$100 Wedding

It's Friday 5:45pm, I just got a phone call from Joe¹. He wanted me to shoot his wedding, in 2 weeks. A good friend of his brother in-law is offering to shoot his wedding for free. But he wants a "real professional" to shoot his wedding and his budget is $100.

I was both angry and wanted to "understand" Joe, so I started asking some questions, he was spending:

25% Off

As I have written before in Discounts and in Discounts Discounts that I don't like to give discounts. I am very firm on that policy. I give "freebies" and extras but not discounts. So why did I give in April a 25% discounts to a customer?

Last year, one of my biggest customer went "belly up", closed, bankrupt, sort of. They did file for bankruptcy after they paid the "small guys", including me. They owed me $400, which they paid.

6 month later, I get a phone call from Travis, the ex-owner. He's trying to get back in business and there are a couple of photos that he'd like to use, but he can't afford to pay me anything.

Aggressive Pricing

Price is rarely THE number 1 factor when hiring a photographer. Price plays an important role in determining where and when you are on the buyer's list. If a buyer is looking for the highest quality, she will not start by looking for the lowest prices. The higher the prices you charge, the higher the perception of quality of your work.

Some people are more sensitive to prices than others.

All other things being equal, people will buy the cheapest one. Luckily for us², we are not all equals.

• 2 photographers with the same equipment at the same event will take different photos³.
• 2 photographers with the same computer and the software will process their photos differently.

Alligators

The number one rule to avoid alligator attacks:

An Army March On Its Stomach

I just got this phone call:

Archival vs. 200 years

• Are you saying: "We use archival quality photo paper."?

Or

• Are you saying: "Your photos will last 200 years."?

Are You A "Yes Man" Or A "No Man"

When somebody ask you for something do you say:

• Are you trustworthy?
• Are you embellishing a little or even a lot?
• How do people feel about you?
• How do people feel about your photography?

This week I had coffee with Georges, it's a French Georges with an s. It's the same Georges from: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. He just lost $3500 Canadian, or just under $3000 US, because he forgot.

Two years ago, he made some photos for a company that used his photos for a national ad. Georges realized that they stopped using his photos in their ad. So Georges took his courage in his hands and phoned to see what happened. Why did they drop his photos from their ad.

Yesterday: Tuesday 6-May-2008, was the US democratic primary in North Carolina and Indiana. Big news:

• Obama won North Carolina by a wide margin
• Clinton won Indiana by a narrow margin.

Last night I was one of three photographers at a reception. Three photographers, three different clients covering the same people. We all know each other. I arrived first, unloaded my equipment, and started to make the rounds to find the best spots and the best angles. The other two guys arrive and Joe asks for my help to unload his SUV, a Land Rover LR3, which he left at the front. I go and help when I notice at the back the warning sign stuck on the rear window: Baby On Board

Badmouthing The Competition

How careful are you when there is a fine print? What's the fine print you ask? The fine print is what's printed at the bottom of a contract/agreement, and the print is so small that you need a magnifying glass to even see it, unless you received via fax then it's completely unreadable because it's all smudged.

1. I just renewed my mortgage. after long and hard fought negotiations, my bank offered me a 4.5% mortgage rate for 5 years. It's good but not outstanding. So I searched around, phoned... and finally found another bank that did offering me 4.01%. I almost took it. I was reading the mortgage contract, when 2 words peeked my attention: compounded semi-annually, this means that the principal⁴ was being reduced by my payments only every 6 month. So I ran an amortization table⁵ for both and: my bank at 4.5% was cheaper by $4,871 at then end of the 5 years than the other one at 4.01%, because the payments were compounded weekly.
2. I was recently negotiating a contract and they wanted worldwide copyrights, forever until the end of times. Eventually we agreed on 18 month, their campaign was going to be 6 month. Everything was done via email, except toward the end it was done via a "crappy" low resolution fax. Since I could not read the contract, I got them to email it to me. It turns out that, they changed the copyrights portion of the contract to point to a web page! The web page did say what we agreed [almost], but a web page is very easily changed, and has no history. Were they trying to bamboozle me? Make your own opinion, but I got it back in writing in the contract.

A photo business, like any other, can only exist if money comes in. As a photographer, how do you get money in? By getting paid. How do you get paid? By invoicing your customers. Do I hear Duh? There are a few studies floating around claiming that:

On Main St in Vancouver, BC, we now have so many coffee shops. Some blocks have 3 coffee places, but where to go when you want the right coffee? Some people want organic coffee, some people want "fair-trade⁶" coffee, some people, like me, want good coffee, that means not burnt because it's was packed it to hard.

Yesterday, I had coffee with Danny, a friend. He had problems with a customer. The original "deal" was a photo shoot, 3 hours, including 2 outfits changes making a total 3 outfits with 20 8x10 photo prints and 5 11x14 photo prints for $1250. Half paid upfront and the other half to be paid on delivery. The photo shoot went well, Danny met with the customer, and she liked the photos but... Halfway through she said that she didn't want the 20 8x10 photo prints, but 30 8x10 photo prints, 10 11x14 print and 1 16x20 print. So Danny took his calculator out. She interrupted to say that she wanted these extra prints for the same price or she wouldn't pay. It was almost like blackmail. Danny left the presentation saying that he would think about it, and now was asking for my advice.

Build Your Portfolio

Sorry, but I couldn't resist. Over the last couple of month I have had to endure a few of these. And no, I have never beaten up any potential customer. I always explain politely that I can't afford to go out of business

Build Your Portfolio

One of my clients was not paying me. It was a small invoice: $190 + $9.50 for the tax, for a grand total of $199.50. It's not a big invoice. He's Iranian, living in North Vancouver where there is a large Iranian community.

1. After 30 days, I sent him a reminder that I haven't been paid yet. Nice and polite.
2. After 45 days, still nothing. It's not worth taking the guy to the collection agency. I was pissed off. So I decided to be creative and I sent him this email:

Cameras and Competition

Every professional photographer screams bloody murder, there are millions and billions of free photos on the Internet. The 2 largest websites for photos are:

• Facebook: 17+ Billion photos [Nov-2009]

When I take photos, I always get:

Last week, I was at a presentation where some photographers displayed and projected their photos. Some were outstanding, better than anything I ever did. One guy spend 3 month tracking a tiger to get photos of the tiger in the sunset. I don't have the time or the patience to spend 3 month to make a photo. It was amazing. When the presentations were finished, we started chatting and he asked:

Last month, I was just leaving the office, when the phone rang. I picked up the phone; it was a company that I never heard from. John⁷ wanted me to quote for a large construction job.

Everybody, I talk to, wants a discount. I hate discounts, I am tired of discounts, unless I receive the discount. But lately, it feels like I am so much more on the receiving end of the asking for discounts.

Not of my own choosing, but Canada Revenue Agency — CRA, the Canadian Income Tax people, have dictated that I have to make a profit! No, I am not kidding! As a small business without any other employee, other than the owners, we only have 3 years to turn a profit or...

Can't Win?: Change The Rules

The Nissan GT-R, as a racing car, is so good and successful in the Japanese GT racing, that they decided to penalize Nissan, by added 50kg⁸ to the car to slow it down. It didn't work, the Nissan GT-Rs still won their races, so let's add another 50kg⁹. That's a total of 100kg¹⁰, the Nissan GT-Rs still won all of their races. So let's add another 100kg¹¹, that makes a total of 200kg¹² just to make sure that Nissan can't win all the races.

Competitors

New York, the centre of the universe, Wall Street has been seriously hit by the recession, banking fraud,... In the last year since January 2008, Wall Street has laid off 40% of its employees. The other 60% have had from pay cuts to no bonus¹³. It's been a slaughter fest in New York, especially Manhattan.

