I got my copy of Rangefinder Magazine last week. It includes an article I wrote about business. Pretty cool. The images are a bit old, but the ideas are still fresh! I wrote this a couple years back. Here’s a link.
It’s cold!
It’s cold. Mark the date, February 4, 2009. Rumor has it that this January was the coldest in 50 years here in Chicago-ish. Like many of us, I got off a plane from Imaging USA in beautiful Phoenix and was quickly greeted by flat, stinky, cold air. Later that night it was literally colder in my town than it was at the north pole. Literally. It’s cold. It’s the kind of cold that you don’t feel on your skin, but more in your gut.
There is a physics term called “absolute zero”. −459.67° Fahrenheit. At absolute zero, it is said that molecules slow down as there is not enough energy to exchange at a molecular level. Although absolute zero has never been documented in any lab the day will most likely come. It’s cold. I suppose that puts things into perspective.
Waking up in a really warm Swedish cocoon this morning got me thinking about what impact the cold weather has on our businesses. In many ways people react to the cold in a manner similar to molecules. Interaction slows down, energy decreases, and the ability to use the phone becomes quite crippled. If you pay close attention, this theory is often proven in short bursts. Every winter we get a few warm snaps thrown in the mix. A random day that is 20 degrees warmer than the rest of the week. If you pay close attention, the phone rings a bit more on those days and people spend more time out of the house. Strangely enough the exact phenomenon occurs at the molecular level. Even molecules have a way of screaming “Lord have mercy! Thank you!”.
Lest we find this article a bit too depressing let me remind you that having a slower studio is not altogether a bad thing. Not being bombarded by the phone and a studio full of clients has it’s challenges, but it also has it’s upside. For this reason I’d like to list a handful of ideas on how to use the slower winter months to your advantage:
Education: Ever wonder why Imaging USA is in January? There are a lot of larger conventions in the Winter. It’s a great time to fill your brain and work on making your craft and your studio more effective. The wonderful thing is that by having fewer clients and fewer orders it’s easier to implement changes into your pricing and into your studio. It’s a very practical time to take what you learn and immediately put it into action. By the time Spring rolls around you have already learned your new systems and are ready to roll.
Website: Winter is a great time to catch up on all of those chores you have been putting off. It’s a great time to update your website. Changing the look of your website is an amazing catalyst for bringing in new clientele and bringing existing clients back.
Studio Appearance: Remember all of those chores that you haven’t kept up with? Touching up paint, cleaning, fixing things? Now’s the time. Clients notice details. With fewer people buzzing around it’s much easier to get to all of the “little things”. It’s amazing what a half a day of uninterrupted catch up time can do.
Studio Prints: There is no better time to update frames and prints than the winter months. It’s a great time to introduce a “new look” to you images.
Product Line: It’s much easier to add new products and services to your line-up when there are fewer clients around. From a practical perspective, it’s a great time to purchase samples and use the slower time to bounce ideas off your clients and find out what they are really looking for.
Charity Events: Our studio holds a charity event every March. This is great way of giving back to the community and also it also broadens the scope of your studio. Our Annual Silly Smiles events are quickly turning into something that clients really look forward to and ask about all year. Through promotions and advertising, we are getting our clients to think about photography during the coldest time of year, February.
Pricing: Although the studio is most likely seeing less money, there is no better time to sit down and work on how to make more! Tweaking your pricing and protocol is a great way of increasing your bottom line. Working on this during the Winter months will ensure that once the “thaw” comes you’ll be ready to maximize your studio’s potential.
These are just a few practical ideas to think about. The most important thing to remember is that when it’s cold and the phone doesn’t ring as much, there is no more important time to work on our business. A strong business and a great education are the best ways of combatting any economic challenge.
I just finished this. Pardon the typos as always! Hopefully people will e-mail my mistakes to me! Ha.
