In May 2002 these were in my camera bag. I had two Nikon F100 cameras and was shooting mostly with Provia 100F transparency film.

It has been ten years since I went full-time freelance. It is time to celebrate.

As I look back over these ten years I have made some really great decisions and not so great decisions.

Good Decisions Made

Digital Capture

Going digital from film was the best decision I could have made. The timing couldn’t have been better for me.

In 2001 the Nikon Digital Camera at the time cost about $15,000. In 2002 Nikon introduced the Nikon D100 in the $1,500 price range. The timing was perfect to jump into digital.  The cameras were rivaling the film of the day.

Back in 1993 I was using PhotoShop and scanning my images from film. This was very time consuming, but this helped me make the switch to digital capture enjoyable.

Even earlier in 1987 I bought my first computer and was active on CompuServe. I was enjoying bulletin boards before the World Wide Web which would take off in 1995 with Mosaic being introduced.

Laptop

As you can see I had already been using computers and digital imaging for many years before I went freelance full-time. 

November 10, 2002 in Mossy Grove in eastern Tennessee a tornado hit. I was called and asked to go and cover it the next day. On November 11, 2002 I bought my first laptop computer.

While I new how to download images and transmit them, covering that Tornado was the first time I was transmitting photos from the field.


Cell phone as modem

In August 2004 I was asked to cover hurricane Charley.  I would shoot images in the earlier morning at a location, jump in my car and edit those images. I then would transmit using my cell phone that was tethered to my laptop to transmit images. Since the computer just needed to run for a while, I would drive while it was in the passenger seat transmitting.

The client and newspapers all over the country were shocked that I was getting images out when telephone lines were down and power was out.  I was building my reputation as the guy who was able to use technology before my competition.

Today I shoot with the Nikon D4.

Continuous Upgrades

I have gone through a number of cameras since 2002. I shot the Nikon D100, Nikon D2x, Nikon D2Xs, Nikon D3, Nikon D3S and today I am shooting with a Nikon D4.  I did these upgrades to keep me giving my clients the best possible images I could produce technically.

I have upgraded software programs like PhotoShop, PhotoMechanic, Lightroom, Microsoft Office and more regularly.  Each time the improvements and performance more than paid off over time.

Switch from PC to Mac

For many years I was a PC guy. However, during these years I also helped many people with their Macs. From 1993 to 2002 I had Macs to work with and due to this knowledge I was helping organizations on the side as their IT guy.

Two years ago I had another PC laptop give me a lot of trouble.  I had learned I was loosing a lot of time trying to fix this, so I bought a new PC laptop with Windows 7 and it ran on i7 processor.  It was fast. Less than a few months later the laptop screen went blue.

While I had everything backed up, I could not get that new laptop to work completely after reformatting the drive and starting over. I lost two to three weeks of long days trying to make it work.

Dorie, my wife, gave me the best advice–go buy a Macbook Pro.  She had a Mac and knew I was spending more and more time fixing my computer and she rarely had to do anything with her computer.

It was the best decision I had made as far as computers. I knew I could buy a faster PC for about half the cost of a Mac and this is what kept me buying PCs.  I was saving money.

Dorie pointed out to me my time was money.  Lesson learned about how important my time was to our family and me.

My cell phone today. Motorola Razr Maxx. It lets me connect wireless to the web over 4G network in most places and lets me see my emails instantaneously.

Smart Phone

While on photo shoots in those first few years as a freelancer I would stop and take a break and check my email.  It would take about 3 to 5 minutes to start-up my laptop to check those emails.

I was starting to also see a shift in the expectancy of customers for you to respond to the emails being timelier.

The cost of a smart phone like the PC verses Mac was expensive.  The monthly financial commitment to the higher cost kept me from getting one for a long time.

Once again Dorie pointed out to me how important it was to get one for me. “It is a business decision,” she told me. It will help you make more money if you can respond quicker to job possibilities.

She was right–as always.

Today I use the Motorola Razr Maxx because it is the fastest phone on the market with the longest battery life. I charge it at night and when I plug it in at the end of the day it usually still has 60 – 70% of a charge left.  I am now able to connect my computer and iPad to the web using it’s 4G hotspot. I am able to connect in many places at a faster speed than my cable connection at home.

Spouse

The best decision I have ever made was marrying Dorie. Having a spouse who supports you as a freelance photographer is very important. Her father ran his own business and I think she learned a lot just growing up in a home of an entrepreneur. 

While I lost many nights of sleep worrying about how we will pay our bills, Dorie never doubted my abilities. She never told me to look for another job.

I have watched many of my friends whose largest obstacle for success is their spouse. Having a supportive partner can get you through just about anything.

Dorie is taken so if you don’t have a spouse, be sure you find someone who believes in you and can walk by faith. I believe God helped me find such a wonderful wife and mother to our children.


Bad decisions made

Lack of Faith

My number one mistake that I continue to make is thinking that I am in control of my destiny. No question if I don’t get up and work hard I will not succeed, but just because I do that does not guarantee success.

I really think it is my faith in God that has sustained me the most. I believe there is a God in control on the universe. I do not think we are all puppets either, but I do believe he works in peoples hearts and minds and due to this it is God who has helped me more than anything at all. My mistake is not acknowledging this daily.

Saving Pennies while Loosing Dollars

I grew up with a Irish and Scotch heritage. My parents watched every penny and I learned the value of a dollar from them.

My mistake has been that driving around town to find the cheapest gas can actually cost you more than you save. 

While I don’t have time to research expenditures made, I try to do my best to get the best value. My mistake has not to value my time as money. I believe outsourcing some of the things I do to those who can do it better or at least remove this from my plate is something I will be trying to do more in the future.

Staying with PCs too long

I most likely have lost months of my life working on my PCs trying to fix the registry and defragging my hard drives.  You see every program on a PC interacts with all the other programs through the registry.  I was using so many different programs and they ended up over time screwing up the computer.