Jay Kos, an upscale men's wear boutique¹⁴, on Park Ave in upper Manhattan¹⁵ sells buttoned-up men's fashion—traditional hats, Italian-made shirts, cashmere sweaters from Scotland. Jay Kos is also the name of the owner of the "boutique". He put a huge sign in his window:

Charging for Travel

Should you charge for travel or not? It's a great discussion and there are many threads on forums. It's a question that people ask me regularly.

In the 1980s, I never charged for travel, but in 1991, I was at a customer downtown, when I received a phone call from Gerry, one of my "flux"¹⁶ client. They needed a quick portrait for one of their financial advisor. I was already downtown, only a 15 minute walk with the lights... "I should be there in an hour".

I was talking this week with Sam, a friend of mine. He was "complaining" that he has all the cheapskates customers. His customers don't want to pay for the 14x14 or 16x20 prints. So I started asking where he gets his photography clients. Many of his clients came from his wife, Airin. Airin is a "barterer". She loves to barter. Barter is exchanging good or services without using money and the keyword is exchanging and not the word paying.

Sam doesn't barter but many of his photography customers do. It turns out that he promotes, actually his wife, at places where cheapskates congregate. A cheapskate is a cheapskate. a cheapskate doesn't pay for things that are not a necessity. A cheapskate pride themselves on being cheap and how little money they paid for ... including photography.

I have to come "clean". I just had one of my most embarrassing moments as a photographer. I went to a customer's house, Madeleine's, with Sam, a colleague. It was to make photos of her dogs. Like many home owners, she asked us to remove our shoes for the carpet. As I sat on the stairs and started to remove my shoes, Sam used one foot to remove his shoe, then the other foot to remove the other shoe.

Then... the big toe appeared. It wasn't a small hole in the socks. It was the full big toe. Sam tried to hide it, but it glowed in the dark, it had blinking lights, fluorescent and shined in the dark. Sam was so embarrassed that he mumbled something in way of apologies.

Your worst nightmare: you finally got "a live one", a customer, a real one looking to buy your platinum extra deluxe package. She's convinced, she wants it, but she has to check with her husband, her boss, her best friend, her cat and her dog. Meanwhile, somebody tells her about how her friend used this guy that did everything, including washing the dishes, for half of the price!

What are you gonna do?

Either you differentiate yourself, you compete on price or you will go out of business. Can you compete on price? You think you can?

1. With her cousin who just bought a "real camera" and will do it for free!
2. With millions and millions of photos on Flickr that is available for the tidy sum of $0.

You've delivered your photos. A couple of month later, you hear through the grapevine that she is very unhappy with the photos of her kids. What is she complaining about? She selected the pictures during the review, so what's the problem?

You are part of the problem

Corrupted "Techie"

Last week I received a phone call from my largest customer.

The other day, I got a phone call from an existing customer. He wanted the same type of photo we did last time but much cheaper.

• What's the cost difference between being polite and being rude?
• What's the cost difference between presenting photos and just throwing your photos on a website?
• What's the cost difference between a calibrated monitor and one that is not properly calibrated?
• What's the cost difference between a well composed photo and one that's not well composed?

Do you know what your costs in producing photos are? If you don't know what your costs are, how do you set your prices?

• Pick from a hat?
• Match the competition?

How to Ignore Customers

This morning, I was the Granville Island Public Market, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Granville Island is a very small island in Vancouver, a little bit industrial, a little bit craft, a lot of arts, a lot of boats and marinas and a public market. Inside the public market, in the middle of the permanent stands, they have "craft pods". Each craft pod is made of 4 tables in a square, with the owners/craft people in the middle of the pod.

Every year, in February, all the craft vendors have to go through a selection process to know if they will be approved for the year. Then, when they are approved, they will be assigned 7 days per month. There are many photographers, trying to sell their prints, the prices range from $5 for the small 4 by 6 to hundreds of dollars for the large prints on canvas. They've approved too many photographers, some days there are as many as 6 photo stands.

In business CRM: customer relationship management, is the magic powder that allows you to improve your interaction with the customer so that s/he will happier and therefore buy more. Eventually that customer will become more profitable. With CRM, you capture as much information as possible about the customer's birthdays, family info..., the sale info interaction, profitability, how good the customer was...

With a good implementation of the CRM software, you can offer customers better deals for them and for you. You can remind/congratulate them on their birthday, anniversary, promotion...

CRM goals

Customer Finally Sees The Light

It's been a long term problem for me and my customers, they buy a photo, actually it's usually a series of photos, I get paid, then they decide the photo is so great, so beautiful and so wonderful will use it for their marketing piece and sell millions of dollars.

I come back to them to ask for more money and now they are not so happy with the photo. The photo is not worth 2 cents, it's a piece of shit. How could I do such a bad photo, and con them in buying and using it? Now that I want to be paid more?

Customer Service

On 11-Nov-2008 Grover Sanschagrin did an interview of Craig Mitchelldyer at Photoshelter. The interview is available at: My Nose, Your Business.

How do you deal with people who want to cut corners to save money:

Deadbeats

What's a deadbeat? It's somebody that owes you money, and is not paying it. You took the photos, you've delivered the files, you've delivered the prints, and they won't pay.

Is it your fault they haven't paid?

Dealing With Deflation

Every day on the radio, on TV and in the newspapers "they" talk about the impeding disaster of the coming deflationary era.

A couple of days ago, I got this email:

I have never shown a YouTube video on Foto-Biz.com before, but this one is fantastic. It's 2 minutes and 20 sec, short, sweet and discounted...

I hate discounts. I sell both prints and licenses for my photos. I regularly get asked for discounts. So I hate discounts (I love a discount when I buy something, but that's another story). Asking for discounts is part of the human nature. Look at all these people who are asking for deep discounts or even want your photos for free, when it's not even their money! They have no problem asking for perpetual rights and unlimited number of prints but they still want their salary and would never work for free.

Dealing with discounts

Discounts are never an easy thing to deal with. They very much change, depending on the mood, the business environment, the type of work, the industry and what I can get away with. I have set a policy, many times, but the policy change on regular basis.

As I get busier, I give less and less discounts, but give more and more extras. I wrote about this in: Discounts

From the "do as I say instead of how I do" department.

The Newspaper Association of America's job is to promote the printing of newspapers, to promote the survival of the newspapers. The NAA lobbies in Washington and prints a glossy magazine: Presstime.

Do you know who your customers are? My guess is that you know their name, maybe their address, sometimes the company name and that's about it.

Do You Specialize?

A few months ago, I wrote an article about squirrels. In the article also mentioned rabbits. So last week in the evening, very late in the evening, I got a phone call from a photo buyer from Switzerland¹⁷, who was looking for at least a hundred photos of rabbits. Rabbits in the wild, rabbits in the home, rabbits as pet, rabbits as pest, rabbits as food…

He spent a couple of days looking for photos of rabbits, without much success, a photo here, a photo there but no collection, no choice. I mentioned “what about iStockPhoto, Fotolia and the other microstocks agencies with millions of photos”. He said that they didn't have anything. That was already his first thought. It's too bad that in the end I wasn't able to help him, the budget was over 10 thousand Swiss Francs or just under 10 thousand US dollars.

A few weeks ago, lunch time is almost finished and I was making the portrait of 2 employees. A supervisor barges in my section of the warehouse. He starts ranting and raving, "What the fuck are you doing? Why aren't they at their work?..." The guy was drunk as a skunk. He wreaked booze, if I would have lit a match, the whole neighborhood would have gone up in flame.

I tried to explain, that Joe M., the owner, gave us permission to use this area. He would have none of it. He started swearing and to be very rude. I had enough. I told my "talent" that I couldn't continue under these conditions and started packing.

Dumb Email

I received an email from an photographer¹⁸. It was an email blast with mail merge that inserted my name and my email address. He just requested that I go to his website to “enjoy” his “fine and exquisite“ photography in the hope of getting assignments.

