Seeking Clients…

Blog 5 of 30

It was a painstaking effort – finding clients. I am sure my family could have helped but I was determined to prove myself on my own. I didn’t want to get a client because I was my father’s daughter or someone’s daughter in law. I wanted to get it on my own merit and what did I have to show – just college projects. Thankfully my education had been rigorous and thorough. I had difficult to please professors and I can truly say that even today, I never met clients who are half as tough as my professors. So, I drew up a list of people and organisations and started calling them to seek out work.

I met a lot of people who had very interesting work, but they were not willing to pay at all, or pay enough to make it worthwhile.

“You are very young,” they said. “You must build up experience, now is not the time to work for money.”

“Consider it an internship,” they said. “Work with us for a few months, then we will see.”

I agreed with part of what they said but if I was going to take time away from my precious children, I needed o be paid.

In fact, almost 25 years later, one of the people I met for work actually interviewed me on a panel. I had to suppress a smile, but he did not remember the young girl who had approached him for work all those years ago!

Back then, there were days I would wonder if I was doing the right thing, days I would be frustrated and upset but it didn’t help. I was small made, and being just 25, I had a lot of people ask me, “Are you still in school or college? How can we entrust you with this responsibility?”

It was about that time I made a fashion change which held me in good stead and which I adopted with a few modifications ever so often through my professional years. I started to wear saris. It lent a few years to my appearance, and I dearly hoped people would take me seriously.

Coincidence or otherwise, I was fortunate enough to soon land my first assignment at a well-known eye hospital in Chennai. It was the role of collating articles, editing, and designing their house magazine.

I had an interesting meeting with two of the doctors who were in charge of it. I prepared long and hard for the meeting, lining up ideas to suggest them. I suggested 20 different ideas to them and in my mind’s eye I could see my professor nodding approvingly.

They were interested, impressed but were unwilling to confirm. I had no idea what more I could do and was feeling a bit disappointed. At that point, one of them showed me the previous magazines they had done. I pointed out a lot of things that we could improve on, but they barely heard me.

They had a specific question. They showed me a photograph and asked me what I thought of it. I was flabbergasted. It was an ordinary enough photo of a group of people, and I was not sure what they expected of me. Honestly to this day I think my answer was literally grasping at straws. I had done a short course in photography, but I was not an expert. I looked at the photograph and because I had to make an intelligent answer and something seemed a little strange about it, I said that it was two photos spliced together.

Believe it or not I was right!  It was not my 20 ideas that impressed them, it was not my appearance in a sari, it was not even my education at the University of Texas Austin, but it was my answer to that question.

Thank God, I got it right. they seemed very impressed and the next day I got a confirmation for the project.  Naturally getting the first client is always the hardest. I often wonder what would have happened if I had got the answer wrong. Would I have been on an endless quest for the first client?

Sometimes life is strange. You prepare and do your homework, but none of it seems to matter. And one small stray incident sets the ball rolling in the right direction.