Ian spotted a post by New Zealand photographer Isaac de Reus of Perspectives Photography on DWF recently. It was in reply to a thread discussing whether giving your work away free for referrals was good business practice. Isaac shared this great example of how he's leveraged something he can do in return for good quality referrals. The type everyone wants. High-end. It also shows the value of keeping your finger on the wider wedding market's pulse. Thanks for sharing, Isaac - Nigel A month or so ago we approached a very high-end, exclusive venue that only recently started booking and advertising themselves as a 'wedding venue'. We identified them as someone we'd like to work with and noticed they didn't have much wedding work on their website. We had never met them, or done any work there before. We organised a model couple, make-up artist and hair stylist, and did a fashion/wedding style shoot at their venue. We were able to get everything on a time for portfolio (TFP) basis with the other suppliers, but the shoot was free from us. The images came out awesome so we decided to create the venue a 14 x10 Queensberry Duo album to show the images, and venue, off. We did this all at our own cost and unbeknown to the venue. A week ago, we arranged to meet them and deliver the images. They were absolutely blown away with the album, and the online slideshow that we'd made for them. The owner/manager was nearly in tears. We made the album for them to keep and use as a sample album to show off their venue when meeting potential clients, and just in time for a big wedding show they were exhibiting at. This week I've had two brides call to arrange meetings... Both are having their weddings at this particular venue. I've also had a several enquiries from brides who aren't getting married there, but had been given our details, and thoroughly recommended, by the owner of the venue at their stall. That's a pretty good return on what cost us about $1000 - far better than spending the same money on a magazine ad or something. So yeah - we do give away my services for free - like the situation above, it sometimes even costs us. But to establish a working relationship as the preferred photographer at a venue that will be booking expensive, high-end weddings, we think is worth it. Cheers, Isaac