My programs on my Mac do not interact through a registry like on the PC. They really don’t affect each other and therefore over time I am not having the same corruption problems I was having on my PC.

Slow to my competition as my colleagues

Today I try to get together with other photographers as often as I can. I not only like to hear what they are doing, I am willing to share a good amount of what I am doing. Of course if I have something that gives me a competitive advantage I am careful sharing this.

Today some of my photographer colleagues are some of my clients. They get too busy and call me to help them out. I too return the favor.

Today I enjoy working with more people I call my friends than any other point in my life. How did this happen?  I am now focusing on building relationships and this is how my business has grown.  Prior to learning this secret I was trying to build me up.

Thanks for reading and being apart of my celebrating ten years.

While this photo shows everyone in a room at a meeting and even an interesting angle, you need photos showing people being engaged.  This is a photo that is important to have. You need photos helping to show the size of the meeting and location. This helps establish how important this meeting is to the company.

If you were to calculate the cost of meetings it would shock most of us. Just how effective and important are these to your organization?

Meetings are important and help in business or they wouldn’t be done. However, if you are the one putting one on you quickly discover how important it is to get all you can out of the investment.

Photography is one of the best ways to help stretch your budget.

Training a sales force on how to use the iPad with their companies resources. This photo is helping show what was presented and who was presenting. Also, it is important that you capture a moment where you can see the presenter is enthusiastic about the material. Just a shot with the elements will not inspire people. This is a medium shot which is needed to help bring the reader into the content. If you have an iPad or iPhone you will quickly recognize iBooks. You might want to know why is this being taught at a meeting. This will inspire you to read more of the text.

Improve Retention of Content

You can have a photographer cover your event and then use the photos to help put the content online for the rest of your company. It also helps those who attended review what was covered and improve retention of the material.

This is a good example of what a photojournalist can capture for you during a meeting. They will help capture moments showing people are interested and engaged in the material. Here the two sales people are helping each other learn how to use the iPad. This photo also celebrates your employees. When your workforce sees that others are interested this helps using peer pressure to get them on board. If you let the photographer know which folks you would like to try and get photos of doing this, then they can try and capture it. As you know some people showing interest will have more impact than another.

This is a photo that not only shows audience participation, but the face expressions shows genuine interest in the topic. You see interaction from all in the photo. A person talking, people listening and even getting two people to turn towards the person to hear better.

Celebrate your people

When a photographer is pointing a camera towards your people in a meeting, they know this is important or the company wouldn’t have a photographer their. This is like the red carpet treatment for your employees.

People will sit up and pay more attention when they are on camera. They also get excited when they later see these photos in publications or online. This recognition can help them feel good about themselves and the company.

A good photographer is going to be aware of capturing these moments where people are engaged.

Having people look at the camera and smile is not the same as catching them in a real situation. This authentic moment will help communicate a message as well as authentically show them participating.

Having activities for the participants will help them retain information better than a pure lecture. These also translate into wonderful photo opportunities. Here the photographer is trying to capture the activity engaging the people.

Photographers will give you good detail shots as well as the personal interaction. This photo with the one above it will help talk about not just an activity, but what they company is now emphasizing. The detail shot in combination with the other photo now helps tell a more complete story.  It is a faster read than had you written text about it. Also, the text would have a difficult time explaining how interested the participants are in the content.

Its about relationships

Your photos will help do something that cannot be done with text as effectively. It helps show the relationships.

Before the meeting is even officially started, you can see relationships that communicate the family atmosphere for your company.

While you think the photos are just to communicate what happened at a meeting, this type of photograph is something a recruiter could use to show how much people like working with the company. I can see this and the photo above communicating how the company is a place where relationships are encouraged and to create a family atmosphere.

Too often companies focus on the wrong type of photos. Sure you may want photos of people receiving awards, but other than the person getting the award who else would really want the photo.

This is a typical awards photo that happens quickly on stage. These are good photos to make prints and give to the person receiving the award.

Too many companies use only these award photos in their publications after a meeting. Do you think having 30+ of these award photos really is the best use of photography or do you think the other photos above can help you more?  Why not make prints of all the award winners and give these to those in the photos?

You need both, but remember you can use photography to communicate and not just celebrate.

How to help your photographer

• What is the purpose of the photography? You need to be able to give a clear direction on why you need the photos.
• Who is the audience? A photographer needs to know the audience. Shooting for the media, your internal company people or to give photos to the award recipients makes a huge difference in approach.
• What medium will it be used in? If all the photos are going to be part of a video later, then the photographer will probably shoot more horizontals than verticals. This is true also if it is primarily being used on the web.
• Have someone assigned to the photographer. This is important for a new photographer working with you. They could benefit as to someone pointing out key people in a room. This person should not be a micro manager. Too much direction to a seasoned pro can actually stifle the creative process. They should help point out the key people that have been predetermined as important to the story.  That is the CEO and this is the major donor can help the photographer then capture a moment where they may be interacting very naturally. This is almost always a better photo than when they CEO call them up and they have an official moment on stage. Having a photographer who you use regularly and understands you should be something you are willing to pay a little more for, because you will be saving costs on someone with them all the time.
• When is your deadline? A photographer needs to know before the estimate is given when you expect the photos in your hand.
• What is the deliverable? Will the photographer give you a DVD of high resolution, low resolution or a combination? Are you wanting these delivered as an online gallery where you can order prints and/or download high to low resolution photos?
• What is the dress code? While most professionals will dress professionally, be sure they know this is a black tie event or if everyone is expected to wear jeans.  Sometimes you may require them to wear all black since you are having video crews shooting and having them in all black when they are near the stage will look better.
• Give them directions and time expectations. Be sure and provide parking close to the event. These photographers will be bringing tens of thousands of dollars of equipment.  For their safety and security be sure they are not walking blocks back to their car after an event. Let them know when you expect them to be onsite.  Do not assume they know you expect them an hour before the event starts onsite–tell them. 
• Give clear billing instructions. Be sure they know who is to get the invoice. If they need to provide a W-9 form to be paid, tell them to do so when they send the invoice. If there is a PO# required by accounts payable for them to be paid–get that to them right away.