Cooking and Photography
It’s February. Not an entirely exciting month, but a month that marks a period where we don’t really get that stoked about food. This, all things considered, is a good thing. Let’s face it, we go from Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Years doing little but stuffing our faces and gossiping. Well, perhaps that’s an overstatement, but I think we can all agree that the holidays involve a lot of time in the kitchen. From a foodie perspective February leaves us with the last gasp which is Super Bowl parties. These are not typically on people’s short list of culinary paradise.
With the bitter cold, lack of holiday festivities, and a slow time in most studios February is a great time for reflection and a time for change. It’s a time for renewal and business resolutions. It’s during this time that I have had a chance to reflect of food.
Ah yes, like most I overindulged over the holidays and put on a few pounds. In the process of reinventing my waste-line I have spent a good amount of time thinking about how we cook, how we photograph, and where the two disciplines meet. It may sound like a leap of faith to find so much in common with cooking and photography, but let’s take a look into the kitchen.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, it was really amazing to be around during the holidays. The holidays were a special time in which we could travel the world through food without driving more than 2 miles. It was not uncommon to be stuffed with Polish pastries, homemade pastas, and things we couldn’t begin to pronounce all in one day. It is truly interesting to see that as I get older these delicacies are still being served but by a new generation. Many years back it was the Grandparents and Parents doing the cooking. Now our generation has been left with the burden of being the Grandparents and Parents.
What is truly inspiring about the holidays is the lack of cookbooks, recipes, or any written directions. It’s not that there isn’t a stash of notecards boxes up somewhere, it’s just that they haven’t been used for a long time. It’s as if cooking were a right of passage or somehow wired in the DNA of families. There is no secret to all of this. At risk of removing the romance from the analogy (not that referring to such a sacred tradition as an analogy doesn’t do that already) is it quite simply an act of repetition. Spending countless hours watching someone slave over a hot stove makes quite an impression. One can only watch and gorge for so long without the scents and ingredients seeping deeply into the recesses of their brain.
You get the picture I’m certain. After all this IS an article about photography. Let’s examine things a bit. If we want to learn to cook we hang out in the kitchen for a few years. We eat, we clean the dishes, and we do it over and over again. We tell stories and we let the art of creating something beautiful imprint into our being. When it comes time to run our own kitchen, we invite others in to learn how its done. How strange is it then that photographers want to learn the tradition of photography without spending the same time in a studio studying the work of a disciplined photographer? Is it all that different? Let me tell you a little bit about my Gramma.
My Gramma never cooked with recipes. Great chefs don’t use cookbooks. Why? They just cook. Can anyone imagine the reaction they would get if a patron walked into the kitchen of 4 star restaurant and asked the chef how much salt was in his dish? I don’t think my Gramma ever measured much of anything. “How much?” “Just enough!” This is comical and perhaps basic at best, yet how many photographers are in search of a recipe for composition, lighting, or even business.
My Gramma never once thought about opening here own restaurant. Let’s face it, the woman could cook. She loved it, she breathed it, she understood it, she lived it. The fact of the matter is though, she wasn’t a restauranteur. There is a different between someone who loves to cook and an executive chef. Imagine a world in which every avid cook wanted to become a professional chef. Now realize perhaps that this world is not entirely different than the world of photography these days. It seems that many people have decided that the love of creation with a camera is a logical precursor to a lucrative career in photography. (On a side note, the shelf life of the average independent restaurant is somewhere around 6 months to a year)
My Gramma didn’t learn to cook in a month. It took years and several generations before she got to where she was in the kitchen. This is obvious, yet many of today’s photographers expect overnight success without learning fundamentals. It’s true technology has made the process easier, but my Gramma also didn’t cook with a microwave. Think about that one for a minute.
My Gramma could cook a lot of dishes. It’s true, we had our favorites and she had her high points, but my Gramma could make a lot of food. She knew the basics. She could cook just about anything in a pinch. It’s amazing to see how many photographers skimp out on learning the basics. It is appalling how many photographers these days can’t take a simple headshot, compose a basic shot out of camera, or know how to use a window.
