unsolicited advice from a professional wedding photographer

Run your own business? Want to start one? Discuss business applications of ProShow Gold and Producer here.
Esteemed Member
Posts: 317
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:17 am
Location: Australia

Postby shazmark » Tue Apr 17, 2007 4:23 am

Hi Charlie, enjoyed your input very much,
and everything you say makes sense to us,
you cert. haven't rambled all good points.
cheers
shazmark

dnavarrojr

Postby dnavarrojr » Tue Apr 17, 2007 10:14 am

One of the hardest parts of doing something like this for money is convincing people to pay you for it. Particularly when you are first getting started.

You can show them the "personal shows" you've done for friends and family, but if you want to give them confidence you need to show them an example (or three) that matches their needs. If you haven't done something yet, it makes it a tougher sell.

To get a leg up in a niche market, you usually have to do two or three shows at low prices (if not free) just so that you have the examples for your portfolio. Once you have those examples, you can start charging what they are really worth.

Also, pricing is sometimes determined by need. If you don't have your next 5 jobs lined up, you might NEED to lower your price on a project or two just to get some bills paid. The pitfall is that true bargain hunters tend to be your most problematic clients.

When my ex-wife and I first started creating web sites years ago, we tried to compete on price. We kept getting customers that would come in and haggle with us. We "needed" the work, so if we could still make money, we'd do the job. But those people tended to cause us the most headaches and require extra work that sometimes made jobs unprofitable in the end. When I raised prices and stopped negotiating on the price we initially lost a lot of work, but when we did get work it was from clients who understood that quality costs money. They trusted us more and projects went much smoother.

That was an extremely difficult step, however. Watching $500 or $1000 walk out the door because you wouldn't meet their budget. My ex thought I was crazy and we had a lot of arguments at the time. However, in the end, it worked. We got a better class of clients and an improved reputation that resulted in more work at the higher prices.

But, unless you really are fantastically gifted, it's nearly impossible to "start" a business only doing work for the well-to-do. Especially when you've got bills piling up. In my opinion, it's "okay" to start out selling low as long as you understand that you MUST raise your prices as quickly as possible. You MUST inform you clients that you are giving them a special deal because of labor day or whatever other excuse so that when they come back or tell their friends, they won't expect the same low price every time. (I did this by invoicing them for twice the amount agreed and giving them a 50% discount).

Watch for the signs of a difficult customer before you agree to do work. If they're real picky about details, trust me you don't want to do a job for them at a low price. I'm working on my first corporate presentation for a tradeshow. I pimped myself out for the job because I didn't have one in my portfolio. However, I typed up an agreement spelling out in detail what services I was providing to the client and had them sign it beforehand. I've had two calls from them about changes they wanted. I agreed to do the changes, but at an additional fee. When they whined, I brought out the agreement. At that point, they agreed to the additional fees.

Speaking of which, I don't do ANY "business" for anyone (even friends) without a signed agreement/contract. Something I learned the hard way years ago. If you don't have one to use, I highly recommend the book "Business Contract Kit for Dummies". It has a number of useful agreements and contracts that you can personalize for your needs. I took the software agreement contract, personalized it, changed a few terms and then took it to a lawyer to have they do a final pass. Because I had it with me already done and just needed "their magic touch", it only cost me $100 instead of a thousand or more for getting a custom one written from scratch. I even bartered with the lawyer at the time, so there was no out of pocket expense. :D

That brings up something else I wanted to touch on. I do a lot of bartering. Trading my services for the goods and/or services of others. Make sure you track it all properly for your accountant. But it's a great way to get something you need for a great deal. Don't be afraid to do it if someone asks (and don't be afraid to ask if a potential client has something you need). I've had deals where the client was about to say no, but when I brought up bartering, they agreed almost immediately. But be careful that you don't get too caught up in it. It's easy to do thousands of dollars of work and never get paid any money. Unfortunately, the phone company doesn't barter, so that won't help with your bills. Make SURE that you're not losing any money or paid work from the deal. I don't give any discounts on a barter deal. It's my full price against the client's full price, usually with the client still oweing me a few dollars. :)

iltdo

Postby iltdo » Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:00 am

Well I'm glad I stumbled onto this thread... There's some food for thought, and it offers some answers to questions I've had.

dnavarrojr, can I ask you some technical questions? I'm not new to webdesign, but I'm self taught and have a bunch of holes in my learning. I'm just now learning Producer and I want to make some videos and put them on my website. I'm getting stuck in the conversion part. I took a movie from my digital camera, stuck it in producer and outputted to swf. The webpage it made plays fine on my hard drive, but when I upload it, click on it, not much happens. I can see a flash where it looks like it's starting to buffer, but then the menu just pops back. I searched all day yesterday for the best and easiest way to do this but just got bogged down with a lot of info I don't understand.

