nature thing. You know, who do we know? I live in New Jersey now and the joke is always that, you know, if you live in New Jersey, you have to have a guy. And if you don’t have a guy, you know a guy who’s got a guy, right? I mean, that’s the joke here, is everybody’s got a guy. But the truth is, I don’t care where you live in the country or in the world, everybody’s got a person that they know. And very often those people are going to help you out cheap or free, it could be people in your house of worship that help you with that.
I remember when we moved to this house 12 years ago we donated our piano to a local church, and they didn’t hire a mover. After services on Sunday, the pastors showed up with about six or seven people, and they came in and took the piano and put it on a flatbed, which they didn’t pay for. Somebody donated that, lent them that, and they took that down to the church. And there you go, so I gave them the piano, people donated their services to help move it. There you go, maybe somebody donated services to tune it too when it got there, not sure. But we’ve all been there on the receiving end, on the giving end where we’ve helped somebody out where they could have paid someone to do that thing, whatever that is. So the Lure of the friendor is just human nature. And when we complain about that, we really should, you know, ask ourselves, are we being hypocritical? Because if we’ve ever used the services of a friend, or if we’ve ever helped somebody out as the friendor then how do we complain about couples wanting to do the same just because it’s their wedding, or because it’s their, you know, mitzvah, or Kinsey, or corporate event? We really shouldn’t.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s not frustrating, because it is because regardless of whether they’re paying you, or they’re getting a friendor to do it, the results should be what they’re looking for. Now, if you are a professional, and you have ever donated your services to someone, professional services, and given them amazing results, but they didn’t pay you, or they paid you less because of the relationship then they got the results that they needed and wanted. What I think frustrates all of us is when they don’t get the results because they cheaped out that way. When they don’t hire the professional band or DJ, and they don’t know how to do a wedding, they don’t understand that it’s not just about music. Or I always said that the professional photographer and videographer, you know, someone who’s takes great pictures, shoots great films that doesn’t make you a great wedding photographer or wedding videographer, that just makes you a great photographer, a videographer. But you could be a hobbyist at that point. What makes someone a great wedding photographer is knowing where to look, and a great videographer is anticipating what’s going to happen and capturing that. That’s more than just the technical skills of shooting.
So what frustrates us is when we hear the stories about someone who used that friend or relative instead of paying a professional, and did not get good results. And that should be frustrating, and that should be frustrating the same way as if we, you know, people complain about Craigslist, or Thumbtack, or one of those sites where people are looking for, you know, cheap or low price vendors to do stuff for their weddings and events. Yeah, it’s frustrating. Many of us started that way, right? Many people in this industry started out as the friendor, or the cheap and then, you know, worked your way up in price and price. You also worked on your skills, and giving better results, not just charging more. And you know what? There’s probably some people out there on Craigslist and Thumbtack that don’t charge a lot, and do a good job. Do they do a great job? Maybe there’s some of them as well, and maybe they have a Monday through Friday gig that pays all the bills and this is, you know, fun for them and they just love doing it, they don’t charge a lot. I’ve met a lot of people in the industry like that, they don’t charge what they could get because they’re satisfied with their side hustle, with getting it.
It changes when you go from side hustle to full-time, and you want to now have that, you know, house that you own instead of your renting, and you want to pay off your cars, and you want to go on vacation, and you want to have retirement, and maybe, you know, your education payments for yourself or for your kids. It changes when you realize you need to charge more, and you need to do things to get that higher price. But the Lure of the friendor is just simply human nature. And what I think we should be complaining about is not the friendor, it should be anyone that doesn’t provide good results, whether they’re charging or not, right? The friend who’s the photographer that, you know, after the meal just forgets to take pictures then, right? That’s because they didn’t hire a professional. It’s not whether they paid them or not, right?
We’ve heard, you know, many stories about people who are getting paid, and they’re just not professional. I heard one this week, I’m not going to relate it, but you know, somebody whose ego was way bigger than it should be. because you got to remember that when you’re climbing up, and your, you know, notoriety is going up. You have to be nice to the people because you’re going to see them on the way down . So the Lure of the friendor, is it frustrating? Yes, but let’s really be honest with ourselves. If we’ve been there ourselves either accepting services from friends and relatives at cheaper no charge, or giving services to friends and relatives at no charge, we’ve been the friendor. So let’s not complain about the friendor, let’s complain about anybody who doesn’t provide the good results that, that particular customer, couple, client, expects and deserves regardless of what they’re charging. Hope we gave you something to think about, thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
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- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
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