Photographers should be capturing moments like this where the speakers are engaged on the topic and where the audience is also excited. Now the photographer cannot shoot what doesn’t exist, but few employees would not want to look engaged when a photographer is present.

Good meeting photography will not be all smiles. Here you can see this guy is thinking and engaged. I think the reason for most meetings is to give people new material. Showing the employees digesting the material is showing them engaged.

Did you hire the right photographer?

If you did not provide the information to the photographer and they don’t ask about those topics–it is a good clue you have a rookie or a clueless photographer.

When you get the photos you will also know if you got the right photographer. Do you see moments of people interacting with each other or only posed looking into the camera? If only posed–you hired the wrong photographer.

Hire a pro every once in a while, even if you shoot most meetings

Why would you hire a pro when you know how to take a photo? On the job training for one. I know many organizations that have so many meetings they cannot afford to hire a photographer all the time. Be careful not to never hire a photographer.

Try and hire a seasoned pro once in a while so you can learn from them. Your photography will improve when you see what they are doing.

Knolan Benfield in Hawaii with me helping teach posing to photography students with Youth With a Mission. (Photo by: Dennis Fahringer)

I don’t do all I do alone.  This is who I call my photo team.  They help me as assistants or when a client calls and I cannot do the job. This is who I call regularly.
 

Photo Assistants

Today I use photo assistants as much as possible. The reason, the client gets a much better product whenever I do.

Now I have posted various things on lighting for example that for the most part I have an assistant helping me with setting up photos and moving lights. I often joke about assistants as VALS. That stands for Voice Activated Light Stand.

One of my favorite photo assistants to use is my uncle Knolan Benfield. He taught me so much about this industry and he has such a great personality that he makes me much better when he is along.

You can see some of Knolan’s work on his website http://knolanbenfieldphotography.com/.  Knolan is also a writer in addition to being a photographer and sometimes my photo assistant.

Laura Deas is another one of my photo assistants. I met Laura when she was a nanny while going to school for photography. I was most impressed with her people skills and work ethic. This was before I ever saw her abilities as a photographer.

Being a photo assistant requires a lot of lifting of heavy bags. You might think that it is a man’s job, well I can tell you that Laura can out perform most any assistant I know.

One of the ways you first encounter her confidence is in her hand shake. It is amazing the confidence she exudes.

Laura shoots as well as a professional photographer. She does weddings, portraits, events and commercial. Here is her website http://www.lauradeasphotography.com.


More Photo Colleagues

Both Knolan Benfield and Laura Deas I call upon to do assignments when I cannot do them. It is quite common that a client will call me to do a job and due to another client already booking me I am not available.

I make it a priority to take care of my clients. I know most of the time better than they do who would be a good fit for a particular job. For the most part I go with someone who is near to them to help them out.

Robin Nelson is another photographer I like to call when I am unavailable. Robin and I have been both represented by Black Star agency in New York for more than 30 years. Whenever Ben Chapnick or before him Howard Chapnick needed someone in Atlanta one of us would get the call.

Robin has shot for all the major magazines you could think of and just about every other major media outlet. New York Times, Newsweek, Associated Press and the list could go on forever with Robin. He continues to get called back over and over for good reasons.

In my role as a consultant at Chick-fil-A for the past four years I have had to call freelancers to help us out. In corporate work how you handle yourself with people is far more important than the photos.

The first thing we want to know when we send a photographer somewhere is did everyone like them and would they like having them come again.

Second, we also need someone who can get the shot at the highest quality for the situation. This requires more people sensitivity. Sometimes using lights will be more distracting and cause undo attention. We need someone who can make it happen at the highest quality and looking for ways to always make it happen.

Here is a link to Robin’s website: http://www.assignmentatlanta.com/

Gary Chapman is another person I like to hire when I am unavailable or maybe he is the best photographer for the job.

Gary never takes on a job that he will not deliver back to you at the highest level in the industry. He is often asked to speak at photographers conferences around the world because his ability to talk about why he chooses to work a certain way.

Many photographers can shoot, few can articulate and teach photography. Gary has a lot of patience with teaching photographers how to use very complex software like PhotoShop and Lightroom.

This attention to detail is why he has made a living in stock photography for most of his career. His stock photography is conceptual and helps visualize concept that are popular in what is trending. This requires photographers to know what is trending. The best in this industry like Gary are the ones who can anticipate the trends and have images ready for when clients are looking for something to help illustrate a point.

Gary’s attention to detail shows not just in his photos but how he works with people. While many may think Gary is quite in conversations, he is actually thinking and wanting to join in. When he does it is like a flow of understanding people are so thrilled to hear. He cares not just about the topic, but how to discuss it with those he is in conversation with at that moment.  He is sensitive to moments and cultures.

This sensitivity is why he is sought after by companies and nonprofits that work around the world. Gary’s ability to capture moments is just as incredible as his ability to create them.

Gary is a humanitarian photographer, that uses photojournalism, documentary, portraits and even some of his stock style to help organizations tell their story effectively.

To see Gary’s work go here http://garyschapman.com/

What do all these photographers have in common?

Why do I use these photographers when there are many others out there to choose from? There are many out there that even they would say are better photographers than them.

However, the thing they have going for them is the way they treat people. Each one has a good reputation as treating people with honor, dignity and respect.

Things not to do as a photographer

Rather than telling you all the good things these photographers continue to do, let me list a few things that some of what I thought my colleagues have done and I no longer call them.

• Don’t try and take a client away from a photographer, when you got the job because that photographer referred you to the client. You may always say to the client if the photographer is busy I am more than willing to help out. 
• Don’t stick it to the client who is in a pinch and charge more than the photographer who recommended you.
• Don’t stick it to the photographer who recommended you and undercut their prices. Ask the photographer who is recommending you what they normally charge. Try to help them out. 
• Don’t assume the next time this client called they checked with the other photographer. Try your best to tactfully as possible to see if they checked with the other photographer. 