My Gramma loved to share. She loved to cook for EVERYONE. She loved her culture and wanted to pass it along. She wasn’t altogether worried about the Food Network calling her and giving her a spot on prime time she just talked and shared and let others put their hands in the mixing bowl.
Gramma didn’t spend a lot of time going into debt over her knives.
To put things into perspective. A great chef becomes great not in spite of the fact they he/she has thrown away the cookbook but more accurately because he/she has done so. There is an expression that chefs use:
“Shut up and cook” - I mean shoot. . .
I just finished a new article. I thought it was worth post here. As always, this is straight off the hard drive without the aid of a editor! Pardon the typos and rambling that will assuredly be polished at some point in time!
“More Money, More YouTube, More Sleep”
It’s a little strange writing ahead of a deadline. To the same end, know that a great deal of the Christmas music we all enjoy is recorded at the peak of Summer when the holidays are the last thing on our minds. Be that as it may, deadlines are there for a reason and I’m having a tough time thinking about the New Year even though it’s closer than any of us want to admit.
Like most studio owners, I have a pattern to my business. Photography is seasonal and it’s good to keep a schedule and plan ahead. Winter is the time of year for cleaning, reworking the storefront, updating the website, reorganizing, and making changes to the price list. When things are a little more manageable, it’s a lot easier to think of change. It’s also a lot easier to get away with it! Personally, I like stand back and see new prints on the walls, fresh paint, and indulge in “look at all the possibilities!” thinking. What we don’t really like to admit is that change can be a little scary.
What if it doesn’t work? What if this “drives people away”?
There’s no answer to that other than part of what makes great businesses great is risk and trust in intuition. It’s also the ability to adapt quickly when we make a mistake. Interestingly enough, Walt Disney (thanks to Rick Trummer for getting the ball rolling on this research), P.T. Barnum, Henry Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Milton Hershey, and of course Donald Trump all went bankrupt on their way to the top. It’s a strange time for photographers and although I don’t wish financial hardship on anyone, know that for the previous people these struggles were only a bump in the road for their greater vision. They all knew where they wanted to go, how to get their, and how not to let anything get in their way.
About 11 months ago I came up with 3 simple goals for my life that I really took to heart. They sound amusing and simple in light of the preceding paragraph, but perhaps they may help you put things into perspective while working on your business for next year. These goals are simple, yet there’s perhaps a bit more to it:
More Money, More YouTube, More Sleep
The first one is pretty obvious. More Money? Who doesn’t want that? The simple fact is, we can’t make dreams a reality for our clients if we don’t stay in business. Pretty basic right? It is interesting to see how many people try to work our prices down in a way that infringes on our ability to stick around. I am fond of saying “everyone wants greatness while bankrupting you in the process”. True enough. The fact is, if you are creating fabulous work, you should be receiving fabulous compensation. If you are not, you will soon begin to compromise your vision and make changes that work against what you set out to do in the first place. They say that money is the root of all evil, and while there may be a bit of truth to that, it’s also the root of why you went into business in the first place.
More YouTube? Seriously. Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a YouTube Junkie. I’m fond of surfing YouTube for new music, crazy videos, and a stress reliever from paperwork and editing. I’m not alone! YouTube is more of a symbol of the second reason most of us went into business.
To enjoy life.
Ah, the days of thinking that we would have more time to enjoy life when we started our own gig. Glorious. Then the cold realization that we would be working 3 times harder and for less money. Well, something like that. It’s important to take a breath here and there and have hobbies. Making time for YouTube, travel, or any other thing we enjoy should be a goal of anybody. If we lose the joy in what we do, we are truly sunk. Like money, when there is no joy, it’s over.
More Sleep? Ah, sleep rules. There, it’s been said. I know that I always say that losing sleep is one of the greatest keys to a successful business. Fair enough. We are, however, carbon based life forms. Carbon needs to rejuvenate. Sleep is part of how we keep ourselves healthy and alive. This may sound a little strange, but I’m also a believer that the worst kind of sleep is sleep that is not earned. There is nothing better than sleeping knowing that things are in check, the studio is doing it’s thing, and we’ve done everything we needed to get done during the day. Having a strong business plan and well established goals is the best way to good nights sleep. More security means more sleep. Business planning is also one of the best ways of earning a good night of rest. It’s also important to stay healthy. If our health starts slipping, our business will follow soon after.