It looks like since producer makes a decent mpg, I should find something that will convert mpgs to either mov or wmv files? Then use either the embed tags or put it in the webpage as an object? My website (http://users.kua.net/brown3/ - sometimes just copying that link doesn't work and you have to type it in WITHOUT the http://) is in it's beginning stages. I'm not trying to sell anything online, I was just hoping I could hand out some cards, people could go there and look, and maybe I can make a little side money. I'm financially bottom of the barrel and would like to lift off the ground at least an inch.

Also what you said about doing work for the bargain hunters. SO TRUE. I have no certificates saying I'm a professional this or that, so right away, they don't expect to pay professional charges. (which I wouldn't charge anyway because I'm NOT a professional, but still, by the time their happy, I'm not because I only made maybe 3 to 5 dollars an hour and gave them forms where I had to put together javascript to make it happen like they want, etc. The belizeme site uses a database, with some hacked sql... http://www.mycandleworks.com/ http://www.belizemetours.com/)

Just to comment, someone said that people are just as wow'ed by a simple slideshow as an extravagant one. It's true. A simple slideshow with just a little pan and zoom, nice fades, that flow along with the music, make just as much of an impact as ones that I spent hours on, doing fancy transitions, making certain parts pop with the beat of the song... I love creating, time flies, spend time in photoshop doing things to the pictures, and time in producer doing things with the timing, and people that see them, really love them, but I can't seem to get any one to buy one. It seems like it's one of those things that they see, it makes an impact, they want one, but then time passes and they never seem to get around to getting their photos together, and then the urge fades... It's something that is always on the back burner.

Here's something someone might find interesting. I am working part time for a funeral home, and had just gotten done doing a show for someone in my family and happened to have it with me at work one day. A light bulb went off and I thought, why not do them for the funeral home? So I showed the show to the secretary, who teared up, and in turn showed it to our funeral director, who loved it, and in turn showed it to our general manager who is in charge of all 4 funeral homes. Boom, I was on board. I had already made up about 7 templates with different songs for people to choose from and if they wanted to use their own song, it was to be with the understanding that it would be without the fancy stuff that the templates had... it would be just a simple fade in and out, with some zooming.

So within 2 days of the general manager jumping on it, I had my first slideshow to do for the funeral home. I charged $150.00 and the funeral home was to get $25.00 of that. And that was 6 weeks ago. I got no more work. I questioned the secretary a couple of times and she said that every one was just real busy. Finally a week ago, someone came to me with the decency to tell me what was going on. The busiest of the 4 funeral homes was doing the slideshows. They loved the idea, but decided why get only $25 dollar finders fee when they can just get a scanner and a program and have the secretary over there do it on top of her regular secretarial duties. And they are charging $250 for them.

I've heard it a lot of times when I mention I can do slideshows "Oh my daughter does those..." "My brother does those..."

Just a squirrel trying to get a nut....

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Location: Australia

Postby shazmark » Sat Apr 21, 2007 6:18 am

Hi iltdo,
thouroughly enjoyed reading your post, can't help much with the first part of your post, will leave that to the pros... but I was moved by what happened to you with the funeral home, I have been working for a business, and too am worried about them taking on my work themselves, as I haven't heard from them for a while, I am hoping I am just being paranoid, and that they too are very busy at the moment. I have come to realize after spending more and more time on this site, reading peoples posts that we cant expect to make a fortune out of these slideshows, and to just love what we do and enjoy seeing the happiness on peoples faces when we have completed a show for them, remembering happy times with their loved ones etc. I have made enough money so far with my shows to pay for this program and to buy some photographic equipment so my hubby and I can spend our weekends out doing something we enjoy, and being together,and so if my shows only pay for my hobby, so we can afford to go out on weekends, that would be o.k. with me.

dnavarrojr

Postby dnavarrojr » Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:06 pm

ProShow creates 3 files when you output to flash. An HTML file, an SWF file and an FLV file. Make sure you upload all three to your web site and not just the HTML and SWF files.

As for worrying about someone doing it themselves... I've had that happen a few times. But when I show them the difference between what I create and what they create, I get them back.