It is possible you are a better fit for the client than the other photographer. Call and tell the photographer that this client is calling you directly. You may want to turn down a job sometimes for the friendship that could come apart by taking the job.

My recommendation when a client calls like this is to be sure you are now more expensive than the other photographer.  If you are less, then this is a good indication of you getting the job for undercutting and not because you are a better fit–you are just cheap.

Do you have friends that you can refer work to over and over?

The key to being sure you have someone to call when you need help is to be that dependable person to others as well.

Knolan, Laura, Robin and Gary are all still very successful photographers. I think the reasons they are successful is the same reasons I want to hire them.

If you have photographer friends and they never call you to help them out, ask them who they use in a pinch and why. There is no need to confront them on why they don’t use you. It is valuable to see if they use anyone.  Maybe they never call anyone because they are not that busy.

However, if they do use someone other than you, this might help you take some time for introspection to see what you can do to be more desirable.

Four-star hotel in the Atlanta market.

Kemmons Wilson’s was on the cover of Time Magazine in June 1972. He was founder of Holiday Inn and they were successful with more than fourteen hundred locations all placed about a day’s drive from each other. They owned the three-star market of hotels.

Complacency

By the mid 1980s they had more competition on the bottom and top. More two-star offerings were popping up and the number of four and five-star hotels grew rapidly. What was happening to their market was it was now a commodity in their rating. It was becoming more difficult to fill their rooms with so much competition.

Basic room in Merida, Mexico that I stayed in.

If we are talking about just having a room to stay in and something just clean and reliable then we would be just a commodity and wondering how can we compete.

Hotels are part of the hospitality industry which is huge. While Holiday Inn was loosing ground other groups were expanding. In 1999, Hilton acquired Promus Hotel Corporation, which included the Doubletree, Red Lion, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, & Homewood Suites brands.

The brand name Holiday Inn is now owned by IHG. On 24 October 2007 IHG announced a worldwide relaunch of the Holiday Inn brand. The relaunch is “focused on delivering consistently best in class service and physical quality levels, including a redesigned welcome experience [and] signature bedding and bathroom products…“

Comparing our industry to hotels hopefully with help us realize what we need to do to be competitive.

Hotel Plaza in Merida, Mexico.

Sense of Ambiance

As you can see just from these photos of properties they give a sense ambiance unique to them. What the hotel chains have done is realize they need to know where they fit in the market and then how to leverage their place.

Today you will notice many chains have similar floor plans but the experience is so different. Hotel chains have launched different product lines. The lobbies have different colors and decorations. One industry that sprung up to meet the needs of hotels is the scent machine industry. They sell the hotels machines and aromas that help them create a distinct aroma which they hope you not only associate with them.

This concept of scent has been around a long time. The Catholic Church has, effectively, used brand fragrance on its ‘customers’ – one in six of the world’s population – for the last 2,000 years. Scent is very powerful and connected to ones emotions. In one test, altering a shampoo’s fragrance had a huge effect on how people rated its effectiveness, even though the product itself was otherwise unchanged.

Portillo’s in Chicago

Restaurants also are competitive

The restaurant industry too is overcrowded. There are places like Portillo’s in Chicago that are still thriving. Why? They have done a lot to make walking into their restaurant’s an experience and not just about the food alone.

Cafe´ 360 in Freehold, NJ. Cafe´ 360 has free internet access allowing you to surf the web while you sip one of their house brand coffees or while grabbing a bite to eat.

In 1983, Howard Schultz (Starbucks chairman, president and chief executive officer) traveled to Italy and became captivated with Italian coffee bars and the romance of the coffee experience. He had a vision to bring the Italian coffeehouse tradition back to the United States. A place for conversation and a sense of community. A third place between work and home.

Schultz help to create the third place between work and home with Starbucks. With now free Wi-fi and comfortable seating area, people have more to go to Starbucks than just a cup of coffee–they go for an experience.

Just consider lighting alone in restaurants and you can see how this can influence how you feel about a place. Just consider how lowering the lights and putting candles on a table take a restaurant from casual dining to fine dining.

Consider the use of linen for napkins rather than paper. Fresh flowers on a table can also add aroma to the experience.

I can remember when Mrs. Field’s cookies were first at the mall. I think the number one reason I bought their cookies at first was the smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies alone drew me to them.

Remarkable experiences 

The best form of advertising is word of mouth. This week I received Jeffery Gitomer’s newsletter and he addresses the power of the referral and how to get them. Just listen to him talk about getting referrals.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptEOjPbhC5Y]

What REMARKable Experience are you creating? 
You just went on vacation and you had a great time. You come into the office the next day and you can’t wait to tell some of your office workers about an experience. Does this sound familiar to you?

This is what you need to concentrate on with your customers. Can you create an experience around your product that has them talking about you?

Once you create something that helps distinguish you from all the others in your field be prepared for it to be copied. Your competition will discover what you do and then not only will they copy you they will try and do it better than you.

Let’s revisit Holiday Inn’s relaunch of their brand.

“focused on delivering consistently best in class service and physical quality levels, including a redesigned welcome experience [and] signature bedding and bathroom products…“

Afterburner consulting

http://www.hlntv.com/embed/8999
Afterburner consulting helped the Super Bowl Champions the Giants attain their victory, by helping them to concentrate on excellence. They helped them to focus on consistency rather than new plays. The Giants discovered that it was the consistency in their play that would help them win the Super Bowl.

If you are struggling now maybe you too became complacent like Holiday Inn. Maybe you need to find a way to create a niche´ like Howard Schultz did with Starbucks. But remember the key to all of their success was first by being consistent in their service.

Do you provide an experience that is remarkable?