Ah, there is it. My wish for me and my wish for you. It’s nothing fancy, nothing extravagant, and nothing too difficult to attain. Be bold and be brave. So, while you are working on that let me wish you a happy, prosperous, and fruitful December 3rd. . .I mean. . .New Year!
All the best!
Ah, more candy! Ha. I guess I’m on a roll. I’ll lighten things up here in a bit, but I thought this was a good chance to post a few articles I’ve been working this month. I always like to “pass them around” a little so the don’t collect to much dust! Here you go, “Jelly Beans and Business”:
There are a lot of cliches out there in the world of writing. A lot of them involve chimpanzees and the education system. Two of my personal favorites are:
“Anyone that really knows what they are talking about can teach it to a 3rd grader.”
“Everything we need to know about life we learned in Kindergarten”
To celebrate Halloween, I thought I’d try and tackle both while giving us another candy reference.
Here’s a story I learned in kindergarten. I’m fairly sure it was learned while listening to a “books on tape” in the back of my Parent’s Ford Escort station wagon while driving somewhere in the midwest. You can add a little road noise, sibling bickering, idle threats from a frustrated driver, and the squeal of cheap tape heads to your imagination if it helps to add to the story’s impact.
A little boy is walking in the kitchen and discovers a beautifully full jar of jelly beans. In an excited state, he scurries around the house looking for his step stool. Standing on the stool, he realizes that he is just big enough to strain his little arm across the counter to slide the jar to his grasp. Holding the jar in his little hands he manages to open the lid in the a most careful fashion as to not drop his treasure.
Overcome with excitement, the little boy plunges his hand deep into the jar and grabs as many jelly beans as he can fit into his tiny little hand. Sliding his hand out of the jar, the boy makes a stunning discovery.
His hand isn’t that small anymore.
In grabbing as many jelly beans as he can, the boy has made his hand too big and it is now stuck in he jar. On top of being stuck, the little boy has a front row view of these beautiful candies! As you can imagine the boy has created quite a commotion rattling the jar and stomping around in hopes that he would retrieve his bounty.
Hearing the panic and dismay from another room, the boy’s Mother comes rushing into the room. Quickly assessing the situation, the boy’s offers very simple council:
“If you let them all go and take them out one at a time you can have as many jelly beans as you would like.”
Like most children’s stories, this is a simple story with a simple moral. Like most children’s stories, it’s not told only for children.
Let’s face it, we are living in strange economic times that have a tremendous impact on our industry. Many photographers are scared. Many photographers are also changing the way they do business. As a side effect of a strained economy many studios are finding that they have fewer clients and in turn must find ways of increasing our bottom line. In short, fewer clients, higher orders. Although this practice is certainly in the realm of sound business, there is definitely an opportunity to get our hands caught in the jar. On the flip side, with a little creativity we can find new ways of making money in smaller pieces for higher rewards.
Here are a few suggestions:
Offer frames and albums as additional sales. When frames are included in the price of our prints we must raise the price to compensate. If this price is broken down, a client has an opportunity to increase their order and in return we can charge more without hitting them with a higher priced package that might cause “sticker shock”. You are also increasing your customer service by giving them more opportunities to spend money and get what they want instead of what we think they want.
Offer albums. Portrait albums are a great additional sale. Many labs offer print services these days that include albums, memory books, and other books that can add a lot to our bottom line and give our clients more options to not only spend money, but expand their view of our work.
Include a print credit in your session fee. People are unsettled these days. With studios popping up all over and a tough economy high session fees are a tough sell. If you include a print credit in your retainer, you can charge more money up front and raise your bottom line as well. In addition, you are spreading out your client’s payment and allowing them to spend more and get more in return.
Split the balance. This is a simple way to create a payment plan. Have them pay half the balance when they order, and the other half when they pick up. They will spend more money because they have to pay less in chunks. This also keeps cash flowing more evenly into your studio.
Limit your packages or remove them altogether. Packages are designed to get clients to spend more money. This can work, but can also work against us by setting a cap. We may see a package as a $1000 order, but it is entirely possible that the same order could be a $2000 that never was and with what the client really wanted. Often times packages include items that clients don’t want and they settle in order to get the price they want. In the long run this can be a negative as we are more focused on the sale than our clients needs.
These are just 5 ideas to help you get more out of each session. A key to business in a strained economy is not charging more but offering more. By doing this, we offer more customer service and make more money in return.
Since Halloween is right around the corner I thought I’d post a few articles about candy! Well, they’re really about business, but what they heck right! This first one is titled “Van Halen and M&Ms”
I guess I’ve got Halloween on the brain. Either that or I’ve got a serious sweet tooth. This month we’ve got not one, but two articles about candy! Perhaps we’ll never look at Halloween the same. I’m sure we all have out favorite candy, but for me it’s M&Ms. Ever try Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms? That’s the stuff. As it turns out David Lee Roth is also fond of the M&M. This is so much the case that his affection has found it’s way into urban legend. It turns out that there’s actually truth to one of many musician’s favorite anecdotes. It goes something like this:
In the early 80’s there were few bands bigger than Van Halen. They would pack auditoriums and played larger shows than virtually any band in history. In order to achieve these rock pageants 9 semis were used to haul gear from show to show. With lots of gear comes lots of needs. To this end, the band carried a considerable contract with a long rider detailing a long list of demands. Amidst power requirements, stage dimensions, voltage, and the like is where the story gets interesting. Article 126 of the Van Halen contract read:
“There will be no brown M&Ms in the backstage area, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation.”
Naturally, we are drawn to the prima donna side of this story. Indeed when significant amounts of money are given to entertainers egos can reach new heights. So, to this end Van Halen would arrive at every show looking for brown M&Ms in the dressing room. As to be expected if even a single brown M&M was found the band would promptly trash the dressing room. That’s what Van Halen did. They were Van Halen.
Although egos ran high, grown men acted like children, and legend was born, the root of this rage is a little more important. Of course no one can excuse the destruction of property, but here is what Paul Harvey would call “the rest of the story”.
You see, with a long detailed contract and an even longer rider, the band had many requirements that would actually ensure safety and a successful show. As a testament to this, disaster struck at a concert in Pueblo, Colorado when the floor beneath a Van Halen stage sunk and caused $80,000 worth of damage to a brand new stadium. Naturally the questions must be asked. Were there any brown M&Ms? Yes. Did Van Halen trash the dressing room? Yes. You see the band used the brown M&M’s as an indicator of whether or their host had read the full contract or rider. Having brown M&M’s meant that there would be a laundry list of other needs that were not met. This was cause for alarm. In the case of the Pueblo concert, those alarms were well founded. You see, it wasn’t about the M&M’s at all it was about details.
Naturally you ask a more basic question. What does this have to do with photography? Easy. If your business is like most, you are probably leaving a lot of brown M&Ms in the dish for your clients. Put more plainly, there are a lot of small details that lead our clients to question wether we are right for them or not. This is just a small list, but in fairness I thought I would take a moment to list a few that I keep at the top of my list:
Is my studio clean?
Is my website up to date?
How am I answering the phone?
Am I returning messages?
What work am I showing?
How is my work being displayed?
Am I rotating my images enough?
Am I keeping up with the times?
Am I educating myself?
Do I offer great products and services?
Are my services and products current and relevant?
What do I stand for?
Do my clients get my vision?
These questions can go on and on. The most important thing is to realize is that at the surface each of these aspects is fairly small an innocent but they are in fact indicators of much larger problems that can have staggering effects on our business. Although I am certain there will not be a stage crashing through your studio floor, there are worse fates. Like, say, a world without M&Ms.