There were a couple of problems with his email:

You finally got a customer, a live one. She paid the $300 or $750 to book the photo shoot. She selected the "grand session" that includes 4 photos 8x10, 8 photos 5x7 and 1 photo 11x14. You came, you made the photos, you processed the photos and now you either go to her place to deliver the photos or she comes to your studio to pickup the precious photos.

Do you give the photos? or Do you start with the real "sales pitch". If you answered start with the real "sales pitch", you've just doubled or tripled your profit without increasing your rates.

The 3 largest photo websites are:

• Facebook
• Flickr

Email is one of the main communication form. we expect it to be almost instantaneous. When are away, they usually set an auto-responder to let others know that they can't reply or deal with their email. Here are some examples of what people have done:

Last week, I had a discussion about email with one of my customer. He was "complaining" about my email being too hard to read. Most of the time, he uses his Blackberry. Nobody ever complained about my emails before. So I started investigating:

1. I have always been assuming that everybody uses their desktop, even the people with a Blackberry. I have always been assuming that they'd just looked at their Blackberry, just still get their emails on their regular computer/laptop.
2. The Blackberry has a resolution of 320 by 240. My desktop has a resolution of 1600 by 1050.

I don't know about you, but for me email is one of my important tools for my photographic business. I use it all day long. I get around 1 500 emails/day. Yes that's one thousand five hundred emails per day. With 1 200 to 1 300 emails as spam¹⁹.

I'm always interested in how people use email or receive emails

Email Statisitics — Part 2

This part 2 of Email Statistics 2008 - Part 1. Just a reminder that for me email is one of my important tool for my photographic business. I use it all day long. I get around 1 500 emails/day. Yes that's one thousand five hundred emails per day, with 1 200 to 1 300 as spam.

Everyday I get between 1,200 and 2,000 emails. Yes, you read it correctly between one thousand two hundreds and two thousands emails per day. You can buy CDs with 100 million email addresses for spamming, half of these addresses are mine. I am so well organized that it takes me only 20 minutes to half an hour per day to go through it. In another entry, I will explain my system.

What makes people open and read an email? The subject line. Here is a list of the best email subject lines used for marketing from Mail Chimp

I was at this very fancy/expensive restaurant with SWMBO ²⁰ aka The Boss. We had a reservation, arrived on time, the Maitre D' showed us to our table.

The table was so small, at a terrible spot, just next to the entrance of the kitchen. I asked if we could get another table, the Maitre d' said NO! That's all there is. So I asked what about this other table? NO! It's already reserved! So I asked, "Are we getting something special for having this terrible table?" Outraged the Maitre d' shouted NO!, so we left.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt or FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.:

I had an appointment with a photographer. The appointment was for 10:00am, we confirmed it over the phone the day before. I arrived 9:50am, I waited. 10:00am: he is not here, 10:05am: he's still not here and he has not called. 10:10am: still nothing and nobody. 10:15am: I left and I didn't call him. 10:45am: he called and screamed "Where are you? You are late!". I replied: "No, I waited until 10:15am, you were not there and you didn't call me to let know, so I left."

He was fuming. How could I do that? That wasn't his fault, the traffic, the weather...

SWMO²¹ aka the "Boss" decided that we had too much unused space in the bedroom closet. I didn't know that I was wasting her "precious closet space". I'm happy with my system of piles of folded clothes and boxes. It must be "women are from closet space and men are from piles and boxes". So the "Boss" called one of these famous closet space companies to make an appointment. Pat, the sales rep, spent 2½ hours asking questions, counting piles and measuring. When she was done, she used her laptop to design the new space for the bedroom closet, and to give us a price quote.

These things aren't cheap! We are talking the price of a Nikon d700, after the price increase. For the optional doors, we are talking a Nikon 24-70/2.8. The optional shoe rack with doors is the price of Canon 70-200/4-VR.

As I have said in many postings, I don't like to give discounts. What I give frequently are "freebies".

Friends and Discounts

A couple of days ago, I had a discussion with John A. about giving discounts to friends and relatives. It turns out that we both had to deal with giving discounts to friends in the last month. The interesting part was that we came to very similar conclusions in different ways.

The question is you have a friend that knows that you are a photographer, they want you to do them portraits, cover a wedding… Do you give them a discount on your photo services? What about a discount on the prints? Is 25% off good enough? Or do I need to give a 33% discount or even a 50% discount?

Often, I need to phone somebody but there is this receptionist. She [it's always a she] has instructions to only transfer the calls from.... and I am not on that list of person that she should transfer the call.

Failed phone call

A phone call. A live one, I have a "could be customer" on the other side. They are interested in my work, they want to do a photo shoot. The keywords are they want to do a photo shoot with me. It doesn't mean that it will happen. There are those little pesky details like rates, rights... It's so easy to forget an item that I made a spreadsheet. Here's my form:

A friend of mine, Dan²² is almost a full time photographer. His photo income varies from 50% to 90% of his income. He wrote custom software a few years ago and he still gets paid for support and changes.

In Canada, Hockey is very big, and now's the Stanley Cup²³ is on. The For the first time in many years the Canucks, Vancouver's hockey team, won it's first round, and will go to the second round. Since the Canucks are doing so well, many people and corporations are on the band-wagon. There are many Canucks parties and events sponsored by various companies. A local children's charity asked Dan to cover and make photos of an evening event, they couldn't afford to pay him, and it's a fund raiser... You know the whole song and dance. They have no money to pay the photographers for his photos, but they have plenty of money for the champagne, the food, and the entertainers²⁴... Blah, blah... They promised him to have his name on the sponsors list, and his copyright notice on the photos whether they were used for print or on the web.

It started in the spring of 2008. I did a photo shoot of a construction project²⁵. My project manager, Dan, was happy with the photos... The fee was to be split as 50% on start and the other 50% upon delivery of the photos. My usual, for this type of photo project, is to meet with "my client" and show the photos on a laptop, with a few printed. I had the meeting with Dan and it didn't go well.

The problem was that Bill, Dan's manager, came to the meeting. Bill was very unhappy with my photos. Not what he had in mind... To make a long story short, there was no problem with my photos. The problem was between Dan and Bill. I don't know who started²⁶, but in June 2008 Bill tried its best to pick as many fights as possible with Dan, in the hope of getting him fired.

Here are sections of Getty confidential info memorandum. How confidential and secret it is? Not too much since they posted it on the web. It's on the SEC²⁷ EDGAR²⁸. The full document is available at: Getty SEC fillings
— Getty: EXCERPTS FROM CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION MEMORANDUM — Jun 2008

Trends in Imagery Market

Here are sections of Getty confidential info memorandum. How confidential and secret it is? Not too much since they posted it on the web. It's on the SEC²⁹ EDGAR³⁰. The full document is available at: Getty SEC fillings
— Getty: EXCERPTS FROM CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION MEMORANDUM — Jun 2008

Trends in Imagery Market

Gift cards are a huge industry! All the big companies are using them, from Best Buy to your neighborhood mall. Gift cards are so big that are gift cards conferences!

Time to issue your own gift card? Lately, I have been giving away $50 gift cards. My own gift card for my own services. So basically, I am giving away $50 discounts. But, it's not a discount... It's different from a discount. People ask for discounts, they work you, they nag, they complain, they threaten to get the discount. Once they receive a discount, they always want the discount. A gift card is different:

Every once in a while, there is a book that can have an actual impact on your business. It's very rare that you can actually take what they mention in a book and apply it. It's rare, extremely rare. The book is Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein (Author), Steve J. Martin (Author), Robert B. Cialdini (Author). It's available at Amazon or any other bookstore.

