I was at a networking event a couple nights ago and had a great conversation with two gentlemen about a variety of issues; personal, domestic and global. At some point, we began talking about our services and what specifically we do at Legacy Multimedia.
One of them was quite excited to hear about our services and told me how he, like most of our clients, had boxes of tape, film and photos that he had no idea what to do with. I hear this a lot when I’m out there in “the field” and I recognize that there can be a sense of overwhelm when seeing all this old stuff and not having a game plan for how to convert it or put it into some type of meaningful context where you can then share it and pass it on.
As we discussed some of the options of what to do with his media, the other gentleman turned to me and said, “this is where you have a big problem. Most people will not want to hand their precious memories over to a complete stranger.”
Now I have had people ask to wait while I scan the only photo of Uncle Ed for photo restoration, so they could take it right back to their cousin who was home sweating bullets while this photo was out of the house. And I have had people ask me whether I send their media out to a subcontractor located out of state of even out of the country. Questions do come up occasionally and I reassure them the best I can the care that we take with all our clients’ media. I assume by the time they have called me, our clients have a service need and we are there to fill it and they are both ready for the help and comfortable with our reputation to entrust us with their media. So it was an interesting thing to consider that there might be a large group of people out there who see a need but are not comfortable with handing over their photos or film to a stranger.
I’ve thought about this quite a bit yesterday and have come to the conclusion that trust can be a funny thing. At some point in my life, I had to entrust my children to a babysitter, trust the cleaning ladies in my home, trust my business partners. Issues of trust are everywhere and I have lived my life preferring to trust than to be paranoid. In many arenas, where I have been most willing to go out on a limb and trust the process, miraculous things have occurred. Now that is not to say that bad things don’t happen. When I got married, I gave my grandmother’s wedding ring to a jeweler friend of my parents who promptly lost it. It was heartbreaking but at some point I realized it was only an item and was able to let it go and move on. I’ve also seen more damage done to items that were given to a cousin or son of a friend, with the mistaken impression that because they were related and had a computer, they would do a great job. We regularly get projects that we are asked to fix at the last moment. Now these items aren’t lost but time and money was spent and the stress created by an approaching deadline with nothing to show for it does not help to create a sense of excitement for the person planning an event.
Ultimately, when it comes to services such as we provide, a need for this service must be present first. Then what’s left is to find a service provider with a good reputation that has been in business for awhile doing exactly what you are wanting done, and is able to answer all your questions, show you examples of their work and generate a feeling of being cared for. Remember customer service?
