A trip to Las Vegas in February isn’t just about WPPI anymore. It’s about adding new building blocks to your business and some of them are outside WPPI programming. For two years I’ve started every marketing presentation with the same statement.

Just because the media says it’s going to be a bad year, doesn’t mean it has to be!

That’s a big part of the GoingPro theme and Bootcamp. We started the project because there are so many aspiring photographers interested in going pro and missing the boat on the right way to get started. Frustrated, they jump into the market with lousy quality and low-ball pricing. Instead of building a business on a solid foundation, they try and build it on the word “professional”, having no understanding of the importance of how to sustain a business.

Well, it’s been two years since we started the GoingPro, which originally was just a book with Random House. Now it’s a blog with an estimated 50,000 followers and sixty-four podcasts, resulting in 120-150,000 downloads a month. Last but not least, it’s our second Bootcamp, an all day event helping you with everything, but photography.

George missed the last GoingPro Bootcamp, but we didn’t and neither did a 100+ aspiring and working professional photographers. He’s got another chance and so do you! With the combination of Michele Celentano, Scott Bourne and me we’ll help you with ideas on marketing, pricing, building your business, insurance, social media, community involvement and local networking, just to name a few. Most important of all, we’ll help you figure out how to promote yourself and your work so you can get your second customer.

Anybody can get their first customer. The trick of building a solid business is getting your second customer and even better, getting the first customer to come back a second time. You know how to focus your camera. Well, we’re going to help you focus on concepts like quality, value, integrity and the ability to exceed customer expectations. Those are the key attributes of any business that brings customers back!

And speaking of exceeding expectations – that’s just what we intend to do on February 18. It’s only $99 for the day. So, whether you’re just getting ready to take the plunge into the pro side of the business or you’ve been out there for a few years and need some help – we intend to exceed your expectations. 

See you in Vegas! Signing up for GoingPro Bootcamp is just a click away!

Living closer, we get to spend a lot more time together and there’s a never-ending stream of conversations about business. Today’s business meaning of words like trust, integrity, confidence and creativity have never changed, even though the way we communicate today has. Dad didn’t have Twitter, but he did have a telephone. He didn’t have a lot of conventions to network, but he did have time to meet people, talk to potential clients and a firm handshake. He didn’t have workshops to go to, but he did have books to read and ideas to share with his associates over lunch.

So, I hope you enjoy Pop’s encore performance. As you think about 2012 – everything he talks about is so relevant! Like he said to me so many years ago,

Just watch the left front fender!

Yesterday was my 88^th birthday.  I have been happily retired for many years, and unemployed for at least 15 of those. Now, out of the blue, comes our son, Skip, threatening me with employment! The pay he considers adequate is $.02 per word. So gathering together, my 50+ years in business experience, I thought this would be a good time to put my two cents in.

I am not a plagiarist, but I must quote my father who spent the last months of his life writing advice to his children:

 “Conduct your business in an upright manner and remember, the most important thing in one’s life is to be honest with one’s self. Maintain the high standard and dignity that your business requires. Do not go into deals hastily and be visible in your business as much of the time as is possible.  If you take time to play, do it away from your business, because your livelihood needs all the attention you can give to it.”

Early on, I concluded that the best testimonials came from my many friendly competitors.  We didn’t really compete with each other, in the true sense. True, we were in the same field of endeavor, but we all knew we were there to help each other. Happily, the “tough competition” fell by the wayside.  I remember giving Skip driving lessons and I told him, “Watch the left front fender…..the rest will take care of itself!”  I’ve found this is really true of everything in life.

An old axiom says “If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said.”  That is all part of reputation-building. I found that, sadly, in the field of real estate, truth is hard to come by for many. In our case, it was a major building block in the reputation which we enjoyed, and helped us to thwart the competition.

Goodwill is all of the above, plus a lot of caring for your clients as well as your competitors.  If life is a give-and-take situation, giving is the more important of the two.  The taking will come with time and be far more appreciative.  Just remember – you heard it here!  Ralph Cohen, Founder and Creator of Skip Cohen!

For most of you this is a down week. The Christmas orders are out and you’re hopefully finding time to just kick back, enjoy your family and here and there think about the new year.  Find some time this week to think about your business in terms of the services you offer.  Are there opportunities for add-on sales? Can you increase your average sales with add-on products and add-on value?

When I was at Polaroid, back when Polaroid was a Fortune 500 company,  I was involved in a series of consumer surveys for product development.  The surveys repeatedly showed that consumer satisfaction for a product dramatically increased with the number of accessories available.  As a result, when Polaroid launched the Spectra camera, it was a complete system.  There was a full line of accessories including self-timers, cable releases, albums, bags, table top tripods and even Cokin filters, just to name a few.

