Saving the World One Pixel at a Time

“I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity”—Sydney Biddle Barrows, the Mayflower Madam

I know from my e-mail that many readers work in corporate environments harboring dreams of someday being their own boss. While some may actually be planning for this eventuality, others may find that, like greatness, being an entrepreneur can be thrust upon you. In my own situation, I long had a dream of owning my own photographic studio and had started making plans for that day, only to get laid off long before my scheduled departure. So I said “the hell with it,” and started my business the next day. I was unprepared for how similar my little operation was to my Fortune 500 job but the big differences lie in all of the advantages of flying solo.

Along the way, you may have to make a few sacrifices in lifestyle or quality of life, but true entrepreneurs do it because they see a future payoff. It took me many years to make the same kind of money I had received from corporate America and it took me many years after that to have health insurance as good as when I was a wage slave.

Most new entrepreneurs don’t do it for the money; they do it for the freedom. As “the boss” you have the freedom of making decisions that affect the direction of the company. This includes flexibility in making quick U-turns to adopt new policies, strategies, and technology without having to run it through a middle-management filter. (“Oh Rob, Snafu Industries could never do that!”) If you do it and it works, you’re a hero. If it flops, you gain valuable “school of hard knocks” experience.

Some people are attracted to entrepreneurial life because they want to take time off to play golf. If you received a golden parachute from your former employer that may be possible but few of us are that lucky. While you may work more hours than before, you will have flexibility in your calendar to take your kids to a ball game during the week or attend a recital at their school during the day without “your boss” taking the gas pipe. If you can’t be flexible regarding spending time with your family within your work schedule allocation, then you’re a workaholic and should consider getting a “real job.”

In addition to having the freedom to make decisions that affect your studio’s growth and work schedule, you also have the freedom to run an operation that has more dignity and ethical concern than the company you left. You have the freedom to treat your clients with the kind of respect you think they deserve, not what some suit in the home office long removed from what it’s like in the real world tells you to do. For many entrepreneurs this is one of the major reasons they left what, for some, were long careers. Knowing that you “did it with integrity” will help you sleep at night and live longer and prosper.

 Joe Farace has been an independent photographer for more than 30 years and can’t image any other kind of lifestyle that’s better.

When a customer or client has a good experience with your studio they tell two people. When they have a bad experience they’ll tell ten people, so the odds are not in your favor. There are lots of other of these kinds of “rules” that affect your profitability: A prospect must encounter at least 18 “impressions” of a studio before they’re converted into a billable client. 80% of the gross income of a studio is derived from 20% of its customers. If you don’t believe these rules apply to you then you’re an exception. In speaking with owners of both large and small studios, they’ve agreed that these “rules” are true for them.

How we handle client complaints is sometime more important that the quality of our photography. Bad news travels fast but word about a bad photography shoot travels at Warp 9. We all try to do a good job but on some day’s we’re Francesco Scavullo and other days we’re Frank N. Stein. Correcting problems is an important component of the eighteen “impressions” a photographer must make before a prospect becomes a client. Some of those impressions happens when you deliver photographs and the client isn’t happy? Recently, this happened to a photographer I know and here’s how it was handled:

They asked for a face-to-face meeting with the client to review the images and go over her problems with them. At that meeting, he found out what was really bothering them. The truth is that the work wasn’t bad. It wasn’t as good as a similar assignment the studio had done a year ago but was within acceptable levels of professional performance. Because this particular client spends a lot of money, they agreed to reshoot several — but not all —of the setups. They also discovered that the real reason the customer was unhappy was that they preferred working with a different photographer from the studio and that’s why it was decided that this. person would handle reshoot. This client had been a source of many referrals and my friend wanted to keep it that way. Reshooting was cheaper (out-of-pocket costs were low) than loosing a valuable client. The client was impressed that one of the studio’s owners cared enough to meet with them and work out a way to solve their problems. So what’s the big deal, you say, anyone would have done the same thing? The difference is that I would do the same thing even if a client spent very few dollars with me and has never referred an assignment.

