It’s The Experience, Stupid

I”ll bet most of you have been to the movies lately. Spent $8 a ticket for your family, then $5 for 20 cents worth of popcorn, and $3.50 for drinks you could buy at the grocery store for 40 cents. All told, probably $50 for a family of 4, maybe more if you stopped for [...]

Learn From Outside Our Industry

How many ideas could we take from outside our industry and apply to what we do? I’ll give you an example. The owner of one of our two labs came up with a great idea on how to streamline dance photography. His son came home from the 3000 person winter dance we photograph, and told [...]

Don’t Be The Purse Police

One of my favorite marketing quotes comes from Bambi Cantrell. “Don’t be the purse police” In other words, dont take actions that might keep people from spending money with you, and definitely don’t set your prices based on what you personally can afford. According to Mark Till, the AVERAGE photographer in the United States makes [...]

Specials vs. Promotions

Specials versus Promotions We photographers have a tendency to think that in order to promote something we do, we have to offer a special; a discounted price in order to attract attention. That’s not necessary the case, and we certainly don’t want to do to ourselves what the pizza industry has done to themselves. When [...]

Your Elevator Speech

When I was in the computer business, we used to play a game that went like this: You have 30 seconds in an elevator with the CEO of a company you’ve been trying to penetrate. What would you say in 30 seconds that would get you an open door to talk with him more? The [...]