Do you have an archiving system

http://www.google.com/reviews/polls/display/8163092177108161582/blogger_template/run_app?txtclr=%23666666&lnkclr=%232288bb&chrtclr=%232288bb&font=normal+normal+12px+Arimo&hideq=true&purl=https://picturestoryteller.com/Please take a moment and take the poll above, then check back in a day or so and see what others also checked. I predict that if everyone I know took this toll that more than half of all the companies would have no archiving searchable database for their photography.

Are you adding value to the company?

Take a moment and see if you can put your hands on the last couple of projects that you used photography. Where did you look?

Did you look in your top drawer of your desk? Did you go to someone and they pulled the Disc of images from their desk?

Maybe your office is really organized and they were in a project folder in the filing cabinet.

Historical Photos

Does your company have a place that all the historical photos of the company reside? Do you have copies of the ground breaking for the first building? Do you have the ribbon cutting photos from the grand opening? Do you have photos of the CEO and the board?

Back in the early 1980s Georgia Institute of Technology was planning their centennial celebration.  They wanted to do a coffee table book of all that had happened since 1885.

So they started digging for images. They were going everywhere and finding very little.  They didn’t have a central location for their images.  This sound familiar?

It was this process that led them to create a department that had photography. Up until then, most all the photos were from the students and an occasional freelancer hired by the school.

When I started with them some 10 years later, I was assigned the task to create a searchable computer database.  We used the Cumulus software and shared the images on our internal network.

IT Department Lost it all: TWICE!!

After about 5 years of scanning slides and negatives we had a disaster.  The IT department was in charge of the server and backing it up.  They backed it up on a tape system. Well that system was corrupted and we lost 5 years of work.

You see we had the original file and a backup.  You need three to be safe and they only had two.

We hired a new person that all they did for one year was to rescan and help us rebuild the database. 

Five years after that disaster the same thing happened again. My trust of IT departments was at an all time low.

Cost of online storage

All electronics have a life expectancy and do not last forever.  Today you can buy an external hard with 1TB of storage for around $100.  Using the formula that you need a minimum of 3 different places for a digital file to reside for it to be safe would mean you need to spend about $300 for three 1 TB hard drives. 

You can spend for just the storage alone from about $9 per month or $108 a year.  They do the backups for you.  So, for the price of a hard drive you can store all you need online for the same price as just 1 hard drive.

Click on this link [photo] and get $15 discount. I also get a small fee back to help support this blog.

Sharing on-line

The best solution today is to have not just your images stored on-line, but searchable on-line. I would highly recommend PhotoShelter for most companies and individuals. There are different levels of service. You can signup for an individual or corporate account.  The advantages of the corporate account is having many photographers, editors and more working all at the same time on the system. This is important on the back end where the posting the images to the system and organizing them takes place.

On the front end to those searching there is little difference between the two. You can give access to search your images based on three basic approaches. First, you may choose that anyone can see your photos or just you. Second, you can make it viewable by those with passwords or third they can see them by logging in with an email and a password just for that email. 

Now there are many variables of those basic three concepts of access to the photos.

Search is King

The best part of having an online presence is the ability of people to search your images. Of course the key is you must put text with each photo. We do this through metadata.  This is text that is buried in the image in code. Using software like Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Lightroom, PhotoMechanic and other photo editing software you can embed photos with caption, keywords, photographers name, company name and more.

Most likely today you are working with images that were shot on a digital camera which also puts searchable information on every image in the metadata as well. They put things like date, time, f/stop, shutter-speed and things like even GPS into the metadata.

PhotoShelter makes this simple to search giving you some fields to help narrow down the search like keywords, city it was shot in and is it model released or not.

When you find an image

What can you do once you find an image–that depends on how you set it up. You can make it that they can only see the image, can download a low res or high resolution images, or they can order things like prints or items like a coffee mug with the photo on it.

Reuse

The key to all this online storage is that now your images that you had paid to have created are not just accessible by you, but you can easily share them with the rest of your company or even the world. 

Every company and organization that I have worked with almost always says this is one of the hallmark services they now offer their organizations. Having all the images online helps them with using the material over and over.

They can now use the images: on their website more often, their social media, send access to the media to download images, to their employees to use in their presentations, and more places.

While the initial cost of hiring a photographer to shoot for your organization may seem costly, having this material used in more places to help promote your company makes the images worth a lot more to the brand.

One Use or Less

Are you using the photos one time that you hired a photographer to produce? What about all the similar shots that were not used. Do they go to waste or does your company use them in other places? 

Two things will happen if you choose to use an online system that is accessible to your people no matter where they are in the world as long as they have access to the web. First of all you will start to get phone calls and emails from more and more people asking for access to your database of photos. Second, you will get emails saying people are not finding photos.

I can’t find something

People will start to think that their are photographers shooting all the time for this database and surely there is a photo of something they need. You will soon be saying, no we don’t have that image in the database, no one has shot that.  Would you like to pay to have that done?  Maybe you have the budget and say we can get a photographer to shoot that for you.

The demand will go up and your value to the company will rise as well. Make your companies brand stronger by making images available.

This is my actual gross sales numbers from the time I started out full-time shooting freelance back in 2002.  I started in April of 2002.  My wife was working full-time and it wasn’t until about the second or third year I was making enough to fully support our family.

If starting a business with perfection is your dream then it will never happen.  It takes time to become successful.

Six to eighteen months

If you do everything right to market yourself, from your first contact to the first sale can take easily 6 to 18 months for you to close the deal and get paid.  This is why almost experts advise to have at least 6 months of money for living and business expenses on hand before venturing out.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter Announces Three Countries Left in Guinea Worm Eradication Campaign: Nigeria and Niger Honored as Most Recent Nations to Halt Disease Transmission.

Event photography

A client hires a photographer once a year for an event. They have a photographer booked for that event. You introduce yourself and they not only love your work but want to hire you.  They have already signed a photographer with a contract in place for this year.  That means that the earliest they can hire you is a year from the date of the event. If the event for this year is 6 months off then you can see how it is 18 months before you see any money from a perfectly executed presentation.