They did an experiment:

I went to this beautiful house, on Wolfe St, if you know Vancouver, BC, to do some portraits. This was a rainy day. The living room was huge with this amazing window, ideal for portraits. The combination of the rainy day, the window and the sheer curtain, perfect. I was drooling, I could already taste the $$$ for the huge hanging print.

I had the window, my reflector... Everything perfect, I started the photo shoot. Then... this old dragon appeared, 4 feet 5³¹ ranting and raving.

He's a Thief

I regularly go to networking events:

1. It gets me out of the house.

1. Do you bill by the hour?
2. What do you include in your hourly rate?

Recently a regular client tried to low-ball me. Mattie knew my rates, but she asked if I would consider going lower. Of course it would only happen once. Their budget is quite tight... Immediately, 2 things came to my mind:

1. If I give them a lower price, they would ask for it again.
2. Are they really having a tough time or is she trying to squeeze me?

You receive a phone for a photo shoot, they ask you for a quote. How may quotes do you give? One or two?

I always give 3 quotes, like Goldilocks:

How Much to Charge?

When somebody turns professional, one of the first question is: “How much to charge?” There are basically 3 different ways:

1. Time based pricing

I work for a living making photos³². My specialties were construction photography³³ and events³⁴. A week ago, somebody called me to photograph a wedding. I don't do weddings, I had the choice of:

1. Sorry, we don't do weddings and hang up the phone.
2. Sorry, we don't do weddings. On the other hand, Martha specializes in weddings, her number is:... Oh by the way, when you call her, could you please mention that I gave you her name and number, that'd be appreciated.

How To Make $1,000 A Week In Your Spare Time From Your Photography

I regularly see these ads:

• Make $1,000 A Week In Your Spare Time From Your Photography

This week, I was at a supplier buy, spending "mucho dinaros" i.e.: $$$. That place is a large warehouse, divided in 2 separate stores. The front, for the retail/"amateurs", including photo paper, camera bags... at the back for the "professionals", lighting and other specialized equipments. Both stores are owned by the same guy. Usually, when I buy more than a thousand dollars, I get between 10% to 15% discount depending on the items. On Tuesday, I wanted to buy over $1100 between the 2 stores, so I asked for my "usual discount" and was told:

In the mid-90s, in the business world and the computer world, the buzz word was CRM.

How To Say No

I received a phone call for what would have been an important photo shoot. During the conversation, Sheila³⁶ mentioned that she already spoke to 2 other photographers. She was trying to get the 3 of us to bid against each other. As I was asking questions about her requirements for the photo shoot, she mentioned that "another photographer" was going to do it for $3,250 less than my price. Was it true? or not? It was clear that was around what she was willing to pay.

I couldn't do it for that price; I would have lost money on this project. At this point, I knew that it was time to bail out.

Three of the most useful words. "I am sure" will be your best friend when you are negotiating prices for a photo assignment or for stock photos:

1. I am sure you know that… — Will transform your argument into a fact.
2. I am sure you understand… — Will force the other party to agree with you.

I don't really like it.

I had lunch with Dany and we talked. You know the usual: “how's business”, “how's the kids”, “do you still work with…” About halfway through the lunch, Dany pulled a printout. It's was an email from a customer and here's just the interesting part.

This week, I got a phone call from "Jane" if I could photograph an office move. So I started to ask some questions:

1. When will the office move be?
2. How big is the office to be moved?

This morning I received a call from a web designer who wants me to make some photos for one of his client. I don't really know him, I just know of him through a common acquaintance. Right now, 7 photos for the end of next week, plus the possibility of more photos later³⁷. We start to discuss design, format... no problem, yes, yes... Then I start talking money, budget, the amounts sound reasonable. I can make these photos and still make an almost decent profit, and finally I say:

Idiot at the Helm

AP, Associated Press, is a co-op owned by over 1500 newspapers. They have 240 offices around the world with local reporters to “gather” the news. AP has many problems of late on deciding and implementing an Internet strategy. Lately, they have often “stolen” news from the local news. But that's OK: “we are only reporting the news.”

When Google shows the headlines, the AP claims “It's theft and we should be compensated”. If you read the news headlines at the newsstand, should you pay for the newspaper? Should I get paid for having to look at their advertising?

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

The famous industry standards! Industry standards are great to justify pretty much anything you want or feel like...

and when you combine the "industry standards" with I am sure you get:

A customer got her photos, you get paid. That's the end of the story? No, not really, a month after you have cashed the cheque, you receive a letter from the customer complaining that the photos are not what she expected. The pictures were too artistic, the mole on her cheek still shows on the picture, the hairs on the children where not straight...

You reply to her letter with a phone call, that:

1. We discussed the look of the photos before the sitting session.

Is This A Good Workshop?

I just had coffee with Jane, an “almost” friend. We talk regularly but we're not really friends. Jane took photography as a hobby last year. She wants to improve so she decided that in 2010, she will take a couple of workshops and asked for my advice. So she paid for my coffee and muffin. There's no free advice…

Jane brought the flyer with her. I won't name the company since they are quite big in Vancouver. I know of them, but I haven't taken any workshop there. Here are some of their programs:

How to present alternatives to a "could be a customer" is extremely important. It will make the difference to:

• The conversion from a "could be customer" to an actual customer
• The bottom line

John Lund's interview with Charlie Holland

John Lund has been involved in stock photography for decades, centuries, even millenniums, so far 2 millenniums. His blog is: John Lund. He recently did an interview with Charlie Holland, she was the Director Of Photography at Getty Images, dated: Sunday November 8, 2009.

A point of view is from the other side of the glass. She was the buyer. Please note that the emphasis is mine.

Keeping your eyes on the ball - Part 2

I have already written about keeping your eyes on the ball in many articles, especially with “Keeping your eyes on the ball”. Why am I bringing this subject again? Everybody knows that you should keep your eyes on the ball. So why again today? Because we have one of the “best” example of what happens when you don't keep your eyes on the ball.

President Obama. He has very important things that he needs to concentrate on. He doesn't seem to get it. This morning it was the Olympics for Chicago, the afternoon he “deals” with Afghanistan and the evening with health care.

Lawyers & Contracts

Every time I take a photo, every time I make a photo, I deal in intellectual property, IP. When I make the photo of somebody, there is often a model release involved. When I make photos of … there are often copyrights involved. When photographers sell their photos in one form or another, from print to digital, there's usually a contract involved. The contract is either from the buyer or from the seller. Large organizations usually have a contract ready for the photographers, and it's usually a take it or leave it. Most of the times, it involves you, the photographer, being liable for their misuses or any other screwup with your photos.

As a photographer selling “retail” to individual customers, I usually get the customer to agree to my contract where I try to keep all my rights, limit my liabilities…

Yahoo is currently³⁸ laying off thousands of employees. How do you do layoffs? Yahoos has come with top secret guidelines, that are published in Valley Wag and Alley Insider.

Here is the one I really like, because it's useful to us the photographers. We rarely lay off employees, but many of my customers are laying off their employees, not fun. This applies to me to:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

When I negotiate rights or prices, I always:

1. Listen
2. Slow down the negotiation

Liability Insurance

What's that got to do with me? You are walking down the street, photographing a brand new fire hydrant; somebody turns around, looks at you taking your photos, falls on the street and gets hit by a car. You didn't touch the person, you didn't push the person or you didn't even take a photo of that person. You still get sued by the insurance company of the driver and by the person injured³⁹, because:

1. You are a photographer.

Long Term Relationship

I hate it. I really hate that expression. When I hear this expression, I know that it's time to get my gun, my dog, the beef jerky and run for the hills. They are trying to “screw” me.

I just had this conversation this afternoon. They want the photos, they want them hi-res, they want to publish them and they want the copyrights.

Lost Photos

Wednesday morning, 7:15am, I just came back from walking my dog, and got a panicked phone call from "Hank"⁴⁰. He can't find the CF⁴¹ cards from last night's reception. We were both at the reception and he was the photographer, I was just a simple guest. Luckily it wasn't me.

