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Skip and Scott answer audience questions about the business of photography.
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This post sponsored by Adorama – More than a camera store
I’m haunted by things said to me by Guy Kawasaki and Trey Ratcliff. I’m also haunted by things that I’ve read by Seth Godin. The fact is, the photography business like ALL business occasionally needs to change. I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time. I’ve been studying it. I’ve been contemplating it. I can’t shake it. We need to change. The famous quote that Guy gave me on one of our Going Pro podcasts rings in my mind like a loud bell.
“It doesn’t matter what your business model is as a photographer. It matters what the customer’s buying model is.”
WoW! That just won’t leave me alone. I hate to admit it because nothing is harder than change, but change we must. Gone are the days when we can just send some negatives to the lab, order some cheap 8×10 prints, put them in a black folder, mark them up 400 percent and call it a day.
Digital delivery is here – the cloud is part of our lives. What are we going to do about it? Nobody has fought harder to protect the intellectual property rights of photographers than I have but lately, I see that as a mistake. Conversations with Trey Ratcliff have been particularly impactful for me in this regard. He’s embraced Creative Commons and seen his business soar.
I see other signs. Brides are increasingly more interested in having their weddings in digital format. Everyone wants a DVD or CD. For years I’ve said don’t do that! But now – I’m leaning the other way. Why?
The customer’s BUYING model trumps my BUSINESS model.
If the customer wants digital files and I don’t provide them the customer won’t buy from me. That’s a problem.
In the past, those of us in the industry with some authority fought against the “shoot and burn” business model. I am still against THAT model in the sense that shooting a wedding for $500 and giving the couple all the un-retouched files is a bad idea.
But if you charge enough, and get paid well enough, then I have no problem giving up the digital files. In the end it simply doesn’t matter what you or I think about this. All that matters is what the customer thinks. The customer is going that way – and the customer is going that way with or without us.
This requires much more thought and more discussion but I know one thing – I don’t want the customer going down the road that I am not on.
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This post sponsored by Album Epoca
There’s a great saying, “You’ve got two ears and one mouth, so listen twice as much as you talk!” I really could end this post right here, but lately I’ve run into a few photographers who don’t listen to much of anything. I can’t help but wonder what happens with their clients when the images aren’t as requested, details of the album are wrong or they simply miss dates and times for appointments.
We all get busy and accidents absolutely happen, but here some ideas to help you avoid embarrassing yourself when you do have the control:
• If there is even the slightest doubt in understanding what a client has told you, just ask them for clarification.
• When you’re finished with the conversation, repeat what you understand you’re going to be doing. It’s the perfect way to confirm your next step.
• Confirm back to the client in an email – then you’ve got a written confirmation as well.
• Log key dates and appointments into your calendar. However, there’s a key to making this work – you have to remember to look at your calendar and pay attention to things that are scheduled in advance.
• Don’t confirm appointments without consulting your calendar first. I’ve done this a few times in my career, usually with conference calls.
• Stay away from exact times if you’re setting up a meeting at a convention. Everybody gets tied up for longer than anticipated when you’re at a trade-show. It’s just the nature of the beast, but if you give yourself a little room and it doesn’t have to be more than 5-10 minutes, you’ll be happier and so will the people you’re meeting with.
While it might seem this is a post about listening and scheduling, there’s a sidebar that’s really more important. We all just need to slow down a little. So often people are so busy and have other things on their mind – they’re hearing you, but just not listening!
Our second GoingPro Bootcamp is coming up February 18 in Las Vegas. This is an all day seminar covering everything but photography. Bootcamp is about all the ingredients to help you get your business off the ground or fine tune your existing business in marketing, management and promotion. This is about developing publicity programs, networking in your community and paying attention to your most important building blocks. What good is creating the finest images of your life, if nobody knows who you are and you can’t make enough money to stay in business?
Instructors for the all day event are Scott Bourne, Michelle Celentano* and yours truly. Thanks to our sponsors, we’ve worked hard to keep the cost down. How can you beat $99? ($129 at the door and only if there are seats available.)
We’re also limiting the number of people. This is a “boutique conference” meant to be small. It’ll be at the Hampton Inn, just across from In ‘n Out Burger off the strip – and yes, that might just be your lunch spot. The only frills we want on this program are ideas you can take back and implement following WPPI.
WPPI starts the day after Bootcamp, giving you the chance to network and expand your educational base even further and all in one trip to Vegas. But the big question from many of you is, “What’s GoingPro?”
Almost two years ago, over dinner in New Orleans, Scott Bourne and I had an idea. It was all about doing something to help new photographers focus on their business. There were just too many new photographers coming into the business thinking that just because they knew a little Photoshop and bought a decent camera they could jump into the space and call themselves professionals!
The fatality rate for these half-baked business plans was incredibly high, ending abruptly in everything from unhappy consumers, poverty level earnings and even lawsuits. So we wanted to raise the bar and launched GoingPro. It started as a blog, while we were working on the GoingPro book, which just started shipping just three weeks ago. Podcasts came next, followed by Bootcamp.
Today, GoingPro has over fifty thousand photographers who follow the free blog, enjoying close to five hundred posts on the site along with 60 podcasts. New podcasts go live every ten days and now have some pretty outstanding guests.
One more ingredient that makes the GoingPro phenomenon so effective are the sponsors. We’re pretty proud to have some of the finest sponsors in the industry and they include, Album Epoca , Animoto, Adorama, AsukaBook, Bay Photo Lab, Dynalite, Kubota Image Tools, Photofocus.com, Skip’s Photo Network,Skip’s Summer School, SmugMug, 3Exposure.com.