Kid Rock signs an album cover for Alisha Mullen of Point Pleasant, WV, at the Waffle House restaurant in Duluth, Georgia on Tuesday, March 11, 2008 for local non-profit charity, Nicholas House, Inc., a homeless Family shelter in Dekalb County.

Editorial Photography

You get a meeting with the editor and they love your work.  They expect you to have story ideas. Your ideas were just done by the magazine.  In this scenario it will most likely be 5 years before they do those stories again.  You now need time to come up with more stories.  This takes some time.  You did an almost perfect presentation–they like your work, but need some ideas as well.

They may add you to their list of freelancers. Most editors give those who have served them well first shot at assignments.  Until this photographer or photographers are booked they will not be calling.  However, if they think your style is a better fit for an assignment they will call.

Sports photography has changed more for me than any other segment in my business.

Industry changes

One of the biggest changes for me has been sports. When I started to freelance I had numerous teams that would call and have me cover their games.

Today those same people are having parents and alumni calling them up to shoot on the sidelines. The difference is today’s cameras will let anyone get sharp in focus and well exposed photos. These photographers all have other jobs that allow them the resources to buy they latest cameras and lenses to cover the game.

Most of them started shooting their kids playing sports through high school and then realized they would like to stand on the sidelines of college and pro games.

While most of their photos are not on the same level as Sports Illustrated, they are good enough that for the price of “free” the sports information directors of the teams will use them and help save their club money.

While I depended heavily on sports when I started out freelancing full-time I have had to grow other parts of the business to make up for this which actually plummeted in sales volume.

Change in management

You have a great meeting with a client and then when you check back with them in a month or so about some possibilities you find they either were promoted or moved to another company.  Either way they no longer hire photographers. You have to start over with the new person that replaced them.  You loose a few months just figuring out all the changes.

Monthly I send out an eNewsletter. Each month I have numerous emails that did not go through because of changes of employment. Many of my contacts have changed companies. This is very common with agencies. It is easier for a person to go from agency to agency and increase their income than it is for them to stay with one agency and get the same increase in salary over time.

While many people are moving around in order to move up, recently many of the emails I had returned were agencies failing and going out of business. 

Recession and budget cuts

The company you have been in talks with about a project has frozen their money and have decided not to do any new projects and any projects not already started are killed. You did everything right, they just now do not have the funds to pay you for projects.  You decide not to walk away completely, because they may start back in the near future.

You were again successful in your marketing, but things beyond your control continue to happen.

Experience (the unmentionables)

You are a big risk when you first start out in this business.  Your first job is a major risk to the client.  You have no track record and they have no way of knowing if you can do what you say and if you will deliver on time.

Think of it this way, would you have bought a Kia or Hyundai when they were first on the market?  Would you have been like many people and decided to go with something more reliable like a Toyota or a Honda?

It is difficult at first not because of how good your work is or your ability to meet your obligations, but people’s careers are on the line if you don’t deliver.

How long you are in business affects how much more business you can get.

For a long time it was said that 50 percent of businesses fail in the first year and that 90-95 percent were gone by the fifth year. Good news those are not the real numbers being reported now. According to the SBA, about two-thirds, or 66 percent last past the first two years, leaving only a third of businesses that fail within these two years. Extended to four years, the number of surviving businesses decreases to only 44 percent, meaning that about 56 percent of businesses fail at the five-year mark, a far cry from the 90 to 95 percent previously claimed. http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5212542_many-businesses-fail-first-year_.html

For my business I can point to a few points where I could feel the difference in the response to my marketing.

Since I had been working on a staff as a photographer, when I went full-time freelancing many of these clients used me right away. They knew me and trusted my work. However, for the most part all the new clients while impressed with my work were not jumping at using me.

This was a time when I had a hard time sleeping at night. I was constantly worried about paying my bills and I believe this stress is noticeable to clients and potential clients.

I could honestly say there was a change in attitude about the second year. My postcards had been going to these potential customers now for two years. They were getting my eNewsletters and occasional phone call from me now for a while. I was a known photographer and was more established.

This is when I became more comfortable with freelancing. I was sleeping more than I did the first five years. I was not as worried about the jobs coming in. I felt like I was in the flow of things.

Funny thing is that this was true for me when I was on staff. I always remember that around year five I was confident and those around me treated me as a senior employee and not the new kid anymore.

This confidence is what I think helped me get bigger clients.

Tony Messano created my first logo that I started to use in 2001.

Year Seven

They say to most store front photographers that at year seven you most likely have enough presence in the market that you could now move your place of business and your clients would follow.  Earlier than this you risk much more and most likely will be starting over.

I was now being asked to speak more often at industry events and to my colleagues. This was when I knew I was doing something right, because I was getting phone calls from so many wanting to be photographers.

Tony Messano designed this logo for me my seven year being a full-time freelancer

Tony Messano, a creative director friend of mine, recommended I change my logo. He had designed my first one and thought I needed a new one.

He recommended a bolder font to reflect the confidence he was seeing in me.  I think Tony was right, I felt so much better than I did when I started.

Looking back over all these years I am amazed out how blessed my family and business has become. When I started out we were in debt and I went further in debt to buy some equipment.  I don’t recommend doing this, but we had no choice. I didn’t plan to start in 2002 freelancing, I lost my job and had to do something.

Freelancing full-time isn’t for everyone. There are major risks you must take. Not knowing from day to day what you are doing can be very stressful. 

While I did everything I knew and worked very hard to get where I am today–I know that everyone of my clients had other choices. There are many better photographers than me in the market place.

I see much of where I am today as a divine thing. I don’t think I could have done nothing and God would have made it all happen for me, but I don’t think I did it alone with out God.