Lots of Visitors, Low Sales

I get a lot of emails, over a thousand emails per day. The majority is spam, and I have an extremely effective anti-spam system that cuts out at least 99% of the spam. But from time to time, I receive emails asking for help. Here's a recent one from Kathy:

I couldn't resist today's What The Duck

Loving It Is Enough

I just had a phone call from somebody wanting to "dicker" with my prices. If I lowered my prices, he would recommend me to his friends. After a few minutes, I basically ended up saying:

Make Your Own Luck

Stock photography is a numbers' game. The more photos you have in stock libraries, the better your luck. Or is it?

Meeting Canceled

For the 3rd time in a row, I just had a meeting canceled and rescheduled. This is not a new customer, it's one of my regular, and I realize that it's August, vacation time, but now it's been already 2½ month and we are talking end of August for the next meeting.

What's the problem? In the spring, the owner wanted some updates for their brochures. We just need to have a meeting with the owner, the general manager and the sales manager to discuss the existing brochure and how to improve it. No problem. The spring turns into summer and now the owner is semi-retired. I'm not sure if this is the sales manager or the general manager that's afraid of changing anything, rocking the boat, now that John is semi-retired but it's delay after delay and emails after emails.

Money Back Guarantees

Seven weeks ago, GM, yes that one the bankrupt trying to get revived, announced in North America, Canada and the US a 60 days money back guarantee on Chevrolets⁴², Cadillacs and Buicks. I don't know if they have the same program in other countries. You can drive the car, the SUV or the cross-over for 60 days and up to 4000 miles or 6400 kilometers.

What large companies do when they offer an expensive guarantee such as money back guarantee on expensive items or good weather guarantee? They buy insurance from an insurance company, and it's cheaper than I thought.

Moo Business Cards

Last week I ordered 50 Moo business cards. By the time the shipping was included it was $30. $30 for 50 cards, that's $0.60 per business card. Wow, expensive. Kind of.

The moo cards allow you to upload photos, as many photos as you want, up to the total number of business cards. This means custom business cards. I went to my local printer, he can't do that, but he could farm it out and it would cost me around $8 per card! Now 60 cents per card is not that expensive.

Whenever I need to negotiate with a "soon to be customer" (I hope she will become a customer) and she asks for a discount or for... I don't like to give discounts. So usually, I come up with something else, but it's never the price she wanted. If this is not handled properly, she will go somewhere else. I usually present my alternative as:

The New Year is coming soon, meaning that the existing year is ending (duh!). It's a good time to pause and reassess the situation. For me, as a photographer, many things have changed this year. I have 2 groups of customers:

1. Corporate
2. Private

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Summer is here, times are slow, so I use this time to see friends, acquaintances, renew networks. This week I had coffee with Georges, it's a French Georges with an s. He recently did a favour to a friend, Tracy, by offering her to do a photo shoot for free. Tracy needed some samples for her portfolio, times were slow, and she's a very good friend. Did I say that the photo shoot was free? The photo shoot went well and Tracy was very happy with the photos, she paid the actual cost of the 3 prints for her book.

Last week, George got a phone call from Tracy and she was ecstatic. When she was doing rounds, showing a portfolio, a local publication wanted to use one of her photo for their calendar, and they will need the raw file.

Not Even In The League

Everybody, and their dog, thinks that a camera's all they need to get into the business of photography. On average, I spend about $6000 Canadian per year on equipment: that's camera updates, accessories, computers, software upgrades… I'm chicken feed, a small potato. Rod Mar wrote, on the PhotoShelter Blog, an article about doing Football photography. That's American Football for everybody else, because what the North American are calling soccer is football for everybody else in the world⁴³.

It's a very interesting article, but at the end of the article Rod Mar list his equipment:

The other week, I was at a nice reception as a "plain" guest. We were all well dress, no tuxedo but half of the people suits and the other half with nice casuals. There was a photographer with 2 Canon 1D Mk3 cameras with an assistant holding a wireless flash with a small Lumiquest softbox. Too bad it wasn't me doing the reception. The photographer was dressed in jeans with a smart-ass t-shirt and runners.

He was in everybody's face, interrupting people, rearranging everybody by pushing and shoving people with his assistant. Worst of all, this guy was a very loud and obnoxious. Every third word was either:

In the 1970s, there was a TV show called Colombo, a Los Angeles police inspector in the homicide section. He would keep asking question and whenever he was just about to leave, by the door, he would say:

What if you only had one customer? Basically you are an employee without a regular paycheck. In my country, Canada, the Income Tax people⁴⁴ will deem you to be an employee⁴⁵ and therefore your employer has to collect taxes, unemployment and all the other payroll deductions.

So if you had only one customer?

Photography can be either a business or a hobby. If you are reading this website, it's because you are already operating a photographic business or want to become a photographic business. All businesses have customers.

To put more simply: No customer = No business. If you have customers, you will need to charge for your photos.

Paparazzi: photographers that take candid photos of celebrities. They usually do it through following, ambushing, and stalking the celebrity. Many celebrities share their schedules with the paparazzi so they can raise their profile in the media.

There various surveys, but these surveys are from photographers that volunteer for these surveys. The average income of a paparazzi is around $100,000 per year with the possibility of getting the shot that will make them a million dollar. Good paparazzi earn around $250,000 per year with the possibility of getting the shot that will make them a million dollar.

Today's Monday 16-May-2009. I'm writing this article now, and will publish it soon. So what's special about this Monday? In Canada, it's a statutory holiday, it's Victoria day, in remembrance of Queen Victoria. One of my neighbor had a leak, not a leak but a geyser. I had to help to find and close her water main. Edith had to call a plumber to repair the water pipe while we helped with the soaking up some of the water. Edith asked if I knew a good plumber, I did, but he was away for the weekend. So Edith called the "big plumbers" from the yellow pages.

1. The first one charged $275 per hour with a minimum of 2 hours.
2. The second one charged only $250 for the first 1/2 hour, then $250 per hour.

If you are a professional photographer, you must have a website. No if, then or but. You need to have a website. You may not sell photos or prints from your website, actually most unlikely, but you need to have a presence. Your existing customers, your potential customers will go and see your website.

If you don't have a website, your customers and potential customers will be asking themselves why. Just like if you don't have a business card, why don't you have one?. Is this guy or gal a "fly by night" photographer?

Every year Photo District News does a survey of wedding photographers. The 2009 survey is at: PDN's 2009 Photography Wedding Business Survey Results. It does yield some interesting results that I think apply to most "retail" photography: weddings, portraits, children...

1. Fewer bookings with a 6.5 percent drop in wedding photography income with a few less hours per week on wedding photography work.
2. Wedding photographers who offer a la carte services have raised their prices by 1½%. The wedding photographers who offer packages have raised their prices by 3%. The most interesting part of it is:

Photos: Facebook Size

Many people want to display photos on their blog, on the the Internet. As a customer, the user of the photo, I want the photo to biggest size possible. As a photographer, the producer of the photo and the seller of the photo, I want the photo to be as small as possible.

As a professional photographer, I need to show photos on my websites. As a professional photographer, I don't want them stolen by somebody for their own website without me getting paid.

Pissing Match

Photography is the intersection of technology and art. Painting started on the walls of caves. Music started with the voice. Sculpture with made with stones. All these arts do not need technology. Photography does. We need some kind of media to record and some kind of optics to direct the light. So there is no photo without technology.

There are millions of forums on the Internet, there are a few big forums that are dedicated to photography, the biggest ones are:

I am on one of those credit card reward program that is tied to an airline company. To be part of it, I had to give them my name, my address, my email, my first-born, my dog and my dog. So every month, they send me a promo email. Part of that email is a statement of how many points I have. According to the email, I am missing over 5,000 points!

