The Citadel Summerall Guards

Summerall Guards as a Visual Example

My stepson went to The Citadel in Charleston, SC. We were very proud of him for making the elite Summerall Guards rifle team. Here is a description from The Citadel:

The Summerall Guards, a silent precision drill platoon from The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina, demonstrate The Citadel ideals of honor, integrity, loyalty, leadership, self-discipline and patriotism.

Consisting of 61 members, the Summerall Guards are first-class (senior) cadets who go through a rigorous physical training and initiation process and are chosen for their physical stamina and drill proficiency.

Membership is considered a high honor at the military college.

The team’s precision is fantastic; if just one person is slightly different, the unit looks terrible.

  

This understanding of the standards makes it difficult for parents to find their son or daughter.   

The rear Guide helps to lead the movements.

The leaders stand out at The Citadel. They have mastered the role all must play, but then have something special that separates them from leadership.

We enjoyed watching the Front Guide and Rear Guide for the Summerall Guards. You see what appears to be a solo dance, but the two are acting just like drum majors helping the unit keep time and step.

The same type of standards exists in photography. When you are not up to par, you stand out from the crowd as one making the mistakes. However, when you master the standards, you may be the one that is leading the field.

How to Charge the Best Rates

It comes down to how well you know your client. The better you know them, the chances are you have a good idea of what they really can afford. Unfortunately, today it is tough to obtain this information because vendors realize they are often a commodity and cannot afford to level the playing field.

Your work must be pretty high caliber to compete, but today you can be pretty awesome and still compete with many other vendors. Like the Summerall Guards are a group of elite students at The Citadel, there are still 61 of them. But, in that group, there are leaders.

Anytime you get a job based on your price, it is almost impossible to raise that rate. You also may get a job based on some pretty incredible work, but if the job you do for them doesn’t come up to the same standard as what your promotional material displayed, then you will not only lose future work, they will talk about you not in a good way. These comments will hurt your reputation with other clients.

The Summerall Guard not only will let themselves down by someone being out of step, but they also let down the whole school. The consistency of the performance has fans staying during halftime to see them perform.

The second thing you want to address is the overall experience with you. The experience includes your personality, your service, and those things that are hard to put into words but impact the client. Either you were disappointed, came in as professional, or exceeded expectations. Naturally, when you exceed expectations, they desire to have that experience again.

The third thing that will help you is your ability to be strategic. Strategic thinking is where you are thinking ahead of the client and able to anticipate their needs. You become like Steve Jobs. People don’t even know they need a tablet, but Steve Jobs saw how this could improve their lives.

If you can deliver on being strategic, and if you do it often enough, you too will have people lined up at your door whenever you come out with something new, like Apple.

As you can see, having pretty pictures will not cut it today without some business acumen.

You must know your market, your clients, and your client’s needs to command high or even reasonable rates today. If you see this content and understand photography, you will have confidence that customers will respond by treating you as the expert to help them.

The cadets at The Citadel learn to stand out for the right reasons. The top cadets are not the ones with the brass shined, just perfect and spit-shined shoes. They are well groomed, but when you encounter the leaders, how they carry themselves separates them from the others.

Can you look to your left and right and know you are in line with the profession? Do you know how to stand out that have your peers admiring you?

Remember, the Summerall Guard is 61 of the 2,250 cadets at The Citadel. They are only 2.7% of the student body. I would say that among professional photographers, 2.7% get reasonable rates.

Nelson Lalli, my stepson, is in the middle with his other friends from the Summerall Guards. On the left is Matt Spyzinsky and on the right is James Harrell.