This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey, hey, what's up? Chris Guillebeau here, your host of Cytoschool School, where every single day, seven days a week for, I don't know, more than 1,300 days and counting, we're gonna approach 1,400 episodes at the end of October. Every single day, I've been bringing you different stories, case studies, examples, real world questions and answers of people out there who are not famous, they're not internet famous, they're not entrepreneurs who have a great deal of experience. They're just regular people who find a way to make some extra money and ultimately create freedom for themselves because that is what it's all about. So if you are new, welcome.
If you've been listening for a long time, that's awesome too. All right, so today we're gonna talk about guarantees. I like this question. Today's listener is starting to get paid for real estate photography, which has been kind of a growing thing for a number of years, but now in particular with COVID and lots of stuff having to be virtual and fewer home tours taking place, et cetera, real estate photography is increasingly important. So good feel to go into, but she's wondering, should she offer a money back guarantee in case a client is unsatisfied?
So she'll have more to say about that. First, shout out to our sponsor, and then we're gonna dive into this question. [Music]
Hi, Chris, this is Kathy. Thanks for all the helpful info you provide on the show. In your book, "The $100 Startup," you wrote about the power of an unconditional guarantee, and you also said that it's better to have no guarantee at all than a weak one, which makes sense.
But in my case, I'm starting to do real estate photography, and I can't figure out what's better. If I offer an unconditional no limits guarantee of my service, anyone could take advantage of it. Say a home I take photos of doesn't sell. A real estate agent could come back to me and ask for their money back. But then I worry, if I don't offer some guarantee, the agents will wonder why they should hire me.
Many of them do their own photos, and they're not great, but they seem to work well enough for them. Am I overthinking this? What should I offer as my money back guarantee, if anything? - Hey there, Kathy, thank you so much. Congratulations on getting into this field.
Definitely an exciting time for it, as mentioned. And as for whether you're overthinking it, maybe a little bit. I don't think that there's a wrong way here. When I mentioned that, the principle that Kathy's referring to is, you either have an amazing guarantee that is unconditional and it's gonna rock your world and change your life, or I don't get paid, or you just don't have any guarantee, because I think a weak money back guarantee actually diminishes the value of the brand. It actually reduces trust rather than, which is the whole goal of a guarantee, just to kind of provide that reassurance.
But for this kind of business, it's a service business that is based entirely on relationships. And so your goal isn't just to get one real estate agent to hire you for one listing. Your goal is to build that relationship so you can keep working for them over and over. And ultimately, the trust in your relationship is probably more important than the wording on your website about the guarantee. And also, I think the photographer is not guaranteeing that the house will sell.
There's lots of factors associated with that. I mean, your service is to provide the photos. So you wanna provide really good photos. You wanna check and make sure they like them. Does the agent like the photos?
Perhaps the client, the home seller, do they like the photos? If so, great, you know? And if somebody really is unhappy at some point, then maybe just to maintain their relationship, you could refund a portion of the fee, but I honestly don't think that's gonna be much of an issue. Much more important to think about building those relationships and getting those jobs and moving forward. So once again, good work getting started.
Let us know how it goes. And listeners, if you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're continuing to feature them. It's been one of my favorite things of 2020, a very strange year overall, but this has been great. So let's keep it going.
You can subscribe or every listen to podcasts. I will be here tomorrow and the day after that. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