At the top of that email, it says:

We all have policies for customers. Do they actually make sense? When was the last time you checked? Even some of the biggest names don't even know what they are doing.

Dilbert.com is one of busiest website on the Internet, it is ranked in the top 5,000 by :Alexa. But somebody did not think about it's term of use:

Pricing Don't Explain

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

This is for a corporate magazine or for internal use of a stock photo.

There are some photographers that are extremely successful, some are moderately successful. Some photographers even earn a good living from being a professional photographer. What's the common thread between all of these photographers?

People! How they interact with people. The number one skill to master to become a professional photographer: people skills. Wedding, portraits, fashion, advertising, photo journalist, paparazzi, travel, food⁴⁶, corporate, industrial... all of them require you to deal with people at some point during you job. Note that these times, where you have to interact with people as a photographers, are the critical times to being a professional photographer and earning a living from professional photography.

The main goal of a photo business, as a matter of fact all businesses, is to make a profit. It's not me who says so. In Canada, CRA⁴⁷ aka the income tax police, has made the decision for me:

You can only operate a photography business, any business, for 3 years, if you are loosing money! After 3 years, the business must start to turn a profit or break-even. If the business does not at least break even, then it's not a "real business"⁴⁸. CRA will reclassify your photo business as a hobby. Converting your business to a hobby means that CRA will disallow all of your expenses and reassess retroactively your taxes and penalties…

What's a proofsheet? It's usually an 8x10 print with 8, 12 or 16 photos. Some photographers, that don't want to earn a good living, use them to show their clients⁴⁹ their photos to select which photo they want printed as an 8x10, 11x14 print or even as a 16x20 print.

It doesn't work! A non professional can't imagine what a 11x14 print will look like from a 2x3" photo on a proofsheet. If you want to sell 11x14 prints, show them 11x14 prints, at least one. If you want to sell 16x20 prints, show them 16x20 prints. It doesn't have to be their⁵⁰ photos, but show them what it would look like. How do you expect somebody to see a 2x3" photo and know what it will look as a 16x20" print?

I just met with a friend of a friend. The project will take about 2 weeks with 3 days for the photo shoot. We met, we spoke, I think that I understand what she needs, I emailed the bid and now what? Do you just sit tight and wait for their answer? I can't!

1. I have to pay the mortgage.
2. I have to feed the dog.

Questions for 2010

This is already January 2010. Photography is a tough business, prices are going down, competition is growing and the market is expanding significantly. To be ready to get a good piece of the pie, here are 3 questions that will shape your year in the business of photography.

1. What are you promising?

• Scalped tickets at the concert cost more than tickets ordered month ago.
• Airport food is so not only more expensive than any other place in town and the quality is...
• Out of town towing is always very expensive.

The recession is biting, and the photography business is hurting. Photographers are not immune to the general economics. "The Boss", aka SWMO⁵¹ is looking to buy new appliances, she walks out of the store if she can't even get a 20% discount! And I'm looking at raising my prices.

The only purpose of cutting prices is to be cheaper than the competitor to grab their customers. So let's make a leading promotion of $25 for the portrait session to grab market share. The $25 portrait session will include:

Every photo business must have customers, or it's not a business⁵². To grow, you will either have to sell more to those existing photo customers or find brand new customers. The recession will make it easier to grow. Why? Because many photographers will not stick around, and more people will be asking their brother-in-law to take their photos, and will have been severely disappointed.

• How easy is it to contact your existing customers?
• How easy is it to get referrals from your existing customers?

Read The Darn Contract

I used to do construction photography. I had a few customers. I was well paid and had very little competition. That was before the recession. All of my customers either closed, went bankrupt, or are doing nothing at all. Last week, I got a phone call from Cherryl. Cherryl used to work at a large firm, that owns a big patch of land. That firm was a customer and was developing the land by building offices/high tech buildings as needed.

Now Cherryl works at another construction company. That construction company is very special, it's still working and building 2 towers. My usual terms are 33% to start, 33% on delivery and the rest usually 30 or 60 days later, but they must pay before they have the right to use the photos. I know Cherryl quite well, but this is a new customer for me, so when they emailed me their contract, I read it carefully. Buried in the contract, on page 3 in the terms, I found:

Everywhere you read or anybody you talk to always say:

Religion

I have known Danny⁵³ for years, we often bump into each other. He's a good photographer, but business is not what it should be. He always complains about how bad business is, then he always asks, if am too busy, that I send him some customers. I have not. I have recommended a few other photographers but never Danny. Why? Because he wears his religion on his sleeves, he makes everybody uncomfortable with it.

1. I can't remember a conversation where he didn't quote the bible.

Joe M. died last year at the age of 77. I am not here to tell you how good of a man he was, that he was a good father, a very good husband and so on. As a matter of fact, I only knew him professionally. He worked for 27 years for the RCMP⁵⁴ as a crime scene photographer.

When he retired, he decided to do a couple dozen of weddings per year to keep him busy and have some extra income. This was a complete "flop", it didn't work, and weddings were so different from working with other cops that...

Retouching vs. Enhanced

• Are you saying: "All our photos are retouched with Photoshop."?

Or

• Are you saying: "We use Photoshop to retouch your photos."?

Returning Phone Calls

Last month I got a call from Junique, never heard off her before, 2 phones and 3 emails later, I got this small but interesting job, photographing her in the South Shore of False Creek in Vancouver, BC.

After the photos were delivered, I was chatting with Junique as why she used my services, since it was not my specialty.

Revisiting the $100 Wedding

Here is the link to the original entry: $100 Wedding

Sitting on the side of a curvy road, take photos of cars and motorcycles as they pass by. Can you believe that not only you can make a full time living but also employ a few more people. This is exactly what Darryl Cannon of Killboy and his blog: Killboy Blog is doing. By the Smoky Mountain National Park between Tennessee and North Carolina, there a famous road, the "Dragon". People travel hundreds and thousands of kilometers to drive the "Dragon". Darryl and his people park their cars on the side of a nice spot and take their photos.

And now for the important question: How do they sell the photos? Their cars have the website name painted in huge on the side. People go to their website to buy prints of their riding. This is nothing new; this was done for decades with river rafting. Except that the photos done, with the river rafting, were done in conjunction with the river rafting company. What attraction exists in your area?

Rolex Watches

What's Rolex watches to do with professional photography? Actually, plenty. We have a lot to learn from Rolex. Rolex sells watches, not just watches, expensive watches and extremely expensive watches for as much as five hundred thousand dollars. Rolex official retailers are reporting good sales. In spite of the worldwide recession, 2008 has been the best year ever for the luxury watch industry, Rolex, Cartier, Patek Philippe, Breitling, Panerai… 2009 looks like another great year of the luxury watch industry.

Rolex sponsors many high-end sports tournaments like yachting and tennis. As a sponsor of Wimbledon Tennis, Allen Brill, President of Rolex Watch, US was attending the men's final when asked:

I work hard. Not only I work hard, but I try my best to keep my photo customers satisfied. Why? Because a satisfied customer = $$$$. A satisfied customer will refer me to their family/friends. It's not a theoretical, it happens. It happens to me on regular basis, a couple of photo jobs with referred customers every 3 month. This means an extra $500 to $2000 every 3 month.

I work hard at keeping my photo customers happy. Since I am already doing the hard work, why not offer them the satisfaction guaranteed? My guarantee is: 110% money back satisfaction guarantee. You are satisfied or not only you get your money back but more. I never had anybody collect on my satisfaction guarantee.

School of Stock

Every stock photographer always asks the question:

If you are operating a photographic business, you must have clients. It's very simple, No client = No business then you would be operating a photographic hobby. If you want to sell more, there are only 2 solutions and that's it:

1. Sell more to your existing customers.
2. Find new customers while keeping your existing customers⁵⁵.

Selling A Commodity

Do you need to lower your price? or do you need to increase your value?

