In this day and age people are busier than ever before. Seems like there’s always something going on. If you have kids, its worse, you have to be at this soccer game or this PTA meeting. It’s enough to make you pull your hair out. Well, I lost my hair years ago but there is something you can do to ease your stress over last minute event issues.
When you put your next event on your calendar, look about 5 days before and put down “Test Booth”. I know we all get busy but if you think about it, testing the booth five days ahead will give you time to fix anything that is not working or any surprises that pop up. If you need media or you’re not sure if you need media, isn’t it better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it? Last minute orders that require overnight and/or Saturday delivery can be very expensive.
If you are on either coast, it’s four day shipping time to get deliveries to you. Those shipping days are business days so you need to account for weekends and holidays. To see standard shipping time to you, visit our Shipping Information page which has a map of shipping days for the US. We can basically get it to most of Texas, Oklahoma and a bit of Louisiana in a day but everywhere else is 2 to 4 days ground. We can certainly ship overnight or two day but if you plan ahead you can save those clams for something else like more props. Everyone needs more props, right?
Hey, I got new software for my booth. Do I test it before I go to my event? Nah, its’ good, I’ll just call tech support if I have a problem.
If I had a nickel for every call I get that says… “I have an event in an hour… HELP!” or worse “I’m at an event… HELP!” I’d have a whole bunch of nickels. You want to look professional in front of your client so prepare beforehand and know at least the basics of your software before an event. We can’t give you training on the software with your event looming in an hour.
Don’t update your computer before an event. Windows 10 can sometimes install and blow all your printer drivers away. Other upgrades/updates can affect your drivers too. If you update, do it several days before your event in order to work out all the kinks. We love it when you call us and can really focus on your photography-related issue. We’re here to help and want to get you up and running as soon as we can. Also, have you been at an event and your laptop just starts updating? It says “Installing 3 of a billion updates” and the progress bar is moving so slow you could leave, eat lunch, see a movie, come back and it’s still updating. You can set your laptop to NOT install the updates until you say so. Search “turn off updates” in the search function of your operating system. You can’t stop it once it started either. I was at an event and shut down for over 20 minutes once because it was updating, very embarrassing.
So to sum up; don’t wait until the day of or the day before to:
- Order media (Remember we are in Dallas.)
- Get tech support (unless it’s an emergency; we are here to help)
- Test new software
- Update your computer
We are here to help you always but these are just a few things you can do to avoid running into a snag that can cost you time, money or clients. Don’t be a “Last minute Larry”.
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