HORSES DON’T RUN

The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.

- Gene Carlisle

A few years ago we were finishing up a multi-day production, and the last shot of the day was scheduled for magic hour: two men and a woman on horseback galloping across a green meadow into the setting sun. It was a beautifully designed shot, but we had a very narrow window of time to capture it.

The horse trailer pulled up, and a grizzled sixty-something wrangler climbed out. I thanked him for his time, then described the shot. He looked at me a long moment, then said with slight smile, “These horses don’t run.”

Our Production Manager Zoe, a wizard who has done the impossible on countless other shoots, looked at me with wide eyes, realizing her mistake. She had checked availability, size, color, schedule, and even discussed punctuality, yet never thought to ask the stupid question: Can these horses run?

Assumptions can kill us in business. And marketing can be especially vulnerable.

We’ve all been there - you’re either distracted with a million other details (like Zoe), or you don’t want to ask an obviously ridiculous question and look foolish. But if you have a question, the worst thing you can do is let it go unanswered. You may even get a few non-verbal responses: a blank stare, an eyeroll and a sigh. But so what? As Carl Sagan said: “There are naïve questions, tedious questions, and ill-phrased questions - but there is no such thing as a dumb question.”

As for our shoot? Zoe jumped on the phone and miraculously got us three running horses within minutes, and the final shot made the client very happy.