People don't want to pay your prices? Are you delivering enough value for those prices? You are selling a commodity because you do not provide enough value.

It does not matter what you sell, people will only buy if they have a problem. It does not matter if you are selling photos, coffee, cars or food. Food is easier, people get hungry and need to eat. Coffee is different, it's a luxury, as Starbucks is finding out⁵⁶, when people realize that they have bigger problems than wanting to buy a "good" coffee.

Everybody's dream is to have Google show their website as #1 when somebody asks for photography and they'll be rich, beyond belief. Now everybody and their dog⁵⁷ claims to be an SEO expert.

Set Your Hourly Rate Where You Really Want It

Setting Prices

How do you set prices? Setting prices is one of the most complicated part of the business of being a photographer. You only have 3 choices:

1. Charge for your time: either on an hourly basis, half day rate, the photo session...

Show Yourself As A Professional

I was at a reception, taking photos of the guests, and suddenly this guy⁵⁸ turns around with 2 Canon 1DMk3 cameras around the neck, a monster flashes and L lenses: $20,000 hanging around his neck. He had more gear than me⁵⁹. I think he said he was the cousin of the master of ceremony, not that I actually listened to him. I'm the "professional", he's the "jerk" who followed me around, and whatever I did, he always said:

Can you shut up? It's actually very hard, but it's a skill worth learning.

A regular customer asked me to return a 8.5 by 11 inch canvas print. She wanted another photo on a 16 by 20 inch canvas print. She asked if I would give her a credit for the smaller one.

Most people are creatures of habit. When we found something that works for us, we keep on doing it. I was speaking last year with Wayne Kaulbach of Skylight Images. He specializes in portraits, high-end portraits, and expensive portraits.

During the conversation, I asked him how he gets new customers:

How narrowly can you slice and dice your photo specialty? Apparently, extremely fine. Have you ever heard of Park City, Utah? I have not, but David Kirkland, a Park City photographer, earns a good living by licensing his stock photos of Park City, Utah.

I do not mean to be impolite or belittle the people of Park City, but living only a few hundred miles from there, I have never heard of Park City, Utah.

Small and Medium Businesses

Large corporations spend hundreds of thousands to do market research. Often they release them to the public. This is what Getty did in the UK for iStockphoto.

Tickbox.Net did the following study in the UK for iStockphoto/Getty and Octopus Communication released the following press release on 12-Jun-2008.

Would you prefer to be smart or be lucky? Personally, I'd rather be lucky than smart. If you are lucky, you can always hire somebody that's smart.

A few decades ago, the previous century, it was the previous millennium, when I came to Canada, I tried to meet with Pat H., a senior managing editor. I spent 6 weeks, trying to get that appointment. After contacting the man who saw the man, who saw the bear, I finally got my appointment. Pinni and I went to the meeting, it was with somebody else! Pat couldn't make it; his wife delivered their second baby just the day before. So we met with Dan S. Dan was a consultant that assisted Pat. We got the job and 2 month later, we were done.

I was looking at a website that offers what looked very interesting workshops. It looked very interesting, so I clicked on the workshop link. Here is what was on the page word for word:

In 2004, the Detroit Big 3 automakers⁶⁰ more commonly known as the domestics, spent $24 billion⁶¹ in advertising in the "mainstream media". The same "mainstream media" has been panning the US cars manufacturers, and swooning over the imports⁶² and how much better they were. 3 years later, in 2007, the same Big 3 only spent $15 billion dollars in advertising in the "mainstream media". On top of that, newspapers took a $131 million⁶³ hit in the first quarter of 2008 as dealers have pulled back on full and half-page ads because of slow sales and limited cash flow.

And now, you have the mainstream media loosing money left, right and center, laying off staff⁶⁴, including photographers.

On 10-Nov-2008, Starbucks announced that:

Stop Wasting Time — Part 2

I wrote earlier in Stop Wasting Time about not keeping your hopes up when somebody is only "fishing" for information. Here a couple more sure fire sentences that indicate that they are wasting your time.

I rarely print, I'd rather use a professional lab, but I needed to do a few small prints, so I went buy new ink. In Vancouver, BC, Canada: $39.95 per cartridge for a cartridge with 55ml of ink. That's $726.90 per liter or $2733.75 per US gallon or $3300.13 per imperial gallon. In my case, I estimate that I lose 50% of the ink due to nozzle cleanup... so my costs are doubled⁶⁵. Ink is so precious that I should keep it in a safe.

It's more expensive than the price of an ounce of gold. Gold is a finite good. Nobody makes it anymore. There's only what's inside the earth and that's it. Ink is a manufactured good. Ink is unlimited.

The law of supply and demand is what has governed the world for the last 75 years. You can argue whether it's good or bad, but as photographic businesses we are all governed by the law of supply and demand.

Do you take photos? or do you make photos?

There's a huge difference in the quality of my photos, in my fulfillment. It turns out that there is also a huge difference in the business of photography. If you take photos, you will also wait for the phone to ring, you will also wait for the email to arrive and you will wait for the customer to walk through the door... You are waiting for other people and you will do their bidding. If you make photos, you will build your business by:

I hate it! I hate phoning/cold calls. I'd rather have my gums cut and the my teeth pulled than doing cold calls. When I have to do cold phone calls, I always find something else to do: I need expand that hard drive, reinstall that software....

On occasions, I have even convinced SWMBO⁶⁶ to do some phone calls for me.

You receive a phone call from somebody making inquiries about your photographic services. Great! Finally they call you, instead of you, cold, calling them. Now what? Do you answer their questions? How much do you talk? How much do you ask questions and listen? Do you give your prices? Answer: Yes, yes, yes and yes.

1. You should answer their questions as much as possible.
2. Part of your answer is to ask them more question, so they can describe their photographic want and you can understand better their photographic needs.

You got the assignment, you've delivered the photos, sent the invoice. Now you wait for payment. Before you start waiting for payment, the next day after delivering the photos I almost always send a handwritten card:

Thank You Note After Meeting

The meeting went well, they haven't decided yet. I have a good feeling, the presentation went well, and they seem to know what they wanted.

Now what? If I need to change the proposal that's OK. But if I need to sit tight and wait, I hate that. Patience is not my forte. Have they decided? What are they discussing? I can't push. But I can write a handwritten thank you note. I have a whole bunch of cards that say "Thank You".

The Check Is In The Mail - part 1

Last year, I did some shoots for this large company. I submitted the invoices and was being paid within a couple of weeks. This was for most of the 2007 summer. Interesting...

New manager comes in, it's the end of my work. I submit my last invoice and nothing!

At the bottom of all my invoices, I have the following:

The Check Is In The Mail - part 4

The payment is late, you phone your contact to inquire if there is a problem, and you are being told:

Vincent Laforet wrote a great article on June 2008 at sportshooter.com where he says there's plenty of blue sky above - and the possibilities are endless.

Vincent Laforet left voluntarily the New York Times, a union staff job to become independent. As he realized what he described in the "the cloud is falling" article, he is extremely successful. He is the guy behind the "reverie" video shot with the Canon 5D Mark2. Over 2 million downloads!

A few years ago, I was, at a customer of mine, roaming the warehouse. Then I went into the office to talk to the owner of the business. Nobody had an office, just a desk. The owner was talking to the manager about expanding and she said:

Actually this will be about the good and the bad only, but, I couldn't resist.

A few weeks ago, I bought a new Manfrotto ball head for my tripod. I bought it from a reputable camera dealer in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I checked the prices around, I was ready to buy from a local photo store in Vancouver, BC, Canada, but none of them had the model I wanted.

