I’m going to drop two shoes in this post.

First shoe: Some time ago Johannes wrote a post he called Crikey (“that’s a lot of money for an album”). It made me feel a little fidgety. I thought, we care too much about the quality of our products and services to compromise them, and maybe that’s a problem.

Clients often say they love what we do, but can we do it cheaper?

Sometimes we try. We go about looking at how we could adapt a product, system or idea … but we don’t do cheap well. We’re as proud of our work as you are of yours, and compromising feels like we’re shooting for the moon with an airplane, not a rocket.

Let’s face it, that makes us an unviable option for some people.

But here’s the second shoe: It’s not how much an album costs, it’s how much it’s worth.

Yes, ordinary albums cost. But the right albums add value to your images (the wrong albums cheapen them).

Great presentation is money in the bank.

From a business point of view, the question is, what value could your albums add, and are you realising it?

Your albums are a key part of what makes you, and your clients, stand out from the crowd. Or not.

As Johannes also said, “We pay for what we get, and we charge for what we give.” It frees the mind to think of your albums as profit centres, not costs.

Don’t offer the same album to a $2k client as a $20k client. It’s a wasted opportunity and they won’t want it. Ask, what’s the outcome I’m after? An album that’s worth $1k, $4k or $10k?

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I’ve been reading The Mesh by Lisa Gansky (amongst other things she was the founder of Ofoto).

In her book Lisa talks about “the half life of crap” – about cheap manufactured products and how long they last. Or don’t last.

Her point is that the half life of that crap is way too short. It gets boring or it breaks. It ends up at the back of your garage or as land fill. Our poor planet can’t afford so much crap, and now neither can we.

It’s such a vivid expression and it applies to more than physical goods – taste for example.

Take that tacky album – no, not yours: that one over there with the fabulicious cover and all those cheesy layouts… What’s the half-life of that crap? Long enough to be embarrassing, that’s how long!

Bad products can turn to crap quite quickly. Bad taste may take a little longer to show up, but as soon as it does it’s embarrassing. And it’s half life is way too long.

So how do you avoid ending up on awkwardfamilyphotos.com? A few simple rules:

1. Keep it simple.

2. If in doubt, leave it out.

3. Beware three-month taste. I know it seems a long way off, but ask yourself, What will the kids think of this? That day comes up really fast and you want to be admired, not laughed at.

Cheers, Ian

BTW you should read The Mesh too (“Why the Future of Business Is Sharing”). Lisa thinks there’ll be less crap around in future, as we learn to share good stuff rather than possess rubbish.

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My clients would not dream of paying me $4000 for an empty photo album. Nor would they pay that for a book with somebody else’s photographs in it. They wouldn’t pay me that much even if I supplied them the files to print the images themselves.

My clients would pay me $5000 for a book that told a story about themselves that was beautiful, personal, and emotional.

The tooth fairy only pays up on the real thing.

What is a sample album?

Sample albums have several jobs. The main one is to set up an expectation. An expectation of quality, style, and professionalism.

Our sample album(s) are what allows our clients to ‘imagine’ their own album, and commit to it.

A sample album is what allows them to imagine us as their photographer and story teller.

Beyond that it creates an aspiration to possess their own (through us).

So what should a sample album be?

It should represent your ability to perform.

It should keep their expectations achievable. Let your award images and their accolades prove your amazingness.

It should be the size that you want to sell.

Our samples are real weddings. They are not a collection of best images.

If you have a new direction in your photography your albums should reflect that. People tend to expect what they have seen. Update your albums just as you would change your wardrobe to stay up with the fashion.

As for the tooth fairy … remember inflation changes the value of each visit.

Warm Summer wishes

Johannes

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I’m looking forward to David Ziser dropping the other shoe in a couple of days.

On scottkelby.com last week, in the first of two parts, he blogged about the “perfect storm” that he says has impacted wedding photography over the last few years.

If you haven’t read it you should.

Factors David mentions include the Great Recession, the “Walmart Effect” – everything from consumers’ ingrained cut-price mentality to the fact that “wedding photography has come to Walmart” (via the acquisition of Bella Photography by CPI Corporation). Plus of course the growth of digital photography (not just digital cameras, but the impact of everything from online tuition to camera phones and social media sharing platforms).

I think this is great stuff, although I’d at least question his statement that 2004-7 were “the golden years of wedding photography”. (I think the pre-digital generation may have had it better, to be frank, and we could learn from them if we wanted.)

Anyway, I’m keeping an eye open for Part Two.

Cheers, Ian

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Forums are about community… Sharing ideas, asking questions, providing feedback.