You’ll find the exact same philosophy with most of the major consumer purchases we make today, especially in consumer electronics.   Photography isn’t any different and if you’re only offering your clients an album and a few different options on print packages then you’re missing the boat.

Let’s beef up what you’re offering your clients starting with online hosting and slide shows.  (The crew as SmugMug is ready to help you completely change the look of your site and get your images in a presentation that screams, “I’m a professional!”) Then let’s move into all the hard goods available.  Albums of every color, shape and size are out there.  (We were just in Italy last month and were blown away by what Album Epoca has in their lineup!) One of a kind table top books like the Asukabook line give you another outstanding direction to offer clients a quality product that’s different.   Frames are an outstanding add-on sale.

A canvas print becomes an amazing enhancement for those one or two special images from a wedding, a portrait sitting or children’s shoot.  And, while it might not be for every client, purses, bags and backpacks with the kid’s pictures on them are outstanding add-ons from a children’s shoot.  How about the types of images you present?  Sure, there’s black and white and color, but how about the look of infrared, special effects and cross-processing? (Ever notice there are an infinite number of combinations of plug-ins you can use, thanks to Kubota Image Tools?) And there are hundreds of different things to print on, including metal, whether you’re doing it yourself or working with your lab.

And don’t laugh, take a look at novelty products.    There are some outstanding items out there, from mugs to mouse pads!   For those of you who are purists and hate the idea, I’m not saying you need to be out there selling coffee mugs with the bride and groom’s face on them, but what an incredible marketing tool.  What a way to make a great client laugh and remember how much fun they had at the engagement shoot with you, when you send them a matched set of coffee mugs with their pictures on them!

I’m tired of hearing photographers complain about “Uncle Harry” stealing business.  I’m not saying the Uncle Harrys of the world don’t create problems, but they don’t have access to the hundreds of products and companies that make up the professional photographic market.  As a professional photographer you’ve got virtual exclusivity when it comes to the broadest most diverse selection of add-on products from the finest group of manufacturers in the history of photography!

When you put it all together add-on sales create added perceived value and in the end create higher customer satisfaction and return business, but best of all, it helps add to your bottom line!

Okay, so that was written almost two years ago and the potential for add-on sales hasn’t changed.  If we’ve learned nothing else from MacDonalds, try their approach in your selling skills with every client and simply ask, “You want fries with that?”

We’re living in the age of instant gratification. We text, we tweet, we abbreviate. Our spelling has become absurd, phonetically attacking a conversation for the sole purpose of packing a full paragraph into just 140 characters. Photographers have become “togs” & sum things R gr8 2 reed others rn’t.

We eat on the run, multi-tasking and getting a little work done so we can justify stepping away from the biz at lunch time. MacDonalds has two lines for the drive-in window and we can order combo meals, making the decision-making process even faster when it comes to the barrage of possibilities for our low nutrition intake of garbage.

New photographers, sorry “togs” jump into the market thinking because they understand Photoshop they’re perfectly capable of being a professional photographer. They shoot with wild abandon with a mindset, “No problem. I’ll fix it later in Photoshop!” The truth is, no matter what your skill set, if it’s a lousy image there’s one fundamental rule of nature, “You can’t buff a turd!”

The reality is that you can’t Tweet quality. There are no shortcuts to creating outstanding images. There are no shortcuts to building a relationship with your clients. There are no shortcuts to great marketing. All of this leaves me with one sentiment – it’s time for many of you to just slow down!

If you’re one of those shortcut, overnight, buy a camera and just add Photoshop photographers, here’s where you’re missing some incredible opportunities:

• You’re doing yourself a huge disservice and leaving a lot of great revenue on the table. A great series of images shown to an excited client has the potential to create not only more sales from the original job, but additional sales as your client shows your work to their friends.
• You’re doing your client a disservice, but not “being all you can be”. Yeah, it’s the US Army’s slogan, but it’s so dead-on, for every profession. You can’t compromise on being the best at what you do. When you present images that exceed a client’s expectations the excitement and goodwill you’ll be a part of will take your pride and theirs to a completely new level.
• You’re slowly undermining the credibility of an entire industry. The other night on the local news was a consumer protection story where a woman wrote to the TV station for help getting her wedding images. Look, mistakes happen and there are always extenuating circumstances, but when what should be a quietly resolved customer service issue gets so out of control the local news media gets involved, the business entity just didn’t do their job!  Think about the number of people who watched the story and got a bad impression about professional photographers. Even worse, think about the credibility boost the story just gave to all the Uncle Harrys and all that gear they just bought!
• You’re making it harder to build your business than it has to be. Anybody can get their first customer. The trick is to get the second, third and fourth customers along with getting that first customer to come back. Being a successful photographer is about building trust with your clients.  When that trust is violated the entire model collapses. On the other hand, when you exceed a client’s expectations you’ve got a customer for life, not to mention one more member of your word-of-mouth publicity machine.

