Becoming more productive means becoming more profitable. One option is to do the same number of activities but in less time. Let’s say your time is worth $100 per hour and you make $1,200 for 12 hours of work. If you do the same amount of work in less time, you are now making the same amount of money but doing it in six hours a day instead of 12. Instead of your time being worth $100 per hour, it is now worth $200 per hour. The dollar value of your hour has just doubled.
It always makes me smile when photographers tell me they’re “available light” shooters. The first thing I do is grab the nearest strobe, hold it over my head in a Statue of Liberty pose and ask, “Do you see this strobe? Guess what? It’s an available light.” If photography is just your hobby and available-light shooting is what you’re comfortable with, that’s perfectly fine. But if you’re aspiring to be a pro, you’re doing yourself and your clients a disservice by not learning how to use flash.
What goes around comes around: it’s an expression we’ve all heard numerous times, but this month it’s so appropriate for eight great promotional products/concepts everyone seems to have forgotten about. Over the last five years, I’ve written about half of them, but it’s time to create a little more awareness to help you make 2018 the biggest and best year you’ve ever had. None of the ideas are new, but most of you will find them unique and loaded with potential for growing your business.
Let’s coin the term commodity photographer. Think generic can of peas or a jar of salsa with a white label that simply says “SALSA.” These products may have different manufacturers, but they are so similar that we often can’t tell the difference. In the world of photography, this same idea rings true. You might be just another can of peas and not even know it. Let’s explore some of the pitfalls and potential solutions to prevent you from being an easily replaceable commodity. Here are a few ways to tell if you fall into the category of a commodity photographer.
As creatives, it is in our blood to break out of the box and try something new. If you are not pushing yourself and developing your photography, where’s your growth as an artist? In this article, I give you the tools to try something new and pack a punch with your images. We will dive into corrective adjustments and how to direct your viewer. These are the basics you may already be doing today, but we are going to mix things up a bit.
Every company dreams of having the perfect well-oiled machine with self-sufficient employees. We just don’t live in a perfect world. But this dream of a well-oiled machine of a team can be achieved fairly simply. It takes trial and error, of course. And it’s going to be painful along the way. You’re not going to get it right the first time around (or the second, third, fourth or fifth, sadly). But stick with it. Keep pushing new practices and ideas that work for you and your business, and you will find success for your team.
We’ve all been there, scrolling aimlessly on our phone, floating in a sea of emojis and LOLs. We may not even realize we’re doing it, but suddenly 10 minutes (or two hours) pass, and we’ve watched 10 two-minute episodes of something called “Parkour Cats From Outer Space” and found ourselves ordering some swag from their website. What is going on here? How does one begin to make an impact in this sea of endless distraction? This is an ever-evolving science, but there are some methods to the madness of keeping people’s attention.
“It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.” I used to say that with a twinge of bitterness in my mouth. Now, a decade or so later, I realize that isn’t a snide statement. The best thing you can do in business is expand your network. If so much of our success sits on the shoulders of whom we know, then it’s our job to get out there and expand our reach. Here’s how you do that.
Strategic alliances in business can make major differences in the success of all parties involved if done correctly. This is true for just about any industry, but is often overlooked in the arts. It should never be about competition as much as it should be about synergy (a business buzzword that usually makes my stomach turn, but stay with me here). Aligning your photography business with someone else’s can be the injection of energy you were always looking for if you’re open to it and go about it the right way.
If you’re reading this, it’s because photography is your dream job. It’s probably not because you dreamed of editing images until 1:00 in the morning while the rest of your family sleeps. If we’re going to build our dream job, it’s got to fit within our dream life. So what does your dream life look like? The goal is to work to live instead of live to work. Let’s figure out how to make those dreams a reality. It starts with having a clear idea of your business model, volume and margin.
