I don't go to seminars

[dnavarrojr]

But, this last weekend I went to a seminar. A friend of mine paid for me to go and I didn't have anything else to do, so I went. And I was surprised...

2011 Summer Tour | Sallee Nordstrom

When I was a web developer I used to go to development seminars all the time, but I've always avoided going to "rally" type seminars where someone else had the magic secret to making me more successful. The Sallee Nordstrom Turn the Key thing is kind of like that, it's a few successful photographers giving advice on how to increase your photography business. I went in skeptical and came back satisfied that had I actually paid the $59 myself, it would have been money well spent.

http://www.salleephotography.com/

lori nordstrom studio

First, let me start with the negatives and get them out of the way... The photographers running the seminar are successful because they are great sales people, not great photographers. Their photography isn't bad and probably still better than mine, but it's not what I would consider outstanding photography work. They are masters at taking a better than average product and selling the heck out of it. And at $59 average price for the 140ish people who showed up for the seminar, I can't imagine they made much money from ticket sales. But, they made a crap ton of money from up-selling most of the attendees in the room. They sold PhotoShop templates, videos and other doo-dads at an average price of $400 per sale... and they had a lot of takers there. It was a little bit like being at a Time-Share presentation during parts of the seminar with a hard sell on their various products. If they are as successful at selling to their photography clients as they are to other photographers, then they've got to be pushing a million dollars a year in overall sales.

Okay, let's get to the good stuff...

These people are SALES PEOPLE. They run their business like a business and are savvy at marketing and masters of customer psychology. So to be as successful as them, you have to either math their tenacity as sales people, or find someone else who can do that for you. And they emphasize how hard it is to be successful being a "one man band". You have to have staff who can either do the things you hate doing, or do the things you are better off not wasting your time on. If you hate doing sales pitches, then hire a sales person. Start them off on 100% commission with no base salary. It's both incentive for them to make sales and you're not paying them unless they bring you a paying customer. The downside is that you generally have to give up a high percentage or fee to motivate a good sales person. So make sure you reflect that in your pricing so that you still make what you need to.

If you do enjoy the sales side of the business, consider getting help with the more tedious parts of your work. Hire someone to do the first edit of your images (college design students and photographers work cheap in exchange for the experience). Hire an assistant to help with your shoots so that you spend more time shooting and less time prepping or looking for gear during the shoot. Hire a receptionist. Anything that gives you back a few hours a day will help your bottom line.

The Sallee's and Lori Nordstrom both have a staff which includes other photographers, editors, and assistants. They love shooting, but they love business more and know that the best use of their time is selling clients. Although, in Lori's case, she has a system for selling that she has taught a few people who work for her, so she lets them do the initial contact with clients and she closes the sale.

And closing the sale is where they clean up. They are high end shooters with an average session fee of $2000 for a 2-hour session. But the majority of their sales (they say) are closer to a $10,000 average. They are masters of up-selling. Getting clients to buy tons of prints, jewelry, t-shirts, and whatever other crap they can stick of photo on. None of their packages include a CD/DVD with images, if you want a disc you have to pay big money for it. For example, if you want a disc for a wedding shoot it's $1500 for 50 (yes, fifty) photos size to print at 5x7 resolution. Each additional 50 images on the disc is an additional $500.

"So, let me tell you how you can get the $1500 disc for free. For every $1000 you spend on printed products, we'll give you a $500 credit towards the CD. So, if you spend $3000 you'll get a lot of fantastic prints AND a free CD... in fact, if you spend $3000 in prints we'll even give you another 50 images as a bonus. So that's $2000 worth of images plus all of your prints for just $3000." According to them, they've only ever had one client actually pay $1500 for the disc and not buy any prints. Also, the "CD package" actually still includes prints. They give the client a gift box with the disc and all 50 images from the disc already printed at 5x7. Altogether that $1500 disc costs them $80 in printing and has a higher perceived value by the client.

The other thing they have started doing in the past few years to increase their sales is learn about interior design for their print presentation to clients. They show the client what their walls would look like with various prints on them. They claim that it has lowered pushback from clients quite a bit because they can now see the impact of large prints instead of having to use their imagination.

 

[dnavarrojr]

It's interesting because Lori kept talking about living in a small town of 5500 people. And I just couldn't see how she was booking $50,000 worth of sessions every month on a town that size. In the end she revealed that she markets to Des Moines, Iowa which has a bit more than 5500 people in it. And the Sallees are in Dallas, TX which is a HUGE market. So it's easy for them to cater to the high end market.

