Difficult customers.. Yes.
Difficult customers.. Yes.
When you open the doors to business, relying on the public for income, park your ego in the back room closet.
If I did not want to work with difficult customers, I count my losses at about half of my income over the last decade.
Difficult people create challenges that cause us to grow in our body of work if we are open minded.
Turning away customers, for the most part is reserved for when your appointment book simply has no room for more work.
The singer knows the one thing that you are opposed to accepting. She is right because she is paying. It seems obvious she knows that. Another thing she also knows is that she is difficult to work with, since so many other photographers have told you this. However, she does not seem inclined to change her way of doing business. That is a right she owns.
However, it may be the most honest thing to do to get it out on the table that she is a more costly customer because of her way of doing things. But, you have no right to bring that up, unless it is actually costing you more.
Face one fact up front... You just do not like the lady. That is obvious in your post.
If you don't come to the conclusion that you are going to have to work with customers you don't like, you will have trouble at some point getting work.... That's why it's called work, not pleasure, not recreation, but work. No matter how you cut it, very few people make a decent living doing only the things they like to do.
Those people call themselves artists, and to be correct, "starving artists!"
I don't know your age, or how long you are doing this, because it's not an age thing, but don't embrace the idea that, in business, you are king, and do not repeatedly break the Golden Rule of business....."The Customer is Always Right!" Perhaps not on some of the technical issues.
In any event, a customer has the right to pay you only for the work they accept, like and take into their possession.
Are there people who are just simply too difficult to deal with. Absolutely. I doubt if your singer is one of those people. She simply has some idea of what images she wants to be publicised about her image, and you have NO right to violate her desire on that point.
Lastly, have you been able to spend the money she has paid you, and if you were doing, or learning how to work profitably without inflicting your own ego on her, can you make a profit from her business. She is not going to be the last disappointment in your life, if you don't give her an opportunity to become a profitable customer.
