The following day, along with Scott Bourne, we were involved in our first GoingPro Bootcamp and what a trip! (Okay, it’s a dated expression, but I can’t find a better one to describe the enthusiasm of the attendees, the great questions and the excitement and willingness of the vendors to help launch this new program!)  There were almost a hundred people present with a mix of photographers completely new along with those who had been shooting for a while, but needed new ways to build their business.

But the questions were all in line with concerns we’ve heard for years in this industry.  How do I close the sale? Should I show prices on line?  How do people know I’m here?  Then there were great suggestions on insurance, promotions and the importance of never compromising on quality.  The response from attendees continues to be pretty amazing, but the more I think about it, the more I realized their concerns are the same issues the most established photographers have had for years, which brought me full circle to wondering if things really have changed that much.

• You still need to produce a quality product!  While there are those who will argue most consumers don’t know and don’t care, I’m convinced that’s a cop out.  Every time I hear a photographer say that I can trace back his/her actions to missing something in customer service in their own business.  Consumers do want quality and when you take the time to show them the difference the majority of the time they understand, but it’s all in your presentation.
• You still have to provide a respectable level of Customer Service!  You have to anticipate your customer’s needs.  You have to listen to your clients.  Most important of all, you need to meet their mindset and exceed expectations.
• You still have to provide a pleasing representation of the client, the products, whatever it is you’ve been hired to photograph.
• You still have to market yourself to get through the noise.  I’ll admit it’s harder than ever to build brand awareness, but the necessity to do it is still there.
• I don’t care what the capture is on, be it film, digital or with a Crayola – you’re still being hired as an artist.  Unfortunately, there are too many photographers who forget they’re an artist and feel threatened by “Uncle Harry”.  It’s not the gear that makes the photographer!
• As a professional you still have an incredible network of support companies – from labs to albums to marketing partners to frames and online hosting, in the history of photography there have never been more tools at your disposal!  But you have to take advantage of what these companies offer.  Marathon Press, WHCC, Animoto, Asukabook and Kubota Image Tools and Nik Software were all at Bootcamp for the entire day to help attendees find the solutions to a more successful business plan.
• Your work still requires a passionate eye, a great heart and a quest to always look for that decisive moment.

Ansel Adams once said, “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.”

And that’s one more thing that hasn’t changed – as a professional photographer you’re still part of an incredible legacy of creative spirits like Ansel, Avedon, Scavullo, Karsh, Eddie Adams, Arnold Newman, Dean Collins, Don Blair and Monte Zucker, just to name a few.  They gave us a foundation that belongs to every professional photographer and while it might sometimes be challenged by technology and the economy, it remains a powerful tribute to pride, quality, creativity and art.

A big thanks to my two good buddies, Scott and Tony, for a terrific program that helped us all, me included, recharge our batteries!

Here’s an incredible lesson I learned this last week.  While I guess I should be embarrassed, I’m not about to go into seclusion.  Life is a learning process and it doesn’t slow down just because we’re still in class!

I’ve been out of commission for almost ten days with the gall bladder who wanted to be King.  As you’re reading this, King GB is being permanently banned from my body!  But I was totally unprepared to be out of commission!  I remember a bill board as a kid, “Accidents only happen to other people.  So all you other people, watch out!”  Stuff like this never happens to me.

Even those of you just starting out know the importance of backup gear.  No professional hits an event with only one camera body, lens, flash etc.   Professional photography is often about being prepared for something to simply go wrong and you’ve got backup on everything. 

I once watched Denis Reggie photograph an entire wedding (on film) with his strobes on manual because the humidity shorted out the connections on every adapter he had.  Nobody ever knew there was a problem.   I’ve seen professionals like Bambi Cantrell, Jerry Ghionis and even Avedon once, switch gear in a heart beat because of a technical problem.  Nobody even noticed the change.  The point is you wouldn’t schedule a shoot or take on a wedding without the right gear, but what about your business? What would happen right now, as you’re reading this if you suddenly disappeared for the next ten days?