Whether your business is just about to get started or you’ve been out there for a little while, I hope you’ll join us on February 18, 2012. I can promise you a whole series of great ideas on fine-tuning your business and marketing skills, starting promptly at 9:00 am that morning Saturday morning.
Tomorrow is the last day to register! Don’t miss it!
Registration is just a click away! See you in Vegas.
*Michelle Celentano will be teaching with us and her experience is remarkable. She’s been a photographer for twenty-one years and is based in Phoenix. Her work has been published in Rangefinder, American Photographer and Shutterbug, just to name a few. She is a Canon Explorer of Light and actively teaches at various conventions around the U.S. However, it’s not Michelle’s expertise as a photographer that has us excited about her joining us at GoingPro Bootcamp. Michelle’s experience as a business person is incredible along with her ability to be completely open on the good and bad things she did when first getting started and again when she moved her business to Phoenix. Her marketing skills are outstanding and she’s constantly looking for ways to reinvent herself in the Arizona market. She’ll be sharing ideas on building client relationships, diversity in your skill set and marketing yourself so that your work is about the experience and an investment by your clients, not just getting their portrait done. And the most fun quality of working with Michelle is her honesty. We can promise you a completely candid discussion on virtually any topic related to going pro! With over twenty one years in business, Michelle has virtually done it all – here’s your chance to benefit from her experience as your start to develop your own business strategy.
In the last few years, the Internet has become awash with trolls, bullies and mobs aimed at denigrating photographers. It’s been going on forever, but it’s now worse than ever. Some of these trolls spend hours each week posting to forums and blogging. I’ve been contacted by more than a dozen photographers about this – each perplexed and upset that they have become targets. They don’t understand why. The trolls have no doubt themselves failed miserably at the business of photography so they have lots of spare time to spend attacking others. At some point, if your work rises to any level of prominence – they will absolutely attack you.
Here’s how to handle that.
1. Feel sorry for them – they are failures who can’t get traction for their work the way you have so they lash out at you in anger rather than applying themselves and learning how to succeed. They deserve your pity because believe me, they are lonely, unhappy, bitter, angry, miserable people with a quality of life that borders on being worse than dead.
2. Ignore them – they are desperate for ANY attention. ANY mention – even in anger – is like gold to them. Ignore them because it’s wasted energy on your part and it feeds their lust for recognition in a very unhealthy way. It’s not good for you or them so ignore them. Chances are they have little influence outside their sphere of other angry trolls.
3. Block them – don’t let that negativity into your life. Block them on Twitter, Facebook, et. al. Set their email addresses to SPAM. It won’t stop them from attacking you but it WILL stop you from having to be exposed to it. They want to bring you down. Why let them? They have the misguided idea that if they can somehow bring you down to their level, they think that elevates them in some way. It doesn’t. They always have been, are now and always will be bottom-feeding trolls. If you engage with them in any way you will steal from your own creative energy and you won’t help them because frankly, they don’t want help.
4. Recognize their affliction – they don’t want help because to achieve any level of success in this business, you have to work very hard, very long hours. You have to risk rejection and ridicule, you have to study, practice, devote yourself, invest in yourself and you have to deal with all sorts of problems that make being a professional photographer hard work. These trolls are lazy. They are afraid to work. They don’t know how to work. It’s easier to sit back in your sofa, watching daytime soap operas, eating chips and armchair quarterbacking everyone else’s efforts than it is to get off their rear ends and earn some business. They are afraid – they are cowards – they are disaffected toward any successful photographer and it makes them miserable. Knowing all this you should also realize you can’t help them. Their affliction is 100% self-imposed and only they can cure themselves. I’ve tried to help a few. They rejected my help. They are happy in their anger.
5. The best way to kill weeds is to grow great grass – surround yourself with positive, like-minded, supportive, talented, creative, caring people who – like you – want to make a difference in this world. If you have no room for cowardly, jealous trolls in your life, then they are less likely to sneak in. You realize that you have to work hard. Find other people who agree and avoid that ever-growing segment of our population that feels it is ENTITLED to success. Find the folks who know that success is something you earn and then hang out with them. That will lessen, reduce or eliminate your exposure to harmful troll radiation.
The Internet has made it easier for these bullies and mobs to gather because they face no real consequences. Don’t worry – these people aren’t 10 feet tall. They are jealous people who are angry at the world. They wouldn’t ever, ever, ever have the courage to come out from their mom’s basement where they hide behind their computer and anonymous log-ins and actually say anything to your face – when attached to an Internet account they feel the strength of King Kong – otherwise they are simple cowards. Keep that in mind as you are faced with their mindless attacks.
The trolls really do deserve our pity but that’s about all we can do for them. DO NOT ENGAGE with these people. Eliminate them from your life. No matter who they are or how painful that may be. Banish them. If you can avoid them, your career will skyrocket. If you spend any time at all trying to deal with them you’ll slow yourself down. Remember, they have all day to play at this. You don’t. You’re actually shooting and getting paid. Stick with that.
Be positive. Care about people and making a difference. Do your best. Be all about protecting memories and putting others before yourself. Haters are always going to hate. Do not let that get to you and more importantly, do not become one of them. You’ll live the most miserable life possible.
This Post Sponsored by: Smug Mug