Okay, so let’s end this little rant this morning with a few suggestions. Slow it down and pay attention to the quality of your images and the quality of your relationships. Build your business one client at a time and treat every client as if they were the only person who was ever going to pay you for your skill set as a photographer.

Focus on being the very best photographer with a mindset that Rangefinder Magazine wants to do a story about you, but you told them to wait until you had the images you wanted!   And as always, NEVER compromise!

You’re part of an amazing industry and there’s help every step of the way, providing you respect and love the craft.  And trust me, if you respect the craft, there is no way to describe the return on your investment!

Here’s the scenario: I contacted them after we bought the house and purchased a standard home protection package. Shame on me for not asking them to clarify the offer. However, at the time it seemed like a terrific deal, which included $850 of free goods related to our home system for fire, emergency and police protection. I’ll take full blame for not asking the right questions a month before moving into the house, but what transpired after the fact is my issue.

First, they tried to up-sell me to $4200 of charges to make our home second only to Fort Knox in security. Second, came the concern that our existing system was too old to be modified and therefore we’d need to go completely with their new system. (It was no surprise when they found a way to get the old system working.) Third, was the final straw, a three year contract. Keep in mind all of this started as a $99 offer with a minimal monthly fee!

So, here’s the lesson for your photography business:

Clearly state your promotional offers! Don’t jack up your normal prices to make the special promotion more attractive.

Take responsibility for your programs. We had two technicians here and they were both terrific, but they had no responsibility for the decision process and many of my questions were met with, “They won’t do that!”  If you made a mistake, just own it – don’t pass the buck onto your lab, album company or another vendor.

Learn to read your client. It couldn’t have been more obvious that I was frustrated and reaching the boiling point throughout the process. Once a customer has smoke coming out of his ears, you can forget about trying to find a reasonable outcome.

Be in tune with your competition and your market.During the installation the telemarketers were like vultures and I received a minimum of ten calls from other companies all pitching me on security deals. I went into the process happy with my selection of ADT, but the constant barrage of calls throughout the process made me even more skeptical of what I was being sold.

Deliver on time! I realize there’s no way to know how long some jobs take, but with ADT, after six hours I finally pulled the plug and told them to come back the next day. At the very least they should have staffed accordingly. All total it was probably ten hours of work. Even a short communication on the front end would have alerted me to the fact that this was an all day job.

Solve problems! This is the grand-daddy of them all. NEVER tell a client there’s nothing you can do! There’s always something you can do and always something you can offer to let the client know their business is important to you.

Follow the growth and reputation of any great company and you’ll always find good customer service in their building blocks. It’s at the very core of great companies like Nordstroms, L.L. Bean and Lands End.  Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon said it all,

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”

Moving into a new home I’ve had eight telemarketing calls in the last 24 hours, four from ADT and four from various water purification companies. They’re vultures and they’ve picked up the scent of fresh meat in the area!  However, every single call starts out with the same phony approach.

“Hello Mr. Cohen. This is not a sales call, we just want to welcome you to the area and congratulate you on your new home with a special gift!” Seriously, not one call has varied from the pitch as they’ve even used the exact same words! It’s all scripted and always presented with that same obnoxious enthusiastic tone. It’s the same tone you got with a first grade teacher on your first parent’s night! “Welcome, are we all having fun tonight?” You were trying to, but you were too busy fighting off the cramp in your right thigh from sitting in those little chairs.

So, here’s the point this morning…

Speak from the heart when you’re talking to your clients. Listen more than you talk and if you’re going to do a phone campaign then utilize other vehicles to help establish your credibility first. For example, a direct mail campaign together with an email campaign will help to build brand awareness before you try and make a cold call.

This post might be almost two years old, but great ideas never age! The challenge is how to make yourself stand out, but don’t forget the basics first. If you don’t know what you’re doing with a camera in your hands, then all the marketing in the world can’t fix bad images! Concentrate on the quality of your work, making sure you’re never compromising and then focus on the marketing and the presentation.