Making impressions begins with knowing your capabilities and who you are as a photographer. When a prospective client calls me, instead of being ready to shoot any assignment regardless of whether I have the proper equipment or expertise, I’ll refer them to a photographer who can do what they need. Most callers are astonished at this and before I hang up, I remind them about my own specialties and ask when them to call me when they need those particular skills. I want to make sure that this impression has been favorable and that, over time, when they’ve accumulated the other seventeen or so impressions they’ll remember me. Movie buffs will recall this is the same kind of customer service “What! Macy’s is sending people to Gimbles” exemplified by the classic film “Miracle on 34th Street.” Every now it works the other way. No too long ago, an aerial photographer sent me one of their clients who needed some shots made on the ground.

Joe Farace is the author of “Studio Lighting Anywhere” that’s available in all the best bookstores as well as Amazon.com.

Special Guest Post by Skip Cohen

The laborer, selling his labor in competition with other laborers who underbid each other until their wages just barely cover their cost of sustenance, also never gets rich. –Benjamin J. Stein

These words sum up some thoughts I’ve expressed over the years about how some photographers think the only way to attract new clients is by low-ball estimates that undercut their competition. These shooters are blind to the fact that short-term thinking like this does not build client loyalty and only reduces an operation’s profitability.

People in the service industry refer to low ball estimates as “giving away your work” and that’s a fair analogy. While some photographers believe customers will only flock to them if they are inexpensive (read “cheap”), that doesn’t mean the concept of discount auto parts isn’t valid. The difference is that low prices were part of their business plan for operations. Is that your plan?

There are lots of resources to help you with pricing your own work including NPPA’s Web page as well as software such as Business Savvy Photographer. No matter how you do it, pricing your products and services should be fair, competitive, and deliver a return on your investment that allows you to support your family and pay any employees a living wage. Photographers sometimes forget this kind of basic business practice when they’re in a slump trying to pay the bills. The problem with cutting prices when times are tough is that you might not survive.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about occasionally giving clients a break from time to time. Far too often, a voice on the telephone asks you to cut them a deal and my response has always been that I reward customers for their loyalty. Everybody pays the same prices at the start but repeat customers are given favorable considerations. The same is true of charitable organizations. The danger is that once the word gets around about freebies from you, others may come knocking at your door. A better deal for photographers is to get involved with events the charity is involved in, such as marathons or golf tournaments, which have a high public visibility and deliver public relations value to your studio.

The bottom line is that if you don’t watch your bottom line, you can’t expect others to do it for you.

BTW, Ben Stein’s quote is from, “License to Steal” an older book that will open your eyes about many things in the world of finance, including why some companies take so long to pay your invoices: The main reason is that they never intended to

“Drinking beer doesn’t make you fat, It makes you lean….against tables, chairs, and poles.”—Anonymous

Sometimes I think that photography is a lot like Miller’s Lite beer. Instead of tastes great or less filling, the argument would go — is it art or commerce? One of the problems with the business side of photography is that we always don’t get to choose the kind of assignments that come our way. Bread-and-butter studio or location shoot may pay the rent but may not always be as exciting as we would like. One of my old studio’s biggest moneymakers was a shoot for a national department store that involved making photographs of every (and I mean every) display in one of their flagship stores. While technically challenging and financially profitable, the assignment was, nevertheless, aesthetically, unsatisfying. It was as the beer commercial goes “less filling.”

One of the best ways to get the kind of assignments that you really want is to give them to yourself. Here are two self-assignments that had very different outcomes but regardless of what happened after the assignment was completed, the projects “tasted great.”

Mary knew that a local bank held monthly art shows and was having an upcoming anniversary and used these two facts as a basis of pitching them an exhibit of environmental portraits of prominent local business women. The subjects of the portraits were selected by members of business woman’s network and a local lab sprang for all of the prints as well as a sign to place in the bank’s window. The display ran a month but the bank liked the portraits so much they asked Mary to leave it up for another month, which naturally she did. All but one of the women photographed eventually purchased the prints and another ordered many prints as gifts. The result was increase in Mary’s stature as an on-location portrait photographer and the project made money

My project involved volunteering as a photographer at a streetcar museum and the photos would be used the museum for publicity purposes and by me as portfolio material. It was all shot in black & white and the result was that I got to met some interesting people, had some pictures entered into an juried art show, but little else. Nevertheless, I made some fun photographs and got to meet some great people.

Joe Farace is author of “Studio Lighting Anywhere” that’s available from Amazon and your friendly neighborhood book or camera store.