Here are some things to think about:

1) Who’s your communication back up?  You need one person who knows your calendar and has access to appointments and your contacts.

2) Who’s got access to your accounts – not just banks, but your blog, Twitter, Facebook and email?  Do you have a simple “out of office” response set up in your email that anybody could activate in the event you were going to be unavailable.

3) Do you do regular planning meetings with your “staff” so they know what’s in the pipeline and the priority on projects?  “Staff” for a lot of us doesn’t exist, but we all have somebody we trust who can have access to all our information and most important of all is ready to help.

4) Is there at least one person who knows where everything physically is?  It sounds so stupid to even ask, but think about your saved documents – if you’re like me you often have challenges finding things you wrote just a few weeks ago.  Then there are documents somebody might need – are they filed somewhere or in that box in the closet?

5) Do you have an operations manual that lists key contacts, operational directions etc. if somebody had to come into your office to find important files and information.

This is one of those blogs that couldn’t be more timely and my questions are just the tip of the iceberg.  I’m guilty of having almost nothing set up for business back up, yet I never went on a dive trip without an extra mask and regulator!  I’ve always been a fan of Murphy’s Law and Murphy’s Law II.  Murphy’s Law is simply if anything can go wrong it will.  Murphy’s Law II is my favorite:  Remember that Murphy was an optomist!

Today many of our icons are younger, but the qualities that make us love their work, their ideas and their ability to educate are still the same:

Image Quality:  Their images are never compromised.  You’ll rarely see a short cut and every image is capable of standing on its own as a single photograph.   Exposure, composition, expression and impact seem to be as consistent as the sun coming up every morning. So often their images leave us thinking, “Why don’t my images look like that?”  

Lifestyle Quality:  The photographers we consider iconic all maintain a lifestyle of giving back, a strong sense of family and friendships, professionalism and when they do “slip” a little it’s a work hard – play hard philosophy.  They have integrity, they have poise and they follow through on their promises.  They also tend to surround themselves with people of similar commitments.

Loyalty:  Whether it’s to the vendors they work with or their friends, their loyalty is rarely questioned.  Everyone watches each other’s backs and the mutual respect and admiration, at least from my perspective, is pretty much unmatched in other industries. 

Humor:  Okay, not everybody is another Robin Williams, but think about any program you’ve attended that you loved and learned something – I’m willing to bet some where in the presentation you laughed…a lot.  Today’s photography icons are comfortable with admitting when they do something stupid, have fun with a client or completely screw up a job and live to tell about it.

Humility: Not everyone has it, but even those few we might consider a little arrogant – if they knew how they were being perceived they’d be upset and ready to work on a different persona.  So, I’m not sure if the quality is humility or a willingness to listen, but they’ve got it.

Confidence:  This is so unique to our icons – they believe in their abilities, their willingness to learn new skills and they understand their camera gear and photography cold – there’s no second guessing and no “chimping” either.  Even when they talk about a new idea or technology, you’ll pick up a unique tone in their voice, almost as if they’ve been shooting this way for years.

Diverse Skills: It goes with confidence, but there seems to be nothing they can’t shoot.  We might know them as a portrait photographer and then we’ll see work that’s fine art, landscape, architectural – they refuse to be type-cast into any one skill set.

Passion: It’s the last word on the list, but it drives everything they do!  It’s not just about photography, but about life in general – they simply never stop loving the craft, their lives, their friends, families – you name it and passion is what drives them to succeed.

I found a great quote by a business theorist and author who I like, Jim Collins.  I’ve used it once before, but that doesn’t change how appropriate it is this morning.

The kind of commitment I find among the best performers across virtually every field is a single-minded passion for what they do, an unwavering desire for excellence in the way they think and the way they work. Genuine confidence is what launches you out of bed in the morning, and through your day with a spring in your step.