It’s So Easy to Stand Out, Part II

The other day, I had to fill my car with gas. I swiped my card, and it told me that there was a problem and to go see the cashier. I go in, and handed him my card and said I’d like to fill it up. He looked at me strange, and then I explained that the machine told me to come to the cashier. He acknowledges this, takes my card, hands it back and says, “Go try it now. It should work.” Befuddled and amazed I stood there for probably longer than I should have, and then said, “Are you serious?” Of course, now, I’m the jerk customer. He replied, ‘Yeah, it should work now. You’re all set”. He was right, but that’s not the point.

Today, my wife and I were trying to plan a trip to New Orleans. We were trying to use our milage points. We were having trouble, so my wife calls Delta. They look in the computer and say, “Oh, I see the problem. OK, I fixed it. It should work now”. It did work, but that’s not the point.

I am using these real life examples to show you how bad customer service often is. But, the good news is, as a small business, you can totally smoke these larger firms by not doing this. When your clients call you with a problem, you don’t fix it on your side and then send them off to complete the transaction. Fix the whole thing so it’s effortless to your clients. The fact that they had to call you is telling you that you had a glitch in the system or process. Make it right by fixing the problem, completing the transaction for them, ask them if there is anything else you can do, and view it as an opportunity to make deeper connections with your clients.

And, don’t forget to look into why this might have happened, and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

Lessons Learned from an Outstanding Company

If all companies put the time and energy into their packaging, like Apple does, the world would be better, more simple, and less wasteful. Think about how this might affect your business and what you can do to help the environment, your clients, and your business image.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

Reduce Your Stress by Driving Safely

There are many things that can happen before, during, and after a wedding. While it is not necessary to live your life in fear, it probably is prudent to take precautions when necessary. I’ve heard of photographers losing cards between walking from the reception to the car. I’ve heard of photographers packing up their bags getting ready to leave the reception, go say their good-bye’s to the bride and groom, only to find their bags gone, along with the wedding images that were in the bag.

 

There are many things that can happen. But, one thing you can do your best to ensure your safety is to drive carefully, slowly, and defensively. I have been known from time to time to drive a little on the…ahem…aggressive side. However, on a wedding day, I give myself plenty of time to drive.

 

If a wedding is nearby, like within surface street distance, I’ll leave myself an additional 30 minutes. So, if it’s 15 minutes away (I use Google maps to estimate my drive time), I’ll leave 45 minutes early. If it’s a location that is a freeway drive, I’ll give it an hour. So, if it’s a 60 minute drive, I’ll leave 2 hours early. I do this because I can drive carefully and take my time. I just put on good tunes, and forget about the traffic. I try to just think about the awesome wedding I’m about to shoot. If I get there early, sometimes, I just sit in my car and wait; other times, I call the bride and just say I’m a little early and ask if it’s OK if I can go in. But, the point is you don’t want to be rushed and speed and potentially get in an accident due to your being in a hurry. Also, an accident will delay you getting to your wedding, and this could really be a bad situation. You want to play safe, and just not have that be an issue. I don’t mind being early, but I get really stressed out if I am late. It’s only happened once, and I don’t think it will ever happen again.

 

To me, driving to and from a wedding is something that you do mostly have in your control, and it’s a serious stressor that you can eliminate from your day. The minimization of stressors makes you happy and feeling good about what you are doing. Not to mention, that it’s just a safer way to drive anyway.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

The [b] school podcasts

If you don’t already have Itunes, get it (it’s a free download) and get the [b] school podcasts that Christopher Becker provides for free. They are awesome and worth way more than what he charges for them :) He provides free tips and tricks for the business of wedding photography.

Cheers,

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

It’s So Easy to Stand-Out

With all this automation and technology, don’t you think it would be a refreshing change for your clients if you actually pick up the phone and answer it?

 

I just called Verizon and added call forwarding to my phone service. Since I often work from my laptop (remotely from anywhere) I am not normally just sitting in my office. So, I can now forward all my business calls to my cell phone. How simple and elegant is that?

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

Today, I am Going to Become a Wedding Photographer

Today, I am going to become a photographer.

Camera? Check.

Lens? check.

Flash? Oh crap, I need to buy a flash. I’ve never used one, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Photo bag? Check.

Website? Gotta call BluDomain

Ability to capture images? I take pictures of my baby everyday, so I’m good, I think.

Love of photography? Better than my day job. Check.

Wedding to shoot next week? Check.

 

Sound familiar?

 

This seems to be the extent of the planning for photographers jumping into the business these days. They get a Canon Rebel and a kit lens for Christmas and BAM! they are a professional wedding photographer. I was just on a photo forum and someone said, “I don’t really need to make money, so if it doesn’t work, it’s fine with me, but at least I tried.” This line is what prompted this blog post. I don’t even know where to start, but you see the list above, and in talking to friends and people I meet, it seems that this is about the extent of the planning. It should be pretty obvious what is missing, but in case it’s not, I’ll tell you: The Plan.