I frankly would have jumped off the cliff long ago had it not been for my faith. I also had an incredible support system. My number one support comes from my wife Dorie. Her father was an entrepreneur.  She grew up in this lifestyle, I had not. Dorie new things would be fine when I had no confidence we would be paying our bills the next day.

Today the business is still growing. We are debt free except for a mortgage payment for our house.

While I grew up going to church every Sunday and even went to seminary later in my life, it is freelancing full-time that made me grow in my walk with God. I could not think of nor looking back can I see much more that I could have done to be successful. I was frankly working very hard.

For me my faith played a very huge part. I believe it helped to give me hope. I know it helped in keeping my sanity. I drew a lot of strength from biblical characters like Jacob who overcame many adversities.

Just like you would give a presentation at a meeting, put similar effort and thought into your estimate sales pitch.  You may write it in an email rather than having face time with the client, so do your best to persuade them.

In our talks to THE BUSINESS OF VISUAL JOURNALISM WORKSHOP held at the Grady School of Journalism on the campus of University of Georgia, both Allen Murabayashi, CEO and co-founder of PhotoShelter, and I talked about converting people at each stage of the “Marketing Funnel.”

Move people down the marketing funnel.

If you create enough interest someone will call you for an estimate at some time.

You want to close a deal.  You have worked on your estimate and you are ready to give them the estimate. 

You quickly put together an email and send them the attached estimate. 

A couple days later you find out you lost the job to another photographer.

This may go on for a while for many photographers. They inquire as to what was the difference in their estimate and other photographers.  They generally find out one of two things—they lost the job to someone who was less expensive or they loose out to someone who was more expensive.

I have a few suggestions for you if you are finding yourself in this predicament.

Just like you would do in someone’s presentation, standup and ask your question to clarify the message.

What is the need?

How well did you listen to the client? This is a very tricky question and requires you to know more than the client is telling you. You need to be thinking big picture even if they are not.

Just like your doctor hears about your symptoms and looks for a root cause (strategic) you too need to understand how what the client is asking fits into the system.

How will your photos help the client improve their business? Think about this in context of what they are asking you to shoot and bid on.  You thinking this way may not change how they need to think about it. You need to think this way in order to serve even the needs they don’t know they have.  If you just go with what they ask then you are just a commodity and will loose out the the lowest bidder.  You will also loose out to the photographer who is thinking strategically.

There are two possible answers to the question it will help or it will not.  If it will help them you need to understand how your photography can make a difference in them achieving this goal.

Remember you are not the only one listening to the client and giving them an estimate. This is like being in school and being graded on a curve, except in this case the one at the top passes and everyone else fails.

Maybe it will not help them.  In this case I suggest trying to understand how they see the photography serving the company.  There are many ways to ask, but you will understand their reasoning. One good reason to them is this is something they want documented because they worked hard on the project and want photo more for themselves and helping them feel good about what they have done.

By understanding the need the photos will fill for the organization you are now better equipped to see how you can meet and exceed their expectations.  You also will do a better job of giving them options that they haven’t even thought about for the project.

You may even offer another type of coverage than what they are asking. You discovered in the process of establishing the need they have an even bigger need that you could help with.  This could be something you see as a way to help them look even better and accomplish greater things.  You will most likely rethink how you give them a proposal.  Maybe you give them the option of a lower price on what they need with a guarantee of helping them work on this other project.

Ask your questions that help you know what they are trying to accomplish. Sometimes your questions alone can help them see you as someone they want on their team.

Listen by asking questions

Just listening to everything they client is saying isn’t really listening. Good listening will require you to ask clarifying questions. Good questions gets them to reveal more information that will help you understand their need better and help you to craft a proposal they will have a harder time turning down.

Many times a good question reveals more about what you know than a statement about what you know. Often you may know the answer to the question you are asking, but this is a more tactful way to pull the information out of them rather than telling them what you know. It will make it appear more as their idea and you supporting it than if you tell them everything and come off as a know it all.

Here a VP for marketing at Coke talks to an audience about their new dispenser. It uses medication-dosing technology to create some 125 Coca-Cola products, many of which, like Orange Coke and Vanilla Sprite Zero, aren’t available in bottles anywhere. They are creating options for their clients and creating new possibilities for them and therefore getting their drink machines in where others now loose out.

Give the client options

Too many people prepare an estimate that only has one price for a project. By doing this they have a take it or leave it offer on the table. However, the estimate that gives the client different options show them that you are flexible and are thinking of different solutions for them. You are giving them different price points to do business with you.

While you may not shoot wedding, think like a wedding photographer when it comes to pricing.  Think in packages.  Have a cheap, low, middle and high price packages.

For an event you may offer limited coverage of your time to not just more time, but other items. You may offer DVD or the images, prints, an online gallery, a slide show and other options as you raise the price of packages.

Before you present this to the client you need to practice your presentation and be ready for some negotiating. You will need to try and up sell them to the nicer packages.

You need to smile throughout your presentations even if you are on the phone. It must also be genuine.

Smile 

In an earlier blog post on “The Windows to The Soul” I talk about genuine smiles and fake smiles.

According to Dr. Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness, there are two kinds of smiles, the “Duchenne smile” and the “Pan American” smile. Here is how Seligman describes the two smiles, “The first called Duchenne smile (after its discoverer Guillaume Duchenne) is genuine. The corners of the mouth turn up and the skin around the corners of your eyes crinkles (the crow’s feet). …The other smile, called the Pan American smile (after the flight attendants in television ads for now-defunct airline), is inauthentic.”

You need to smile when you present your estimate.  Even if you are on a phone you need to smile.

Why Smile on the phone?

o       Research indicates that over the phone, your tone of voice is 84% of the message.
o       Your tone of voice is closely linked to your facial expression. A frown on your face will make your voice sound harsh and cold. But a smile will warm up your voice, making it sound warm, inviting and enthusiastic.
o       When you’re smiling, people can tell that you enjoy the work you do.

You cannot fake authenticity. One thing that helped me to develop this authenticity was fear. I had a family depending on me and not paying your bills and letting down your family was something I didn’t want to go through.

