Seeking advice about another fp in my area...

Just posted a long reply to this and it disappeared .... so writing again.

Firstly, it's great that "business is going good and [you're] getting a lot of requests for work". This means you are doing many things right and your market likes what you do. It's important to have the right mindset (attitude) when you work and generally this means doing what's right for you and ignoring what others may be doing.

However .... clearly this person IS having an effect on your market and on your mindset, so you should take some action.

Using the work of others without their express permission is theft. Passing it off as your own work is also a crime. End of! I believe we owe it to our customers, to other artistes and to ourselves to stamp this out in every way possible.

There's two main ways to deal with this:
1) Email the artistes concerned and inform them. This may involve raising the issue as you have done, on a forum so that offending photos can be identified.
2) Either leave it to the owner or also wriet to the criminal yourself and request that they remove all offending phpotos within 24 hours or you'll take a stated action, without further reference to them. Then be sure to take that action .... whatever that may be.

As far as low fees and undercutting are concerned ... there is nothing you can directly do except that you must handle the whole cost of your own fee levels in your marketing plan (which will cover your branding, your platform and your positioning) and be sure to follow this through in all your marketing and promotional materials. Jsut be sure who you are, what you do, for whom .... and you'll be 'talking to' a different market to her!

Good luck

John

I can't see ANY of her pics at all, she must have made them all private in the past hour

Hmm... yes, she just changed her privacy settings a few minutes ago so only friends can see her wall.

No, I think she has now made everything private unless you are accepted as a friend. She has also started another facebook group called Kids Party's Zone , and she had a couple of pics posted there if you scroll down a bit.
facebook.com/groups/116082858490147/

what a shady b****. oh oops, did I just say that? excuse me.

yeah. Look, i really don't know what she is like as a person, but IP infringement bugs me because 1) My day job is in academia and my actual professional degree is bound by code of ethics and conduct, and all that stuff is drilled into us for good reason. So i'm a bit miffed when i see unethical things happening, even if it's in my fun job of fpainting. Recognition should be given where it is deserved, and people should be accountable for their conduct. It's not rocket science. 2) I am a mum and I would be raging if i knew that pics of my child were being used without my permission. It's exploitation whichever way you slice it. The parent might have given consent for their local face painter to use the image, not to have it posted halfway across the world on someone's fb page.

Anyway, I don't mean for her to be burnt at the stake or anything. I just hope she learns from her mistake and improves on how she does things. E.g Paint your own faces and be proud to show them off!

I think this behavior says quite a bit about how she is as a person, actually. It just makes me mad because it's wrong on SO many levels! Not just the photos and the undercutting, but the shady facebook activity, hiding her photos so no one sees them, blocking you because you pointed it out, it's just all shady. SHADY!!! That is all. No need to burn at the stake (lol) but omg SHAAAAAAAADY!

yeah she's shady. I just got a friend request from her for my facepainting fb page. She also runs a backyard tattoo business which she thinks i obviously don't know about. Um hello, i know it's you.

On the bright side customers who can't see her page won't hire her and will go elsewhere... more business for you

lol... exactly what I was going to say Jazz!!! lol

Not only is that an extremely stupid move business wise on her part but its now a gigantic blessing for you!!!!

Her pic looks really familiar to me for some reason......... Can't figure out why, probably won't but I wouldn't be accepting that friend request if I were you. She is probably just doing it to try to publicly tear you down. And even though she is the "owner" of the business, it doesn't seem like she is real smart about marketing... lol she is totally burning her own bridges herself! What a ding a ling!!

I hope that for all involved things get worked out and she fixes everything, but not only that, I hope she understands why this is all happening, not as a revenge, but as a lesson!

Bless you and your business. Good Luck!!

EEwwww! You mean underground tats? MAN that is stuck on stupid...both for the person running it and who would be that dumb to go to a basement gunner??? I dont' care how talented the tattooist is, you cannot sterilize a room in a house without $$ and going legit. You need an autoclave, you need to be able to sanitize, and you need to ensure the codes and education is up to snuff (bloodborne pathogine course is a must..you should see the certificate)! That is just a disaster waiting to happen. Although it *is* possible, I doubt a person with this level of greed and no moral standing would put in the real work and $$ it would take to make a real tattoo room.