 

Can you imagine anyone going into business without a plan? Can you imagine going into business with no idea how to make money at it? Can you imagine not understanding the landscape of an industry before plowing in? Would you invest in someone who did that? Say someone you know says to you, ‘I need $60,000 to start my photography business. Can you loan it to me?” What questions would you ask? Maybe, how long have you been working at photography? What do you know about it? How is the industry right now? What makes you different from everyone else? What do you expect your income to be? When can you pay me back…with interest?

 

What successful businesses do before they just plow in is research. Take a stroll over to the BLS labor statistics and take a look at the average photographer’s salary. Here’s an extract for you:

 

“Median annual earnings of salaried photographers were $26,170 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $18,680 and $38,730. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $15,540, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $56,640. Median annual earnings in the industry employing the largest numbers of salaried photographers were $22,860 in the photographic services industry.

 

Salaried photographers—more of whom work full time—tend to earn more than those who are self-employed. Because most freelance and portrait photographers purchase their own equipment, they incur considerable expense acquiring and maintaining cameras and accessories. Unlike news and commercial photographers, few fine arts photographers are successful enough to support themselves solely through their art.”

 

You can read the entire publication here: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos264.htm

 

This is only one example of the plethora of research that is available on the web for free. Take advantage of it.

 

Part of your plan will include insurance expenses; yes you need at least a $1,000,000 liability insurance policy; some venues require it for you to work there. You need insurance for your equipment. What happens if your equipment gets swiped at a wedding? Or, what happens if all your equipment burns in a fire? What happens if in that same fire where you lost your equipment, you also lost client images that were not yet delivered and now those clients are going to sue you? You NEED insurance.

 

You need to pay taxes on your income. This can take a pretty big bite out of your income. Figure about 30% or so.

 

You will need to account for all of the mileage you will be driving all over the city. Wear and tear on your car is a big ticket item. It doesn’t seem like it at first, but you cannot have a heap of a car when you are a wedding photographer. You need to be able to get to every wedding. Calling the bride and saying, “my car wont start” is not acceptable.

 

You need to think about your equipment. That Rebel will not last very long in the day to day use of a pro photographer. Equipment gets pretty beat up. You need pro gear. And, it can get fairly expensive; especially at first.

 

You need to have 2 of everything you own. Equipment failures do happen. And, in the event that your cameras fail, you should have a complete set of capable professional cameras ready to roar. There’s nothing worse than the first dance starting, and your cameras fail.

 

You need to have a back up system for all those wonderful images you take. Hard drives fail. I’ll say it again, ALL HARD DRIVES EVENTUALLY FAIL. So, you need to have a back up, and a back up of the back up. Having off-site storage is a very good idea. Many pros have all their images stored off-site in case of a total catastrophe (see the fire scenario above).

 

Where are you going to find brides? You don’t just put up a website, and all of a sudden brides are beating down your door for you to photograph them. It doesn’t work that way. So, how are you going to reach out to them?

 

These are only a few considerations. I am only scratching the surface. There is much more.

 

Have a great day!

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

The Economics of Outsourcing

The title says it all. I hope it hasn’t tuned most of you out from reading this topic. But, if you’ve made it to this point, that’s cool: ONWARD! I have a funny view of outsourcing for small business. I hear photographers talk all the time about outsourcing image processing, outsourcing their lab work, outsourcing their album designs, and outsourcing their meetings to sales professionals. I wonder, if you outsource all this stuff, what you actually do? I know, I know – it’s trying to get the work down to a level where you mostly shoot, and market a little too. It sounds good on paper, but how does it actually pan out? 

My time is very valuable. I value my time. I really do. The thing is, when we talk about outsourcing work, usually outsourcing is a big company term. A large company, such as Mattel, as an example, achieves economies of scale by outsourcing pieces of their business. Small business owners don’t achieve economies of scale. They only have their time. But, time doesn’t cost us anything, in terms of real dollars. Also, sometimes the things that we as photographers want to outsource are activities that we dislike. But, that doesn’t mean that outsourcing them is beneficial. Outsourcing albums, for instance, is something that might benefit your business. But, it costs you money; real money. You are saving time, but when you spend your time you don’t have to spend money. I know this sounds weird, but I think this concept is too important to not mention.

If you think you can better spend your time on marketing, as an example, rather than designing albums, then you might consider doing that. However, before you jump into it, look at your business now. Take a snap shot of your business today, this is called base-lining. Set a baseline for your business today; where you are financially. Then, set a target for where you want to be. Think about how effective you want your marketing to be, and set a goal for achieving this. Once you do this, outsource something so you can spend that time creating value for your business. The outsourcing activity you chose should enable you to build your business and reach your goal. Also, set a time frame in which to reach your goal. So, maybe 6-months from now, you evaluate where you are. Did you grow? Were you able to create more value than the cost of your outsourcing effort? If not, bring it back in. If so, or if you are trending upwards, give yourself another 6-months for another evaluation. Essentially, the outsourcing should not cost you a cent. In fact, it should add to your bottom line in one way or another.