Which goes to what a lot of photographers here keep saying about keeping your prices high and people will pay whatever you charge if they can see the value there. And they are absolutely right if you live in a market that can support it and if you provide a value to justify the prices.

Now, you might look at some of the pictures on their web sites and say "what the hell is Dave talking about their photos look great!?". But JB Sallee showed us his RAW images and he isn't a great photographer. He's just friggen good with PhotoShop. And all of his images are highly processed. He's totally into this "grunge" look and his clients love it... which reminds me. No matter how good you are or your images look, if clients don't like your style, they're not going to hire you. When people shop for a photographer, they look through portfolios and they call the photographers whose images appeal to them. So you have to define a style/look. You'll be much more successful if you stick to what you like and try not to overprocess your images with too many different looks. If your portfolio is eclectic with lot of different looks, it looks disorganized to most buyers (their advice). I'm guilty of that myself, so I'm rethinking how I present photos in my portfolio and considering moving a lot of stuff off my business web site and leaving the experimental stuff on Flickr.

Which takes me off on another point... SEPERATE your personal photos and business photos. It's fine to use your family for practice shoots that match the look you want to present with your business, but get your weekend and vacation photos OFF your business web site (again, guilty of that myself).

---

So, I liked a lot of what they said. I hated the hard sell on their products. And I loved their speaking style, it was funny and engaging. They were friendly and answered all questions. And they were an open book about how they did business, so no questions were out of bounds. No trade secrets with them.

I came away from it with a TON of unanswered questions, but they were all questions I asked myself about my own business and what my goals are. I couldn't sleep the night after the seminar and spent the whole night taking a hard look at everything about my business. And it's time for a lot of changes...

My web site is too scattered and unorganized. I need to simplify it. And I need to get rid of my blog (or, I need to move my blogs to my personal site and stop blogging on my business site).

I need to start spending more money on marketing. I do a lot of networking and that brings in business, but in the grand scheme of things if I factor in my time spent at social events I'd rather NOT attend, it brings my wages way down. I need to stop seeing those events I attend for business reasons as personal time. If I don't come away from every single event I attend with at least one paying client, it was a waste of time. And events I attend because I simply enjoy them don't count.

I need to move my business out of my home and get a small studio or at least a small office. I love my family, but they don't respect my space when I'm working and interrupt me constantly which wastes a lot of my time. I need some place that's "work". I can't afford anything too costly, but one good thing about networking is that I know a number of people in the same boat as me and who are willing to share an office/studio which will bring down my cost.

I'm not yet comfortable raising my prices (yes, I have a fear of losing existing business and I can't afford the risk), so I need to streamline (ie, reduce) what I give to NEW clients for my current prices and I need to add more packages at high rates which include more value. The Sallee's have a "pie in the sky, no client will ever buy it" package for $20,000 and they've actually had a few clients buy it. There's no reason NOT to offer high end packages you never expect the sell... you never know what'll happen.

I need to have more up-sell options for my clients.

I need to look into creating a "customer loyalty" program. I enjoy my "customer loyalty" perks from my grocery store, gas station, hotel, airline, etc... so they obviously work.

I need to budget for a business consultant. I can't do everything myself and I can't think of everything myself. I finally need to realize that.

Oh! I almost forget... I need to hire another photographer to take some pictures of me. I have been convinced that I need a photo of myself on my business site as clients are more likely to identify with people if there is a picture. So I need to find someone who can make this fat boy look good.

 

[KmH]

The photographers running the seminar are successful because they are great sales people, not great photographers. .

Which is how it should be.

Many wanting to start/have/sustain a photography business fail to understand that their business/marketing/sales/people skills are much more important than their photography skills. If you can also make killer images, that is a plus.

Lori's studio is in Winterset, Iowa 50273, not Des Moines, which is about 45 minutes from Winterset.

 

[dnavarrojr]

Lori's studio is in Winterset, Iowa 50273, not Des Moines, which is about 45 minutes from Winterset.

Yeah, but she admitted at the end of the seminar that she does 90% of her business and marketing in Des Moines. So it helps to live near a major city. No way she could make the money she does off just Winterset.

 

[orljustin]

Those who can't do, "teach". If they were so wonderfully successful, they'd likely want to capitalize on that in the areas they specialize in and not train every Joe with a camera to do what they do. Instead, they now specialize in selling stuff to other photographers.

