soooo another photographer dogged me.

I hope the young girl he made the offer to took the money and says nothing but the truth! Gee he must have had it easy running a monopoly for 30 yrs!!! Competition is supposed to produce better, more affordable results, maybe he feels he can't compete? What next? Will he burn down your studio?

The word immaturity came to mind when i read the story, he should realise that he is losing work for a reason and fix it.

I hope the thousands of photographers in my town don't have a problem with me!

It's a dog eat dog world and it seems you have bigger teeth, if he's bad mouthing you run him into the ground.

You and your family always comes first, if that means legally taking his customers then so be it. I'm by no means saying you should do anything devious or nasty but if your serivce and products are better than his and his customers are flocking to you that's his problem not yours.
I'd be laughing all the way to the bank if I was you

By the way "dogging" means something cooooooompletely different back home in the UK lol

If he is deliberately bad-mouthing you and that is having a negative impact on your business, you could pursue legal avenues (in the UK it would be slander). A quick letter from a lawyer explaining your rights might prompt the photog in question to reconsider their actions

As for the dividing the market - that would be known as creating a cartel and tends to go hand in hand with price fixing. AKAIK that would be illegal!

Comments around taking away business and therefore depriving them of their income/food etc. are way off mark - that's business and is fair game. If you choose to modify your approach so that you don't impinge on their business, so be it. But you are under no obligation to do anything of the sort.

I dont know why I did not think of this before. A long time ago a friend opened a recording studio in Colorado. The same thing happed to him. He is the same kind of guy that Stocky described. He will roll with anything, till you target him. He ended up taking the guy bad mouthing him to lunch one day. Basically told him."I have deep pockets, I'm prepared to give away my services till you have to close shop, unless you stop being an a$$". Looked at him for about 15 seconds and walked out, leaving him the bill. It worked for a while. But by the time the attitude returned his business had left. My friend was definatley NOT prepared to give anything away. But the guy did not know this. But it leveled the field log enuf to let the guy run himself out of business. My friend was good enuf to back it up though. He ended up touring as the engineer for Muddy Waters and a few other blues musicians.

The big thing here is to just keep a level head about it. We're only hearing one side of the story and the truth is always somewhere in the middle, but it sounds like you're taking the right approach so far.

If you can maintain your professionalism and quality of work, I'd expect that you'll do just fine. If he continues with the character assassinations and the ranting and raving that he should be entitled to certain work just because he's been around longer, people will see that he's not willing to work for the business.

On the other hand, if he steps up his game to try and compete, you'll just have more motivation to push yourself to be a better photographer/businessp​erson, and that can hardly hurt. =)

superdiver wrote in post #5523287
If your competition is complaining about you then you KNOW YOU ARE WINNING! You got him RIGHT where you want him. Now you have to learn to develope that killer instinct! To put your foot on his throat and make him beg for mercy!

How, but stepping up your creativity and being even nicer in what you say about him. That will really get him worked up!

And then, when he really lashes out at you, send him a nice letter stating that you are sooo busy you would like to maybe hire him to do some of your hum drum day to day stuff....lol

what can I say, I have a mean streak and am a little competative...lol

This is the best idea so far. I hate to lose as well

Like others have said, let your work speak for itself. Customers will see through competition speaking down about you. I don't even see a web site from the other photographer in town, so you are way ahead in marketing and customer contact.

Seniors talk and talk and talk some more. If they have a positive experience with you, they will tell their friends, and so it goes; business comes to you.

Don't bash the others, I'd just market yourself in a creative and expressive way; like you are already doing.
Well done, ignore what others say, turn this energy into even more positive motivation, it's a compliment!

These seniors will be getting married some day. Then maybe families, etc. The future for additional work is bright, keep it up and congratulations on a successful business.

I had a similar situation where a local photographer met with a couple and asked who else they were meeting with about their wedding. He basically told them that the images on my website were not mine. They came to me after meeting with him and booked their wedding. It kind of made me laugh. I guess that was the best thing he could come up with to discredit my work. Oh well. I didn't lose any sleep over it. I think it is best to just ignore these types of photographers. I try to worry about my business...my work...and what I can improve on each time that I shoot. I guess I just don't have enough time to bad mouth my "competition."

Bob D. wrote in post #5526455
You did nothing wrong by my way of thinking if everything is as your say. If I was in his shoes I wouldn't be liking it either but I wouldn't pulling the sh*t he is.

Continue on as you have, don't jump in the gutter with him and start badmouthing him. People will (and already have) find out what he is all about and they'll be standing in line at your door. This person needs to wake up and revitalize his business if he wants to stay in business.

BTW: Excellent web site. Did you create it?

I bought one from collages.net
Thanks tho!

larann78 wrote in post #5522838
And now I found out that the senior class had a can drive and he pulled one of the girls aside and told her that he would donate a large amount if she agreed to run my name down out at the highschool and try to convince members of the junior class into not coming to my studio anymore!!!!!

If I heard that a competitor did as such, I would make my way over to the school, make a nice contribution of my own and simply wish the seniors "a successful can drive".

Nikos

larann78 wrote in post #5522901
I have a family too...what should I have done? Work at McDonalds until he decided to retire so that way I didn't hurt his feelings??? Maybe he should have stepped it up a notch instead of **** about it.

I would make some nice adverts/leaflets/poste​rs/tickets etc and send it to the school, mention some discounts when coming with the /leaflet/ticket. Probably he would lost some clients because of it.

It is high time for him to go out from the business - there is not enough space for both of You in that city. Help him to retire by taking his clients! If You will do nothing, you can be sure that he will.

Cheers.
Robert

My opinion, for what its worth, is that all businesses (and owners) have to be willing to adapt to new situations or go under.

If he isnt willing to adapt, let him go under. Its not your fault that he cant change his habits/style. Definately dont sink to his level because he will probably then try to sue you for slander (or libel). Just go about business as normal and let the customers decide (which they obviously are cause they are coming to you!)

High school students talk. If you heard that this guy is making some pathetic attempt at screwing you over and cheating his clients out of the best images for their money (apparently your images), what do you think the kids are saying about this. They probably think this guy is even more of a joke and a flake than they did before. NOT the way to gain support. Parents probably aren't too thrilled about his methods either. If anything, this would give me more reason not to go to him if I was in the market.

Sure, you have a right to be PO'd about his methods, but when it all comes down to it, if he's not having any impact on your business, you don't have anything to worry about. Sucks that this is what he's resorting to, but as you said, you're essentially edging him out of business, whether intentionally or not. Hostile feelings? Well, that was to be expected.

Just keep doing what you're doing, take the high road (as was mentioned above), and sooner or later this guy is going to close up shop and find something else. Sure, sucks to put someone out of business, but that's life. Shame on everyone who thinks that you should bend and fold to accommodate the other guy at your own expense. There's a big difference between being nice/courteous/profess​ional and keeping your business from getting off the ground (or staying afloat).

The business has changed. Gotta change with it, or you become obsolete.

dont worry
let your work do the talking

Question is, have you lost business, because of his ramblings? If not, and you say people do not like him or his work, he is a free advert for you to get more business. All you have to do is make your stuff better, and the rest will follow. If you are losing business because of him, you could advertise your work - and if is it really, really good - the customers will see that in no time.