We’ve just integrated our forums with our Queensberry and Photojunction Facebook pages to harness the power of one of the largest online communities in the world.

On both pages, if you want to ask a question go to the ‘Discussions’ tab (highlighted in the graphic).

If you want to offer feedback (or give someone else’s idea a boost) go to the ‘Feedback’ tab.

As well as these we’re starting work on building a more user-friendly knowledge base.

Look forward to hanging out with you more on Facebook

Cheers, Nigel

PS And of course email still works!

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Gotta love her: Bride by Steve and Cheryl, photography by Johannes, album by Queensberry

Why do images look so good in books?

I asked myself that question as I walked out of the new Aussie movie, Tomorrow when the war began in which the main character delivers a satiric line, “The book usually is better than the movie”…

Take an image accompanied by a line of text in a great print ad. Or a series of images of a bride walking down the aisle in an album. Or a double page spread of a horizon in National Geographic.

I reckon it’s because the real beauty of the images is only discovered when they’re laid out in printed form.

I said the other day that our wedding images as a stack of prints weren’t as beautiful as the same images in a slideshow, set to music, or in our album.

Same goes for images on a disk. There’s no sense of completion, or context, or framing.

Why miss an opportunity to wow you clients (and from your P.O.V wipe the table clean) by neglecting to present your images in the most beautiful way possible.

Cheers, Nigel

PS I know this is a sales pitch, but I’m a believer

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The webinar is now available (watch it here or on Vimeo), and you can use the Minimum Average Sale Calculator here (you’ll need to log-in). More details on The Junction.

Cheers, Nigel

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Ian spotted a post by New Zealand photographer Isaac de Reus of Perspectives Photography on DWF recently. It was in reply to a thread discussing whether giving your work away free for referrals was good business practice.

Isaac shared this great example of how he’s leveraged something he can do in return for good quality referrals. The type everyone wants. High-end. It also shows the value of keeping your finger on the wider wedding market’s pulse. Thanks for sharing, Isaac – Nigel

A month or so ago we approached a very high-end, exclusive venue that only recently started booking and advertising themselves as a ‘wedding venue’.

We identified them as someone we’d like to work with and noticed they didn’t have much wedding work on their website. We had never met them, or done any work there before.

We organised a model couple, make-up artist and hair stylist, and did a fashion/wedding style shoot at their venue. We were able to get everything on a time for portfolio (TFP) basis with the other suppliers, but the shoot was free from us.

The images came out awesome so we decided to create the venue a 14 x10 Queensberry Duo album to show the images, and venue, off. We did this all at our own cost and unbeknown to the venue.

A week ago, we arranged to meet them and deliver the images. They were absolutely blown away with the album, and the online slideshow that we’d made for them. The owner/manager was nearly in tears.

We made the album for them to keep and use as a sample album to show off their venue when meeting potential clients, and just in time for a big wedding show they were exhibiting at.

This week I’ve had two brides call to arrange meetings… Both are having their weddings at this particular venue.

I’ve also had a several enquiries from brides who aren’t getting married there, but had been given our details, and thoroughly recommended, by the owner of the venue at their stall.

That’s a pretty good return on what cost us about $1000 – far better than spending the same money on a magazine ad or something.

So yeah – we do give away my services for free – like the situation above, it sometimes even costs us.

But to establish a working relationship as the preferred photographer at a venue that will be booking expensive, high-end weddings, we think is worth it.

Cheers, Isaac

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Photography for fun and profit. (It’s a lot of fun making a profit!)

Book-keeping – who needs it?

Some people keep regular accounts because they like to keep score.

Some people do just enough to keep the tax man and the bank happy.

But very few use their accounts to play the most important game of all… WHAT IF?

What if you could plug one of these questions into your business model and see the effect:

• What if my sales go down?
• What if I can’t get my price?
• What if I cut my costs?
• What if my bookings still go down?
• What if I offer shoot-and-burn?
• What if I hire staff or a second shooter?
• What if I rent a store-front studio?
• What if I outsource my post-production?

Questions like these can screw your income or destroy your business if you don’t know how to think about them.

Queensberry has forty years experience with professional photographers, and a very strong interest in helping our clients build long term profitable careers. After all, if our clients don’t prosper neither do we!

Come along to this month’s webinars to learn about the Queensberry model for wedding and portrait photography, and how to answer those critical What-If questions.

This Thursday New Zealand time, Stephen and I will be talking informally with Gino Demeer, one of our US Account Managers. We’ll plug some typical numbers into my Calculator and then get right down to business.

Click here to register and for more information.

We’d love to see you there – bring your own questions!

Cheers, Ian

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