 

[dnavarrojr]

That's not always the case, I know several people whose business falls off a couple of times a year and during those times they teach seminars. But they are VERY VERY good at their work.

 

[dnavarrojr]

Okay, step one of my business makeover taken care of... After two days of interviews, I have found a small business consultant I like and can afford (she's the only one, BTW, that refused to offer me a discount when I explained that I couldn't afford her). She's going to work with me on spreading things out over a few months so that I can meet her fee. She's going to help me with a new business plan, help me revamp my branding and fine-tune my marketing.

I have also made an appointment with my accountant to review my financial situation and creating a new budget for the next two years. I need to spend more on marketing and I need to know how much I have to spend.

This is all scaring the crap out of me, but I'm also very excited about it.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Good luck to you sir!

In my business, I recently had a retail store owner I do work for, come in and talk to me. He was concerned that if I don't raise my prices, I will fail. He gave me some tips, some stories, and a plan. Mind you, I've known where I need to be, and have been raising my prices, despite complainers who are comparing me to the three other jewelry trade shops in my building. The funny thing has been, the complainers keep complaining, but keep bring me work, and I keep slowly raising the prices. That was one of the tips the one store owner told me...to keep raising my prices, an not listening to them UNTIL they stop bring work. But he said, let them go. They WILL be back. See, the quality of my work is above and beyond the other cheap shops in my building.

Anyway, my plan has been in action, and I too am being rebranded. It's a tough process. It has also been expensive. My website should finally be up tomorrow, or early next week. I expanded and doubled my shop, and am still going through the remodeling process, which has been hell, and again, expensive. Doubling mybspace provides me with a larger comfortable showroom AND additional space to hire another benchworker when the time comes. I had a business plan as well. The problem for me is/was I am executing my fifth year plan in month 22 of opening. My goal is to ween myself off wholesale work, and have retail work the majority of my business. So, once my showroom is complete, the website finished, I will begin the next phase of marketing! Having your own business is scary, fun, exciting, frustrating, and very rewarding.

Again, good luck on your adventure!

You posts were a great read, thanks for typing them!

 

[Billhyco]

i recognize this is an old thread. but as a novice looking to one day get into the business, this is a pretty good read. A lot to think about and dwell over BEFORE taking the plunge into the business world. Just reviving it as I just found this while searching for another topic.

 

[Hereindallas]

It would be interesting to hear how dnavarrojr's business makeover is going. Great read.

 

[J.B.Sallee]

Just found this by doing a google search for our studio to see what our clients are reading about us! It there a way to make this private so that my potential brides researching about us don't need to read what a horrible photographer I am and that "

closing the sale is where they clean up... They are masters of up-selling. Getting clients to buy tons of prints, jewelry, t-shirts, and whatever other crap they can stick of photo on"

This sheds a negative light on my photography business and I would hate to lose a potential bride because of it!

jb sallee ​

 

[tirediron]

Just found this by doing a google search for our studio to see what our clients are reading about us! It there a way to make this private so that my potential brides researching about us don't need to read what a horrible photographer I am and that "

closing the sale is where they clean up... They are masters of up-selling. Getting clients to buy tons of prints, jewelry, t-shirts, and whatever other crap they can stick of photo on"

This sheds a negative light on my photography business and I would hate to lose a potential bride because of it!

jb sallee ​

Since you've only just joined the forum, I fail to see how this impacts negatively on you in any way, but in any event, to answer your question, no, there is no provision for making a particular thread or post "private".

 

[Tee]

Many of us appreciate candid and honest reviews of workshops that new people are encouraged to attend.

ETA: since you're aware of your online presence, I'm surprised you went public with this. You just bumped the thread higher.

Should've PM'd an administrator.

 

[J.B.Sallee]

[/QUOTE]​

Since you've only just joined the forum, I fail to see how this impacts negatively on you in any way, but in any event, to answer your question, no, there is no provision for making a particular thread or post "private".
[/QUOTE]

The problem is that I was not a member but could read this post and found it by doing a simple google search for my company. This is a private forum for photographers right? I don't mind the feedback, It was actually a very honest and for the most part nice review. But I don't think it is appropriate for my clients to read "JB Sallee is not a good photographer" and that I try to sell "whatever crap I can stick a photo on!" Would you agree?

 

[tirediron]

Please see your PMs.