Wednesday Wisdoms

How do Photographers Get Started?

3 Step Formula for All Photographers:

1. PORTFOLIO RESEARCH

Regular education and research of our imagery industry will help you master the “Objective” eye, giving you the skills to edit your work. 

2.  CHOOSE THE STYLE

The constant honing-in forward growth of what your style is about will bring you the control clients can depend on. 

3.  ATTITUDE

Owning who you are, finding ways to express it allows clients to know what they get by hiring you. 

What’s out there helping you run your photo business?

Let’s share our favorite resources.

Here are My Top Five:

1. www.pixsy.com – get paid when your images are being used without your permission.
2. www.hunter.io – valuable email formats for every company.
3. www.aphotoeditor.com – loaded with today’s industry info.
4. www.adweek.com/agencyspy – find the updates on the companies you want to work with.
5. www.adsoftheworld.com – know who has worked on which ad.

Marketing Tip = Timeliness

Immediate follow-up is one way to secure your position in a client’s memory. 

Use the open door at the moment to open the doors of your future through LinkedIn, IG, a handwritten card, send a plant, an email or any type of old-fashioned follow-up whether you get the job or not. Go with what works by using the moment to your advantage.

The California law states that for a photography sale to be non-taxable, you cannot supply any form of tangible personal property, including Hard Drives. You can only upload the photos to a computer owned by the customer or send them via electronic transfer. 

Five ways to protect ourselves from the vague Sales Tax laws for Photographers:

1. Change “Hard Drive” to Image or Digital Management. 
2. Have your retoucher electronically send images to the client directly. 
3. You digitally transfer all the images. 
4. Out-of-state clients with no offices in your state don’t require sales tax. 
5. Uploading all images to the client’s business computer is the official legal procedure.

Don’t waste all that you put into your Marketing by looking like another mass spam junk email.

Here are some simple ways to have potential clients take our marketing to that next level by clicking to see more. 

Easy ANTI-SPAM Checklist:

• Send your emails only to the correct contacts. 
• Sound like a human to human with real words as if you are talking. 
• Email new images without repeating yourself
• No need to sound “sales-like” as they know why you are contacting them. 

I get asked a lot about how photographers can get their first jobs. 

Let’s call this the INTRO stage as you are meeting the right people in the right places. 

Get experience finding opportunities in the areas you want to be working in, and with your confident demeanor, the people in your circles will know who to call when they are hiring. 

We can’t be spending our time doing estimates on information we don’t have. 

I’m hearing a ton of complaints from photographers wasting useless time on estimates that don’t turn out to be the real deal. I hear you! With no bid spec sheets, I get many of these requests that won’t reveal the budget upfront, so I focus on the points that help me see if this client is even ready for an estimate. Our goal is to quickly open up the communication doors, giving us a clearer sense of what we are dealing with.

My quick first step estimating questionnaire:

• What is the Usage?
• What is the specific Shotlist?
• Do you have a creative deck with the layouts + mood-boards?
• What are the talent rates?
• Do you have stylists you like to use?
• When is the creative call?

Five Business Goals for Photographers

1. Updated portfolio to show off the tightly branded type of work you want to get vs. a resume of work you have done over the years.
2. Modified marketing direction plan keeping up with the times and even one step ahead.
3. Buttoned up admin downtime work to avoid last-minute scrambles with equipment, crew, treatment and estimate templates, insurance, payroll, taxes, finances, etc. 
4. What don’t you know? Outsourcing is key.
5. Practice that “CAN-DO” attitude in sync with our industry’s fast and furious evolving climate.

It’s a New Year.

Business owners, now is the time to step forward with what does work. The more we know can sometimes hold us back. Not being experienced in something cannot guide the business model. Now is the time to jump into what ‘really matters’ by doing what we don’t already know.

As business owners, we are responsible for scheduling time to refuel.

The long-term game plan of a quiet mind creates the metal space to hear new ideas.

Take this job requirement “business” holiday as the tool to clear the path of where you want to go.