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Overtime is tricky because even if you think the client will be expecting it, don’t take any chances. They hired you as the director, controlling the day, offering strategic steps to look out for their best interest. Bring it up before it’s too late.

We have to talk about overtime. If you’re on a job and you see yourself heading towards overtime, talk with the client. Check in with yourself at lunch time, or early in the day. Ask yourself, “Where are we?” Are you falling beyond or you’re not getting all the shots done in the 10 hours. Overtime was probably already discussed with the client in an email and it’s on your contract or even talked about on the phone, but don’t count on that. Talk to them or have your producer talk for you or your rep. The client has to know in advance because they might not have the budget and it’s your responsibility. Even if they’re trying to add shots and you’ve said ok. Also, the amount of overtime has to be approved, such as how many hours of overtime and for how many people. You don’t want any surprises and you never want to hand it to your client and say, “Surprise!” You have to protect yourself.

You are in the business of keeping it fresh for your clients, so keep your own company fresh.

People are keeping it fresh, and what I mean is that they’re trying new things. Producers, consultants, reps, and photographers. All of us are doing something new and trying to market ourselves in a new way. We have people we want to hire us to keep them fresh, why wouldn’t we keep it fresh? Brainstorm with people you work with, even if you say no to their ideas, it gets your brain working on new ideas. Try new things, new equipment or a new posting on Instagram. Try something new that you don’t know. Try the unknown and make it something you work on. We talk about testing all the time. Test, test, test. Push yourself to keep yourself fresh. Put it out there, whether it’s something you’re interested in, or sharing who you are, or something you’d be bringing to a job or shooting more motion. There’s so many things you can do to show that you’re a fresh thinker.

Zoom calls are our way to connect with clients through our visual presence by direct and confident eye contact.

We’re noticing how important it is to really give eye contact as if you’re in person, because you are, in a sense. You’re as in person as we’re going to be right now. Make sure you have good eye contact and sit up straight. It shows how you are as a person, how you feel about this job and your excitement level as well as your presence if they choose to work with you. Showing good eye contact and sitting up straight shows you’re able to connect with the person you’re having a meeting with. Showing emotion on your face, being a warm person and reiterating what they have said to you, but in your own words will help you connect to whomever you are having a Zoom meeting with. No matter what the point is on the Zoom calls. It’s important to connect with the person you’re meeting with.

We are all curious about ESTIMATES.
My top 5 tips for every estimate:

1. Start it off with the amount of final images you have agreed on. 
2. No variations included. 
3. This bid is based on information provided, any changes may incur overages. 
4. 10-hour shoot day. 
5. No overtime is included.

*WARNING*

When you are asked to revise a specific cost on your submitted estimate, you can only change that cost. Do not be tempted to change other costs and assume they will read through it all again. You can get your client in trouble and it’s a sneaky move.

There’s one part of bidding we’ve noticed that you should be very careful about. When we’re asked to revise a bid, we need to only revise that specific line item that they’ve requested to change. It’s very tempting to change other line items because we might hear from their tone that our budget could have been higher or perhaps we’re a little low on craft services and should have put in more for meals. We cannot make those changes, because once we submit the bid, we have to assume when we give it back, they’re not going to read over the whole bid again. It can be really sneaky, even if we didn’t mean it in that way and we can get someone in trouble. Only change the revision that they asked for.

“You’ll learn more in one hour of doing something than in a lifetime of thinking about it.”

-Marc Randolph, Netflix founder

When we hear licensing terms like “copyright” and buyout,” they don’t always know what they are saying. I usually assume they don’t mean it unless they are large companies who are known to require ownership of a usage.

Recently we were emailed by someone who said they wanted to buy the copyright. We knew this was client direct because ad agencies know usage terms. Nowadays we’re getting requests from clients directly and production companies don’t really know what usage is. We spoke on the phone and after some explanation about usage we discovered what they needed it for. It turned out they needed it for social media, which is way different. It takes asking people directly on the phone, what they really need it for, so you don’t have to charge that much or get so intimidated by it to find out what they want to use it for.

How do we reach clients?
LinkedIn is my #1 answer.

The only way I tend to get the answers like email address + IG handle is to ask in several personalized follow-up notes instead of asking all in one message. It takes patience and follow through but hey, that’s called “marketing.”

One of our biggest challenges is figuring out who our clients are and how to reach them. The best way we have found is LinkedIn. Never ask for contact information without a note. Make it a quick note, introduce your name and who you are in two quick sentences. Ask for their email by asking if you can send your promo along with a link to your website. From there you can create a list of emails. We will also add these emails to our Agency Access list. It takes a lot of time and patience to create these lists. It’s very repetitive and it takes a lot of work.

Once you master your branding style, grow from within that special sauce to give clients what they will not get with others.

Hone In + Grow Out

Two things we’ve noticed:

1. Photographers are not getting jobs if they’re too general or not specific enough in their brand. Right now there are more photographers available and less jobs. You have to master something. Think about your competition, someone has really dedicated their portfolio to whatever this job is about. Your brand has to be very strong, you have to know it. It may not be something you can describe, maybe it’s more something you can feel. That’s your look.
2. Photographers need to expand and grow and move forward. They have to have things like gifs, stop motions and cinemagraphs. We have to be upping the game right now. If you’re too general or if you’re not expanding enough. If you need to expand more you take that look that you know if your style and from there you cohesively expand it.

It’s a heavy time right now, so keeping our own focus where we invest back into ourselves may be the way to keep that glass half full.