Any photographer, good or bad, can get that first client. The challenge is to get the second and the referrals/additional clients along with repeat business later on. You want to be so good and do such a great job of exceeding expectations, your clients return to you for help over and over again.  This is a word of mouth business – don’t let your potential growth be stunted by your lack of practice and understanding of the basics!

Here are several different scenarios from Chris Fawkes, Lori Nordstrom, Bambi Cantrell and Kathleen Chuparkoff-Hawkins.  You may have seen a couple of these on Facebook already, but that doesn’t change the importance of what they’re saying.  All four photographers have some great experiences and backgrounds in marketing.  They know how to make noise when it counts the most!

There’s a second post that gives more examples and I’ll share it tomorrow.  The title says it all: 

Think about what everyone else is doing and do something different!

Now, think about that quote! It applies to everything you’re doing and a solid reminder to be different than your competitors!

I have to thank Jerry Rizzo, who started a string on Facebook, asking for thoughts on what makes you effective at a Bridal Show.  The more I thought about the answer, the more it applied to virtually any show.  So, here are some ideas:

1) Booth Design:   I wrote a section about this for Bambi in her first book…her booth itself, to me was the key.   She made it totally inviting and open on all four sides, with the look and feel of a living room, a couple of Queen Anne chairs, coffee table etc.  Obviously it cost a little more as an island, but the traditional booth set up creates a line right down the middle between you and your clients.  Her booth didn’t feel like she was selling anything except warmth.    

2) Your Display:  You don’t need to show everything you ever shot.  Bambi only had 2-3 beautiful large framed images to draw people in and make them want to see more.  She hung them on inexpensive hollow wood doors, which she stained to match the booth.  It’s her Tiffany window display philosophy  in action – you don’t have to show everything you do to get the client interested.

3) Albums vs Matted Prints: You always need a few albums to show, but Bambi’s secret was using an image storage box, holding a dozen or so prints, displayed in mattes.  The advantage was simply no one client could hog an album. It gave her the ability to show her work to several different clients at the same time.

4) Presentations:I haven’t been to enough Bridal Shows to know if anyone does this, but what’s going on in your booth?  When a potential client walks by are they going to stop and listen.  My personal favorite goes back to my Hasselblad days and having a speaker in the booth to draw people in.  Most Bridal Show booths don’t have a whole lot of room, but what would happen if you did a series of short presentations e.g. the importance of an engagement session, creating a storybook album or the excitement of online hosting?  (I’m sure Pictage has some marketing material available.)  There’s an abundance of short tips you could give a client that would easily create five minute snipet presentations.

5) Pre-show Buzz: This is a big part of being a hit, not just at a bridal show, but it applies to any company who exhibits at any show.  What are you doing to create awareness for your presence a month or two before the show even starts?  Social media, direct mail and advertising all play a roll.  Are you advertising in the local paper that you’ll be at the show?  Are you sending out a postcard in advance of the show?  Have you worked to build up your social media presence on Facebook, Twitter etc?  Are you sending out a message offering a client something in return, making it impossible to not stop by your booth.

Years ago Tamrac, just before the PMA show, sent out a clip-on handle for a ballistic nylon bag to a lot of industry leaders.  The note that came with it invited us to stop by the booth for our “free gift” and see their new product line.  I don’t know how they did at the show, but everybody I knew made it a point to get over to the booth.

6) Your Blog:  You can’t build this overnight, but if you start now, you’ll be ready for next year.  Nobody does it better than Jasmine Star.  Check out her blog, but don’t look at it with your eyes, look at as if you were a future bride.  The images really do speak for themselves and tell a client a lot about who Jasmine is, how she sees the world, her values and most important of all, how her clients trust her to be their eyes on that special day.

7) And when all else fails, I love the answer Jeff Hawkins put on Facebook – popcorn! People always remember the booth with popcorn.  Now, there’s some serious psychological issues that support this – we’re all driven by food and looking at my belt line, some of us more than others – but the smell of popcorn draws everybody from every corner of a trade show.  But, the real issue is, having something to show and keeping your potential customer in the booth once you’ve fed their craving!

Last but not least, is a great line from a motivational speaker I heard years ago, Ed Foreman, from Texas.  I actually tracked him down a few months ago and he’s still teaching and helping people build their brand and marketing awarenss. Ed was definitely a driving force in my career. It really is this simple:

“If I can see the world through my client’s eyes, then I can sell my client what my client buys!”