In one case, where a real estate office bought PSG and had agents doing shows themselves, I offered to do a class at $40 a head to teach them some advanced technics and they accepted. I did four classes of 12 agents each. And 16 of those agents decided that I was better than they were, so they ended up bringing all their work to me. :)

dnmilikan

Postby dnmilikan » Tue Dec 18, 2007 8:17 am

I have been involved in direct sales in one form or another for most of my working years (about 55 at last count). There are several things that I would add here. The first is that a customer does not buy our product or service for the product or service itself...they buy it for the actual or perceived benefit it brings to them. Someone earlier mentioned BMW automobiles and that is a good example of what I am saying. A Geo will carry our bodies from one place to another but we get a lot of ego strokes by driving a BMW...the perception of the benefit arrives, in this case, from the "feel goods" that come about from the admiration of our friends and associates for the automobile that we drive. As Zig Ziegler once advocated "don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle". We don't sell the slide show compilation of a group of photographs, we sell the precious and irreplaceable memories of families that grow, mature, and change. We sell the professional presentation of the corporation, their goods, their organization, and their services. In the case of families, these memories are never going to be represented or shown as effectively in another way. A bunch of old snapshots in a shoe box in the back of a closet will most likely remain there until the next death occurs...we have something more to sell...we offer convenience and a professional production. If we are professional and creative in our endeavors we need not be concerned by competition from others. Someone told me years ago that it was more important to create than it was to compete. That has been true in my experience. So I believe, for myself today.., that my job is creating...let the other guy knock himself out by attempting to duplicate what I produce.

The other thing that I would mention is that the person who talked about selling to the market that has money, in that case corporations, is absolutely correct. We set the price on our goods or services by our perception of their worth...our clients arrive at their perception of the inherent value of what we sell by our professionalism, the price that we assign to our goods and services, and the benefits that we make them aware that they receive by having a professional relationship with us. Let us not waste our time trying to sell ice cream in a hardware store...go to those who benefit by what we have and the money to buy it at a reasonable price.

The third thing is that we sell most effectively when we sell to "centers of influence" that may be the doctor, the attorney, the college professor, the bishop, or the corporation. These people have the disposable incomes to afford us and they love to tell their friends and associates of the latest and greatest thing that they have acquired. These are the people who can help us in our marketing efforts by telling others about us and by recommending us to those who can use what we sell. We should never be ashamed to ask for a letter of recommendation when we deliver our product to a satisifed customer. This letter of recommendation will be our next sales lead. An example of how this can be presented is like this..."Mr and Mrs Jones, I am happy that we were able to capture the memories of your beautiful daughter's graduation. I am thankful that you allowed me to be a part of your irreplaceable memories. I noticed that your neighbor have announced the engagement and upcoming marriage of their daughter. I would really appreciate if you could arrange an introduction to your neighbors. I have taken the liberty of preparing a letter of introduction and if you would, I really would appreciate it if you would read it and if it meets your approval, your signature on the bottom.

The final thing that I will say is directed to the originator of this thread, his words, his sentiments and the effects that they may have on those who read them. I would encourage you who have read his suggestions and observations to not accept another person's view of reality as your reality. In his book "Illusions" Richard Bach makes this very profound statement and I think that it is important to remember it now and in the future "argue for your limitations, and you shall have them"

Now I have stepped down from my soapbox...I hope that my thoughts will put some fire into the stomachs of those who have lost their way.

XaiLo

Postby XaiLo » Tue Dec 18, 2007 6:00 pm

dnmilikan, I want to thank you for your comments sometimes practicallity can get in the way of making a million dollars. As a photographer I never think in terms that someone is paying me for a photograph of themselves. There paying me for my interpretation of them, what I see. A friend of mines purchased a Nikon camera and in a conversation he stated to me "my pictures don't look like yours even though were using the same equipment." There was a lesson to be learned there, this same individual has purchased images from me... his wife requested that I capture her and I'm not talking studio images these are candid images that anyone can pick up a camera and take... I love taking candid shots that's where my passion lies and that's transfered into the images. If you do something well there's always going to be a market... now understanding and communicating value to your target audience is another conversation. If the belief is I'm in the business of making slideshows then that's all one would make... if the business is "effective communication" to elicit a response from the viewer then there is an inherent value to anyone who wants to communicate a thought, product, or emotion and so on. Letting someone else define your worth is a mistake...

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