Whatever I could read to help me be a better storyteller and take care of my clients I devoured.

To get people to be on the edge of their seats listening to you, you had to have been there first. Learn to listen carefully.  Ask thoughtful questions that help you think strategically for the client even if they are not thinking this way. This is how you will end up taking care of them.

How you present your prices

Using a wedding for example if you did a good job listening and asking questions the bride and groom may have told you all their plans for the next year before the wedding.  You realize you can offer to cover all their important showers, teas, cookouts, engagement portraits, rehearsal dinner and the during the day of the wedding starting from breakfast to that last things of the day. 

You now pitch to them how you would like to cover all their events for them through the year.  You talk to them about putting together the their first chapter in their life and would like to celebrate this with a coffee table book with not just photos but a story of how they met up to the time of the wedding.

You may pitch this first with a very large price of $75,000.  When they gasp you then help them scale back by helping them eliminate things like the teatime with grandmother.  You are not cutting out photos; you are cutting out emotional moments.

Nobody wants to eliminate grandmother, but they will cut $1,000 for some photos. It makes it more difficult for the client to shop price only when you are offering things they now need.  You listened and presented a package that covered what they really want–they want to document the most important event in their lives up to now and most likely major milestone it their lives.  You understand your real purpose and not just a package of photos.

While you may have to send your client the estimate rather than talking to them in person like you might do with a bride in a consultation session, learn to present your dream of how you would love to cover the event if their were no limits. Then scale it in stages so that each stage is something that helps them achieve their goal.

Choose your words wisely so as to always address the needs and dreams of the client.  We know that getting married is once in a lifetime plan and we want to help you record these precious memories so you can relive these moments for the rest of your lives.

You may be covering an event for a foundation that is honoring their largest donors. Here you may say that you will help them find the best photos of each major donor from the event, print them a 5×7 print with their logo on the print.  You will then put it in a special thank you card with the photo where you will have a message written in calligraphy for them thanking them for their gift and you wanted to have something from the event to help them remember it.

You may have an upscale version where they get two photos, one from the event and one showing how their funds are being used. Maybe it is an orphanage and you have a child they are sponsoring photo thanking them for their gift as well that is framed for them to put in their office or home.

Try your best to think the way the Ritz Carlton does for their guests—they anticipate ways that will make their stay a remarkable one.

REMARKable

Your goal is to create a package that when they pick it they will be REMARKing about their experience with you and what you did.

While you listen you may discover that with just a little modification to your pricing you could get more jobs. Just because you have always done it this way is a good indication that you need to think of changing. The economy is going through the biggest changes in a century–are you changing with it?

Experiment with your pricing

If you have been pricing things the same as you did before this recession—that may be your problem.  We have gone through a major shakeup of how business is done. Put on your thinking cap and see if you can lower your prices and increase your services.

Maybe you offer just a few more perks than you did a few years ago.  You may give web usage as part of your bottom package. The key is not just lower your prices, you may have to, but figure ways to offer services that you didn’t offer in the past.  Try to find ways to up sell to maybe talk the client up to something that helps them woo their clients.

Mark Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the Grady School of Journalism, welcomes everyone to the workshop.

The first speaker was Allen Murabayashi, CEO and co-founder of PhotoShelter, who covered fundamental web marketing tactics, essential website design requirements and critical features (plus some advance concepts) that helps photographers better utilize their website as a business and marketing tool and grown their online presence to best generate new business.

Some of the points that Murabayashi covered were very similar to my topics, but a little different perspective.  Hopefully by the end of it all people are realizing that if a few people are mentioning similar things then maybe it is something they should pay attention to.

Allen Murabayashi is very vivacious speaker and kept everyone entertained and informed.

One of the things that we were trying to do in our talks was to help those who are starting out or struggling on what we are doing with our time.  Earlier I wrote a post about how I spend much of my time.  Here is a link to that blog post.

It doesn’t take long before you start to see some common themes when you try to apply marketing to any industry.  First of all you must realize that not everyone is a candidate for your services. When you run the numbers it is more likely in the 10% range of those who are interested in hiring you.

You need a large fishing net to be successful when fishing for clients. In that earlier blog post I talked about this process of the Marketing Funnel.

This is the process I talked about earlier.  The idea is to get as many people in the first stage of being aware you are there in the marketplace. At each step you improve that area to help increase the likelihood of people choosing you.

Allen Murabayashi also used the marketing funnel.  He was also letting everyone know that the first thing is to make people aware of your services.  It is very important that you define your niche because otherwise your awareness group has to be even larger than if you are more defined in your niche.

Allen Murabayashi talks about the marketing funnel and how to get people to visit your website and then to use your website to help move them to becoming a client.

Freshman vs Senior Social Networking Skills

Since most in the audience were college students I felt like the best illustration I could use was for all of them to remember what it was like as a freshman.  How when they went to parties they had to go around and introduce themselves and meet folks.  They were proactive and needed to find some friends.

I contrasted how they went to parties as a freshman to as when they are a senior. As a senior you go and usually meet with your friends and just enjoy each other.  You are not looking for more friends you have them.

I challenged the class to act like freshman again and never loose this perspective–looking for friends.

What happens your senior year is graduation. After you leave you discover that many of those friends you had move on and you loose touch.  You are forced to be a freshman again–you are new at your first job and have to make friends again.

Old School Social Networking

I highly recommend getting off your computer where you are on Facebook and Twitter and try the old style of social networking.  Go to meetings, parties and social mixers in your community.

Join an organization and get involved. As you serve you will meet more people. If you have done a good job in defining your niche then it will be easy to identify those organizations where your potential clients are already.

Get involved and serve. One of the best ways to meet everyone is to volunteer to work a registration desk.

How do you grow your business?

The first step in that marketing funnel, after defining your niché, is creating awareness of your services to those who need them. How do you grow your business, grow the numbers of people you come into contact with.