A long time ago I wrote a post about the care and feeding of your network. The challenge most people have is simply staying in touch. They collect business cards or contact information as they attend various functions and think that’s it, “another addition to my team.” Just collecting contacts is no more effective than throwing seeds on the dirt and walking away thinking a garden is going to miraculously sprout without cultivation or water.

Your network requires the same care and feeding as a garden and here are some great ways I’ve picked up over the years to keep it alive and well.

• Your network should have two different levels. First, are those dozen or so people closest to you. This is the core of your network, the people you know you can always rely on for help and in turn, who rely on you. The second level is everybody else and you should also think of them in different subgroups, being other photographers, manufacturers, service providers, etc.
 

• You’ve got to keep in touch if you expect to utilize your network now and then.That means communicate once in awhile. An email, a note or better yet, pick up a phone and call. If they’re local, grab lunch every so often. Pete Cardello, president of Album Epoca, has been a good buddy for many years. While we don’t talk that often, at least once a month we grab lunch, just to catch up on what’s going on in the industry.

 
• Stay active in social media!Brian Palmer, a local photographer here in Akron and I met on Facebook. I was moving back to Ohio and he was living in the area. We emailed a couple of times and then met for lunch when I was living here. Since then we’ve helped each other in all kinds of projects and he’s become a very good friend, but it all started on Facebook.

 
•Pre-convention set-ups:Over the next few months between PhotoPlus Expo in NYC in the fall, CES/PMA, Imaging USA in January and WPPI in March, just about everyone you know in the photo industry is going to be at one of these four major conventions. Set up some meet ups in advance. You’ve got three meals a day and at least two coffee times – take advantage of the trip just to catch up to people in your network. You don’t need to have an agenda just to grab coffee with an associate you haven’t talked to in a long time, but make the contact before you get there! There’s nothing more pathetic than returning home and finding out somebody you really would have liked to meet with was at the same show you were, but you never knew it.

From Peter Drucker: “More business decisions occur over lunch and dinner than at any other time, yet no MBA courses are given on the subject”.

• When you do work to maintain contact, bring a long some pictures you’ve been working on. You might have a mailer you did that you want to share. Maybe you’ve got some images demonstrating a new piece of gear or technique you’re using. Maybe it’s just an update of family images. Again, it depends on who you’re talking to and what you want to share.

  
• Include members of your network on your “cc” list. When you’re sending out an email blast or just an email to several people about something important to you, remember the people in your network. Keep them up to date on things you’re working on.

A great network takes time and patience to build, but it’ll be invaluable as your experience and business grow. Just remember you have to give back to your network just as much as you take!

1. Give your clients lots to read! Your most valuable piece of real estate is your website, but what I don’t understand is why so many photographers junk it up with paragraph after paragraph that just don’t say anything! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then keep the copy on your site to the bare minimum. Every outstanding image demonstrates why you’re a professional. You don’t need to add a lot of words if your images speak for themselves.
2. Never bother to check your website. I wrote about this one earlier in the week, but there are still those of you who are convinced nothing can go wrong – after all, it was working okay yesterday! Ever had an unexpected problem with your car? Maybe it was a dead battery or a flat tire or just maybe somebody hit you in a parking lot! Your website is no different! When the gremlins get involved and your site locks up or is just too slow to load, it can cost you serious business.
3. “I’m too good to have a network”. Yeah, I know, you’re so good you don’t want anybody to know what you’re working on. Plus, you’re so smart and you absorb new technology so fast, you don’t need new ideas or help from other photographers. Seriously, a great network takes time to build, but every new photographer or vendor you meet at a local guild meeting, state/national convention or workshop helps you expand your expertise. Your network can help you through the toughest challenges in half the time and time is your most valuable commodity.
4. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! No, it should be if it ain’t broke, you haven’t looked hard enough! Need I say more?
5. And the last one on the hit parade: criticize everybody else! Negative sell because your potential client really wants to know what’s wrong with your competitors! Negative selling just doesn’t cut it. Ever had a contractor like a plumber or an electrician do some work on your house? They’ll always tell you the last guy did it all wrong! Don’t get caught up in negative comments. Instead talk about your own work, but spend time listening to your clients first. They need to know you understand what they want. You want to develop that special level of trust that will allow you to step into their lives and capture the moments most important to them. You won’t get there if you sound like a cheap salesman who only wants to close the sale.

Thomas Edison is quoted as saying, “Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.”

Don’t be afraid to throw out the “rule book” and show your creativity, in your marketing, your images and in building your relationships. You don’t need to give up business to your competitors if you stay focused on integrity, customer service and quality in your images!