Your time does = money. But, in a small business, you might have more time than money to spend. And, if the money you spend doesn’t turn out to be more valuable than your time spent on other things, you are actually putting yourself in the red.

If your goal is to simply spend more time with your kids. That’s hard to value. You can’t put a price on that, and your measure might be: are you actually spending more time with your kids?

The question is not how much are you willing to spend for outsourcing, which is the measure many photographers seem to use. The question is how much additional value do you think you can create that will exceed the expense of outsourcing within a certain period of time. If it costs you $5k per album, but you can easily double that by spending your time where it matters, the cost is inconsequential to you.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

Just got back from Tampa

Whew! What an exhilarating and exhausting experience at the Digital Wedding Forum convention in Tampa, Florida. I just got back and feel exhilarated.

For the past 3 years, the DWF convention has been in Las Vegas. For those of us in SoCal, that’s really awesome because Vegas is so close. This year, they decided to switch it up and have it in Tampa. Having never been to Florida, I thought it might be cool to go. But, I wasn’t prepared for the great experience I had there.

This is Amy Prutch and I at the convention.

I truly feel inspired after this experience. Many of those who spoke at the various seminars were extremely inspiring. I didn’t feel like I was being sold to or that anyone even cared about “selling” anything. There was a genuine willingness to teach and drive photographers to be better than they are today by looing inside and finding that something that pushes us one step further towards where we want to be. Tony Hewitt, a Australian based photograper, asked us, “Would the child you were be proud of the adult you’ve become?” That’s a pretty powerful question and one that requires an answer from all of us; not just photographers, but anyone reading this.

At any rate, I’m glad I made the long journey on a cramped little tin can of an airplane for 5 hours to visit this event, see some of my friends and associates from all over the world, make new friends, and find inspiration for what I do.

A special thanks to Jeff Caplan, owner of DWF, for making it all happen. It takes a tremendous effort to pull something like this off.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

The New: What’s in my Bag

Wow. How quickly things change. Here’s one of the first posts I wrote on this blog about the equipment I use: What’s In My Bag.

I thought it would be interesting to write a new blog post with my current set up for weddings.

First, I usually use the Boda Bag, and take one extra back up bag.

I use:

2 1DMII’s
24mm 1.4
35mm 2.0
50mm 1.4
85mm 1.2
100 2.8
2 580EX flashes
cards, extra batteries, and a few other odds and ends. That’s it.

I have one lens on each camera, so there are only 3 lenses in my bag at any given time. Usually, I have the 85 on one camera, and the 35 on the other.

In the backup bag, I usually have a 5D, a 16-35 2.8, a 24-70 2.8, the 70-200 2.8, and a 550EX flash.

I also throw my lightstick into the car and keep it there until the reception. I have my 2nd shooter or assistant help me with the light stick. This is a simple monopod with a flash on it, and a PocketWizard attached. I use this at the reception to add depth to the lighting. I’ll be posting about this technique, which I learned from Huy Nguyen, in a future post.

I find that being lighter and carrying less on me helps me to be free. I feel lighter and more creative. Too much equipment really bogs me down. I like using small compact flashes because they are easy to carry, move, and use. If I am shooting in a really dark environment, I’ll bring a mono light on a stand, that is also fired by a pocket wizard, and place it somewhere in a corner for additional lighting. But, that’s an extreme case for me.

I’ve chosen to use 1DMII’s over 5D’s because I simply like the way the 1D series cameras handle. They operate the way I expect a professional camera to operate. The 5D’s are extremely nice cameras, but they operate just a tad slow for me for professional wedding work. I would have the 1DMIII, but there are too many reports of problems. I shot one myself not to long ago, and didn’t care for it. Another reason for using the 1D-series cameras is that they have automatic backup. You can put an SD card in the camera as well as your CF card, and have all your images simultaneously write to both cards. This is very important in wedding work, and often overlooked. Another reason I use the 1DMII cameras is they still use 8.2 megapixels. For me, that is just the perfect size file for weddings and portraits. After using the 5D for a while, which has 12.8 megpixels, I can tell you that 12.8 is just too much. You don’t need it. And it is a waste of storage space. So, I’m sticking with my 8.2 MP cameras for a while. Lastly, I really think the files out of the 1DMII cameras are beautiful. Highlight recovery is better than the 5D, and the color overall is better, and looks the way I expect it to out of the camera.

I know the debate rages over everything I’ve posted. That’s fine. This is my blog and I can say whatever I want.

Happy shooting!

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com

Ever Needed to Find a Photography Website about Photography Websites?

I have always had a need for a great index of good photography informational websites. Where here’s the mother of them all: http://blog.epicedits.com/2007/11/07/87-great-photography-blogs-and-feeds/

Happy reading.

Jerry Frazier
Los Angeles Wedding Photographer
http://www.jerryfrazierphotography.com