The Last 10 Years

The last 10 years have been the most momentous years of the whole 150 year history of photography. In January 2000, digital point and shoot camera were starting to come on its own. The Sony Mavica family had 1 and 2 megapixels and was a big hit. Kodak had a DCS digital back for the Nikon F5 camera with their 2 and 6 megapixels DCS series. Kodak also had a DCS digital back for the Canon EOS-1n. Almost all professional photographers were using film cameras. A few newsprint photojournalists were already using digital cameras so they could transmit their photos in black and white, but that was it.

The Kodachrome 64 was a fading king. The Ektar 160 was the bread and butter of the wedding photographers. Kodak was still huge but with the cheap Japanese point and shoot cameras coming at 1 and 2 megapxiels, it's power was starting to wane. Kodak could not control the photography market any more. Kodak use to be one of the Dow Jones Industrial 30s. It went from a 14 billion dollars company that dominated the photography world to a 7 billion dollar company that is mainly a health care supplier now.

She has looked at your photos, asked many questions and still no sale. She needs these photos, and she knows that she just needs to click on the "Buy Now" button and still no sale. Why? Where's the urgency? Why should I do to make them buy?

• Should I discount?
• Should I make bigger website?

Whenever I receive a inquiry either via phone or email for a photo shoot, I always ask:

Times are tough everywhere, even Hasselblad is feeling the punch. Hasselblad is feeling the heat from the latest batch of full frame cameras, especially at the "low-end"⁶⁷: the Canon 5DMk2, the Sony A900 and the Nikon D3x. So they came up will a couple of promotions.

1. "Special pricing" aka discount on their "low-end" H3DII-31, a 31 megapixels for US$13,000, until 30-Jun-2009.
2. "Buy Now and get the full credit for it" when you buy a new Hasselblad H3DII-50, before June 30, 2009, you will be able to upgrade to the even newer H3DII-60 the moment it's released for the difference in MSRP price.

Next weekend I will be going on assignment to Eastern Europe. On the side, I am planning on doing some stock photography, weather and time permitting. If you follow the various newsgroups, and some of the blogs related to stock photography, you will notice a huge amount of people complaining about their photos being rejected by the various stock agencies.

Photoshelter with their school of stock photography has published a couple of great article on why they accept and more importantly examples of photo they have rejected including the why of their rejection:

We all have policies for customers. Do they actually make sense? When was the last time you checked?

Comcast broadband

Comcast is one of the largest broadband Internet provider in the US. By using Comcast as your Internet service provider, you have to agree to:

I received an email asking for advice. I kept the important parts and removed the names.

Here is an email sent by Bill Gates, yes, the big kahuna of MS fame. This email is from 2003, but I feel that it still applies today. Bill Gates was recently asked about this email, if it was his, and he said "Yes, I send emails like this daily, it's my job⁶⁸."

Vancouver, BC, Canada is a small city of only 600,000 according to the 2006 stats but the region has almost 2 million people. There are 1243 registered photography businesses in the City of Vancouver itself. There is another 5194 registered photography businesses in the Lower Mainland, the suburbs. On top of that, there are at least another 5 million people that will take "commercial grade" photos of their aunts, nephews, brother-in-law, weddings,...

Unless you have a multi-million advertising budget⁶⁹, you will need to differentiate yourself.

If you want to grow your photography business, you will need new customers. Duh! What an obvious thing to say. It's obvious but too many people forget it. In marketing lingo:

1. Identify and reach the customers. Who are they? Demographics. Young, old, an income between $75,000 and $200,000, reside in... Can you reach your potential customers? Do you have the money to buy the advertising to reach these people. Will you phone them one by one? Will you send them emails or snail mail? Or they find you on the web?
2. Your potential customers must have a problem that they want to solve using your photos. It could be memories such as wedding, portraits or editorial to bring in advertisers to their publications. Your vision must be in close relation with their vision of their problem.

As I mentioned a few times, I live in Canada. For most times, Canada is a quiet place, without big fireworks. We've never had a civil war. There is even an official party, elected in Parliament, whose only official goal is to break up of the country. In any other country, their leaders would have been jailed, run over by an errand truck... Here, in Canada, we elect them to the Parliament. Some countries have "drive-by shooting", we have "drive-by nagging".

Currently⁷⁰ we have a minority government. The Conservatives⁷¹ form the minority government. The 3 other parties⁷² signed an accord to topple the government: Liberals, NDP, Bloc sign deal on proposed coalition. People were going to demonstrate in the streets of the major cities either in support of the government or in support of the opposition.

With millions of photos from iStock and Photobucket available for $1 how do you compete? Selling photos is a dying business, millions and millions of photos are available for free from Flickr the value of a photo is $0 [zero].

This is the story about how a tourist who was not interesting in buying a carpet, spent $1,100 buying a carpet and was very happy with the experience.

What The Duck: Work For Free

As usual, What The Duck recently had a great cartoon:

Attach:What-the-duck-work-for-free.gif Δ|What The Duck: Work For Free

Last summer, I was on a photo shoot, an expensive photo shoot, a construction move. The equipment rental was $15 000 per day⁷³! Plus all the people. The photo shoot did not work. The photos were terrible, what a disaster, for me, for the customer... Now what? Who do you blame? Somebody had to take the fall. We need to punish the guilty party, we need to find the scapegoat, and fire somebody, get somebody out of business. Part of the blame was mine, within the first hour I did realize that it wasn't going as planned. Part of the blame was the customer's, he was on site supervising.

Or we could ask:

I was looking around the web when I went to a UK photographer's web site. He claims that he specializes in:

• creative location
• lifestyle

Who Are Your Customers?

“Repeat a lie, long enough and it becomes true”. We've all heard that newspapers can't compete in an Internet world. The newspaper industry is dying, unless we give them bail-out money, kill all free Internet so they are privileged and don't have to compete.

Many newspapers and magazines are closing. David Radler, the ex-associate of Conrad Black and COO of Holinger Inc from Sun-Times fame, who served 8 month of a 29 month sentence for “diverting $32 millions from the shareholders into their pockets”, is currently owning 11 newspapers and is looking to buy more newspapers with his “Alberta Newspaper Group”, if he can raise the cash.

Who owns your photos?

You make photos, be it portraits, wedding, landscapes... You sell them, now who owns these photos? Simple, you took them and are not an employee of the company, you own them, right?

Lets change the subject from photos to software. We all bought software and you had to, you are using the computer to read this article. If you didn't pirate the software, then you bought it. Then you must have seen on the screen or on the software itself that you didn't buy the software but you only bought a license to use the software, you are not allowed to make copies... and you are not allowed to resell that software.

In today's world, almost every photographer has a website, even my dog has decided to be Internet savvy and put up his own website. In a fully unscientific research⁷⁴, I found that the vast majority of photographers use Flash.

I hate Flash, actually I retract, I strongly dislike Flash:

Occasionally I get a request for free images:

This month I received a phone call from a local charity. She wanted to use a couple of my photos. And BTW, since they are a charity they wanted it for free. They would mention my name and give me a tax receipt for my regular rates. I told them:

For some photographers, the recession is here, for all the other photographers, the recession is coming. You will need to get ready because your customers will be affected by it. How do you know if your customers will be crushed by the recession. Your customers will be in trouble when you hear any of these:

December, Xmas⁷⁶ and New Year is coming. Many suppliers send Xmas cards, food, candies, and chocolates to their customers. Should you do it? I used to give very elaborate Xmas cards, and cakes or custom chocolates. Used to, up to 2 years ago, now I have stopped.

2 years ago, I was at my largest customer, talking to the owner, John, when one of his supplier⁷⁷ brought a fully catered meal, including wine and beer! Guess what? They didn't remember my $125 trifle⁷⁸ for 30 people. It didn't matter what I did, I wasn't even on the radar. So why bother?

You'Ve Got To Be Kidding Me!

I regularly go Photography On The Net - The Business of Photography. The moderator got the following email: