I just got back from an awesome vacation that I sent myself on from my earnings with the Easy Photo Biz thing that I recommended a while back.
The story goes like this:
I originally signed up for this Easy Photo Biz deal thinking that it was like a lot of internet things - too good to be true - but I think that I've managed to prove myself wrong. haha.
Over the past 6 months I've stacked away all the cheese that I've earned doing this gig part time and it just paid for a 10 day trip to South America... That's what I'M talking about!
In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, you can read more about it here: Easy Photo Biz.
Anyhow, that's not the reason I'm posting....
=============================================
The reason for my post is this:
While I was away, one of my subscribers emailed me and asked about my workflow. More specifically, what programs I used and why.
So, I shot him (thanks Dennis) back some reading material, essentially an email that was a book about why I use a combination of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom.
For those of you not in the know, Photoshop has been around for ages now and seems to be what I would consider an industry standard. Most pros that I know use Photoshop or Lightroom, and if you're serious about being a pro this is a brand that you'll have to get used to hearing about.
With that said, Dennis asked me if I knew anywhere that he could get some more info on Photoshop. Well, not wanting to be one of those guys that says "Google it" I went ahead and looked up a few courses that he could use.
I thought that you might find them helpful as well.
The first one is called Learn Photoshop Now and is one of the most comprehensive Photoshop courses/blogs/tutorial sites that I've ever found.
Sign up and you'll get a few tutorials, some freebies, and a whole bunch of information that will have you more proficient in Photoshop than 95% of the people out there.
The second one is called EditYourDigitalPhotos.com and it's just as good as the Learn Photoshop Now, only it's a little more advanced, and focuses specifically on editing photos.
Both are GREAT resources for ANY photographer, so check them out if you're serious about making photography your full time gig... because post processing is one of the requirements of the job ;)
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Multiple Streams of Photography Income
I've been in the game for a while, not nearly as long as a lot of professionals, but long enough to learn a thing or two about the business.
Today, I was talking to a friend of mine that is a newer photographer trying to start up a business and the issue of income came about. He asked me:
"Where do you make your money?"
I was a bit perplexed at first because the answer seemed obvious to me. I make money shooting assignment gigs, or selling prints.
After I thought about it a little bit though, I came upon an idea that I had learned about a while ago as I was reading some business books. It was an idea that I had never implemented due solely to being to focused on just starting a business.
It's simple, yet very difficult.
Generate income from multiple streams.
When I went into photography, I had a one track mind really; Make a living. That meant: get gigs, sell photos, get more gigs, sell more photos. I think a lot of photographers may thing the same way (correct me if I'm wrong here).
What I overlooked was the potential for automated income and the multiple streams that I could potentially be getting paid for.
So, I've been sitting around for the past couple of days now, trying to restructure a portion of my business to be more geared towards 3 things (with an explanation as to why below).
1. Multiple Streams (i.e. stock, sessions, staff work, print sales, etc.)
*Should one stream run dry, it effects my total income far less than if I were to lose all of my business. For instance, if all streams were to contribute 10% to my total income, and one dried up, I'd only take a 10% decrease in income rather than if I only had one stream and it dried up. I'd be at 0% total income then! And that's not good.
2. Automation (work that I don't have to be present for, one time set up and very little management)
*Obvious reasons here. If I can maximize my pay per time worked, I can raise the amount of total income I can earn. Ideally, working 0 for income relates to an infinite pay scale. I can spend a lot of time not working. haha.
3. Longevity (the amount of time between the start of the stream and when it dries up)
*The longer the better here... the shorter the stream, the more often I have to set up another stream.
So, what did I decide on?
I haven't.
That's my issue.
So, what's the benefit to you for this article? The benefit is that I've opened up a a new thought process for you and hopefully you can apply that to your business model.
My goal is to not have to work for my business the rest of my life... I'd like to eventually have a tangible business that I could sell, with a model that was worth something WITHOUT me being there.
Does that make sense to anyone else?
Today, I was talking to a friend of mine that is a newer photographer trying to start up a business and the issue of income came about. He asked me:
"Where do you make your money?"
I was a bit perplexed at first because the answer seemed obvious to me. I make money shooting assignment gigs, or selling prints.
After I thought about it a little bit though, I came upon an idea that I had learned about a while ago as I was reading some business books. It was an idea that I had never implemented due solely to being to focused on just starting a business.
It's simple, yet very difficult.
Generate income from multiple streams.
When I went into photography, I had a one track mind really; Make a living. That meant: get gigs, sell photos, get more gigs, sell more photos. I think a lot of photographers may thing the same way (correct me if I'm wrong here).
What I overlooked was the potential for automated income and the multiple streams that I could potentially be getting paid for.
So, I've been sitting around for the past couple of days now, trying to restructure a portion of my business to be more geared towards 3 things (with an explanation as to why below).
1. Multiple Streams (i.e. stock, sessions, staff work, print sales, etc.)
*Should one stream run dry, it effects my total income far less than if I were to lose all of my business. For instance, if all streams were to contribute 10% to my total income, and one dried up, I'd only take a 10% decrease in income rather than if I only had one stream and it dried up. I'd be at 0% total income then! And that's not good.
2. Automation (work that I don't have to be present for, one time set up and very little management)
*Obvious reasons here. If I can maximize my pay per time worked, I can raise the amount of total income I can earn. Ideally, working 0 for income relates to an infinite pay scale. I can spend a lot of time not working. haha.
3. Longevity (the amount of time between the start of the stream and when it dries up)
*The longer the better here... the shorter the stream, the more often I have to set up another stream.
So, what did I decide on?
I haven't.
That's my issue.
So, what's the benefit to you for this article? The benefit is that I've opened up a a new thought process for you and hopefully you can apply that to your business model.
My goal is to not have to work for my business the rest of my life... I'd like to eventually have a tangible business that I could sell, with a model that was worth something WITHOUT me being there.
Does that make sense to anyone else?
Monday, March 31, 2008
20 Places To Market Your Photography Business For FREE
So, I just say down and started thinking about what I was going to write today. I wanted something big. A post that could change the way you do business. So, I came up with 20 places that you can market your company for FREE.
I tried to think outside of the box and stay away from free classifieds sites like craigslist.org and backpage.com
I'm not saying that these wont take work... but they are free. So, I really hope that you make use of at least some of them and manage to increase your business somehow. Don't say this blog isn't worth anything ;)
1. Message boards / forums
2. Email campaigns
3. Audio/Video postcards
4. Electronic Brochures
5. Podcasts
6. Blog
7. Content for other sites
8. Joint Ventures
9. Viral Marketing
10. Youtube videos
11. Reciprocal Link Exchanges
12. Electronic Newsletter
13. Writing Column (local paper or online ezine)
14. Article Submission (trade magazines or onine)
15. Free consultations
16. Free Seminars
17. Volunteer work
18. Radio/TV talk show guest
19. Cold calling
20. Commission only Sales people (affiliates)
Now, there are probably tons of questions running through your mind.
Things like:
How the crap am I supposed to get on a talk show?
and
What is a podcast? (haha)
Well, I've got the answers for you, but first...
This is where I ask something of you...
Post your comments and let's get some discussion going. Talk about these ideas and come up with creative solutions to spin this free publicity in your favor!
I don't even care if you post just to say they're stupid ideas.
I've got quite a few great ideas that I'll post in a while.
I tried to think outside of the box and stay away from free classifieds sites like craigslist.org and backpage.com
I'm not saying that these wont take work... but they are free. So, I really hope that you make use of at least some of them and manage to increase your business somehow. Don't say this blog isn't worth anything ;)
1. Message boards / forums
2. Email campaigns
3. Audio/Video postcards
4. Electronic Brochures
5. Podcasts
6. Blog
7. Content for other sites
8. Joint Ventures
9. Viral Marketing
10. Youtube videos
11. Reciprocal Link Exchanges
12. Electronic Newsletter
13. Writing Column (local paper or online ezine)
14. Article Submission (trade magazines or onine)
15. Free consultations
16. Free Seminars
17. Volunteer work
18. Radio/TV talk show guest
19. Cold calling
20. Commission only Sales people (affiliates)
Now, there are probably tons of questions running through your mind.
Things like:
How the crap am I supposed to get on a talk show?
and
What is a podcast? (haha)
Well, I've got the answers for you, but first...
This is where I ask something of you...
Post your comments and let's get some discussion going. Talk about these ideas and come up with creative solutions to spin this free publicity in your favor!
I don't even care if you post just to say they're stupid ideas.
I've got quite a few great ideas that I'll post in a while.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Also, while I'm here...
I just wanted to have everyone scroll all the way to the bottom of this page and check out the youtube video bar. It automatically puts videos that are related to photography down there on the bottom... I just saw a really cool on on posing people.
Just thought I'd let you know. ;)
Just thought I'd let you know. ;)
Database Building
I'm going to try and keep this short because I've filled my writing quota for the day returning emails ( ;-) Thanks Therese) but I wanted to jump on here and discuss something that came up in an email conversation between a reader and I today.
Database management.
It got me thinking about the importance of maintaining the database that you have, expanding that database, and continually asking for business and referrals from everyone in your database.
Personally I use an autoresponder to send newsletters and important emails to my database informing them about specials that I put on or new "products" that I'm going to be launching. (i.e. I sent a mass email to everyone in my database about the real estate photography asking for any LO's or Agents to contact me for a special rate on photography)
Some of you may not know what an autoresponder is... for that check out http://www.aweber.com and they'll explain it in far more detail than I ever could.
If you don't like autoresponders and prefer something a little more "manageable" you can also use a contact management system like ACT (http://www.act.com/)
Why do I "waste" 19.95 a month (yeah i do monthly billing) on an auto responder service? Because building a business is about REPEAT business. It's about REPEAT customers.
Sure, getting new customers is a great way to expand your business... and you should definitely be doing that on a daily basis. However, you should never be neglecting the people that have ALREADY BOUGHT from you. These are people that have already opened their wallet for you and already have the trust required to spend more money. These are also the people that are most qualified to give you a recommendation/referral to their friends and family! That's HUGE selling power... if you harness it right.
So, how do you stay on top of their minds?
By staying in contact with them... that's how.
How do you stay in contact with them on a regular basis without writing 600 emails every month?
An auto responder.
At this point, some of you are asking: What do you propose I do with this auto responder?
To that I say: SEND YOUR DATABASE VALUE! Give them a reason to remember you... hell, even look forward to your emails!
How do I do that? you say:
There are an infinite number of possibilities that I could use to answer that question. The simple ones are: newsletters, promotions, etc. but everyone is doing that. The point here is to set yourself apart.
What if......
You created a wedding checklist in a nice convenient .pdf format and sent it over to all of your brides.
What if......
You set up a contest and gave something away to a lucky winner?
What if......
You wrote an article on 25 ways to better present your home while listing it (I'll probably do this for my realtors)
What if.....
What if.....
What if.....
Think outside the box people! Get yourself in contact with the people that already spend money with you and they're more than likely going to spend a little more if you ask the right way...
Just food for thought.
Database management.
It got me thinking about the importance of maintaining the database that you have, expanding that database, and continually asking for business and referrals from everyone in your database.
Personally I use an autoresponder to send newsletters and important emails to my database informing them about specials that I put on or new "products" that I'm going to be launching. (i.e. I sent a mass email to everyone in my database about the real estate photography asking for any LO's or Agents to contact me for a special rate on photography)
Some of you may not know what an autoresponder is... for that check out http://www.aweber.com and they'll explain it in far more detail than I ever could.
If you don't like autoresponders and prefer something a little more "manageable" you can also use a contact management system like ACT (http://www.act.com/)
Why do I "waste" 19.95 a month (yeah i do monthly billing) on an auto responder service? Because building a business is about REPEAT business. It's about REPEAT customers.
Sure, getting new customers is a great way to expand your business... and you should definitely be doing that on a daily basis. However, you should never be neglecting the people that have ALREADY BOUGHT from you. These are people that have already opened their wallet for you and already have the trust required to spend more money. These are also the people that are most qualified to give you a recommendation/referral to their friends and family! That's HUGE selling power... if you harness it right.
So, how do you stay on top of their minds?
By staying in contact with them... that's how.
How do you stay in contact with them on a regular basis without writing 600 emails every month?
An auto responder.
At this point, some of you are asking: What do you propose I do with this auto responder?
To that I say: SEND YOUR DATABASE VALUE! Give them a reason to remember you... hell, even look forward to your emails!
How do I do that? you say:
There are an infinite number of possibilities that I could use to answer that question. The simple ones are: newsletters, promotions, etc. but everyone is doing that. The point here is to set yourself apart.
What if......
You created a wedding checklist in a nice convenient .pdf format and sent it over to all of your brides.
What if......
You set up a contest and gave something away to a lucky winner?
What if......
You wrote an article on 25 ways to better present your home while listing it (I'll probably do this for my realtors)
What if.....
What if.....
What if.....
Think outside the box people! Get yourself in contact with the people that already spend money with you and they're more than likely going to spend a little more if you ask the right way...
Just food for thought.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Marketing Idea for the day
I'm going to try and update this blog a little more frequently, as I've been a little swamped with some "real world" problems and scheduling conflicts lately. However, I did want to take a chance and post a quick idea that I had last night in hopes that maybe you'd be able to get a few gigs this way.
I was thinking about some of the real estate photography that I do, and trying to refine my marketing towards that segment when I came upon an idea that I hadn't thought about for some reason.
I've used this idea in other ventures, but it never came about for my real estate photography clientèle and yet it is SO simple to apply here.
The idea is a joint venture.
Sounds more complicated than it is though.
The power of a joint venture is that you are able to spread your marketing efforts significantly further than if you were doing it solo. The disadvantage (in some cases) is that you end up having to give a benefit of some sort to the people doing your marketing.
Here's what I plan on doing.
I'm planning on creating a coupon that will be personalized to a specific mortgage office (or loan officer even). Then, I'll issue each loan officer a certain number of coupons.
How it will work.
Loan officers are always looking for things to pitch to Real Estate agents so that the agent will refer a buyer to the loan officer for financing. A lot of the same old thing is being thrown around the industry though (free comps, mailing lists, postcards, etc. I spent too much time in real estate, haha).
What if, though, a loan officer approached a real estate agent with a coupon for a photography package on one of their listings? Say $50 off the normal package price of $250.
This does a few things:
- It makes the loan officer stand out by being able to offer an incentive that not many LO's are able to offer (Lo's incentive to pass your coupon out)
- It enables me to pass out a bunch of "coupons" to LO's and spread the word significantly faster than meeting with agents one on one.
- It enables me to do a shoot for a slight discount, but PROVE my value to the agent and also add them as a warm contact to my database (which makes marketing to them in the future much easier)
- It gives the Agent something that they can TRULY use rather than just some rehashed database or some Just Listed! postcards sent to a few homes around their are.
- It costs the LO NOTHING
- It SAVES the realtor $50 bucks (they love that)
- It MAKES me $200 I wouldn't have normally had
Trust me, this one is hot.... If you are into real estate photography at all, you know that agents are less likely to spend money on frills right now than any time within the last 5 years... yet, now is the time for them to be spending money on GREAT marketing for their properties...
If you're going to use this technique, I would approach a loan officer with this angle:
"If you were looking at an MLS listing of, say 100 homes, and one of those homes had exceptional images, wouldn't it attract your attention significantly more?"
That gets them in the right frame of mind.
What you're trying to do is sell the LO on your product, so that they can sell a Realtor on it. It's impossible to sell something you don't believe in so you need these guys on your side!
Now go out there and get some real estate photography gigs!!!
BY THE WAY:
If you want to post a comment and ask some questions I'd be glad to post responses. I'm looking for a little more interaction here... so IDEAS are encouraged.
Thanks!
I was thinking about some of the real estate photography that I do, and trying to refine my marketing towards that segment when I came upon an idea that I hadn't thought about for some reason.
I've used this idea in other ventures, but it never came about for my real estate photography clientèle and yet it is SO simple to apply here.
The idea is a joint venture.
Sounds more complicated than it is though.
The power of a joint venture is that you are able to spread your marketing efforts significantly further than if you were doing it solo. The disadvantage (in some cases) is that you end up having to give a benefit of some sort to the people doing your marketing.
Here's what I plan on doing.
I'm planning on creating a coupon that will be personalized to a specific mortgage office (or loan officer even). Then, I'll issue each loan officer a certain number of coupons.
How it will work.
Loan officers are always looking for things to pitch to Real Estate agents so that the agent will refer a buyer to the loan officer for financing. A lot of the same old thing is being thrown around the industry though (free comps, mailing lists, postcards, etc. I spent too much time in real estate, haha).
What if, though, a loan officer approached a real estate agent with a coupon for a photography package on one of their listings? Say $50 off the normal package price of $250.
This does a few things:
- It makes the loan officer stand out by being able to offer an incentive that not many LO's are able to offer (Lo's incentive to pass your coupon out)
- It enables me to pass out a bunch of "coupons" to LO's and spread the word significantly faster than meeting with agents one on one.
- It enables me to do a shoot for a slight discount, but PROVE my value to the agent and also add them as a warm contact to my database (which makes marketing to them in the future much easier)
- It gives the Agent something that they can TRULY use rather than just some rehashed database or some Just Listed! postcards sent to a few homes around their are.
- It costs the LO NOTHING
- It SAVES the realtor $50 bucks (they love that)
- It MAKES me $200 I wouldn't have normally had
Trust me, this one is hot.... If you are into real estate photography at all, you know that agents are less likely to spend money on frills right now than any time within the last 5 years... yet, now is the time for them to be spending money on GREAT marketing for their properties...
If you're going to use this technique, I would approach a loan officer with this angle:
"If you were looking at an MLS listing of, say 100 homes, and one of those homes had exceptional images, wouldn't it attract your attention significantly more?"
That gets them in the right frame of mind.
What you're trying to do is sell the LO on your product, so that they can sell a Realtor on it. It's impossible to sell something you don't believe in so you need these guys on your side!
Now go out there and get some real estate photography gigs!!!
================================
BY THE WAY:
If you want to post a comment and ask some questions I'd be glad to post responses. I'm looking for a little more interaction here... so IDEAS are encouraged.
Thanks!
================================
Start Making Money With Photography TODAY!
Check Out John Carroll's Easy Photo Biz and Make $200/day or More
Taking Simple Documentary Style Photos!
Click here to BUY NOW!
Start Making Money With Photography TODAY!
Check Out John Carroll's Easy Photo Biz and Make $200/day or More
Taking Simple Documentary Style Photos!
Click here to BUY NOW!
Friday, March 14, 2008
An update to the $200/day system
Back on December 19th I posted a quasi-review of a system to make $200 a day taking simple photographs. I was slightly skeptical about the system, but it made good sense and seemed to provide good content.
We'll I'm happy to say that I've given in a few months now and I stand behind my recommendation.
If I were to give one opinion about it though, I would say it is a great starting point to get your foot in the door to making some money with photography and it is also a great suppliment to a full on photography business... But it's not very artistically gratifying.
Then again, I don't really find taking pictures of people artistically gratifying either. I'm more of a still life kind of photographer when I'm doing it for enjoyment. ;)
Anyhow, if you haven't already, at least take a look at the kit and see what it's all about. It's a pretty nifty little system.
We'll I'm happy to say that I've given in a few months now and I stand behind my recommendation.
If I were to give one opinion about it though, I would say it is a great starting point to get your foot in the door to making some money with photography and it is also a great suppliment to a full on photography business... But it's not very artistically gratifying.
Then again, I don't really find taking pictures of people artistically gratifying either. I'm more of a still life kind of photographer when I'm doing it for enjoyment. ;)
Anyhow, if you haven't already, at least take a look at the kit and see what it's all about. It's a pretty nifty little system.
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