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Perseverance and a couple of weeks can make a big Difference.
Glort
Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
As some would know I have been pushing a new venture recently which I have been hopeful would be perhaps one of the few and profitable Niche markets not over saturated here.
It's been a little up and down but is smoothing out nicely now proving that with effort and marketing yourself there is still good money to be made in photography yet.
I don't know if other Shooters have experienced this or not but I found myself quite depressed before this started kicking in. I have been crook for a long time which didn't help but I think it was more than that. When you seem to be beating your head a gainst a brick wall, when everything you can think of seems to be all tied up and there is no where you can make a buck, It's hard and it seems to play on your mind and effect a lot of other things in life. Did for me anyway.
Once you get a couple of wins and find something you can go on with and see the potential in it long term, things change a lot. A real lot.
I also think you have to be ready. I'm not doing anything I couldn't have done some time back. I wonder why I haven't persued other ideas I had like this and I have come to the conclusion i wasn't ready within myself. Now I'm feeling in the mood to achieve.
I have stopped taking a lot of my medications and I feel better than before. Haven't had a blood test to see how I'm traveling but I don't need to. I know when I feel good and when I don't. Besides, no profit for doctors in healthy people so it's in their interest for you to feel crook and keep taking the pills.
I have put myself on a diet and although I have only lost 1kg or 2 Lb this first week, I feel better and enthused to keep up with it, as hard and annoying as it is.
Anyway, It seems to me there might be a lot of people struggling in this game but it's not dead by a long shot yet.
I have been busying myself making cold calls and following up leads for my school photography.
Things weren't going as well as I hoped a couple of weeks back but luckily have fallen into place rather nicely.
I have been spending time on the net looking up the various places around but concerntrating on my side of the City as the far side is just too damn hard to get to in the peak hours I'd have to travel.
It is a target rich environment though so I'll bite the bullet at some point, Hopefully when I have put someone on to do it for me.
The goal was getting 5000 kids shot by Christmas, I now have 10K+ lined up and am far from done yet.
Last week I booked 3 centres with a total of 4k kids all up. This week I booked one place with 2000 kids but they have booked for the start and the end of summer so another 4000 in effect.
The competition so far has been of no consequence, in fact I'd have to say, more of an assett. The people I am seeing talk about them every time as they have been around for a while and left their mark pretty well it seems. They have educated much of the market as to how what I'm doing works but also how it should NOT be done. I'm finding many managers that like the idea but wouldn't use the other company again so when I come along, their is little resistance to getting an appointment.
I bought some presentation folders at the office place and have made up an info pack. Most of it is printed on High gloss photo paper and I have sample images, packages, pricelist, into letter, explanations of commission structures and copys of insurances. It seems to be getting a lot of wow factor. That said I'm looking to add and improve upon it and also my actual products.
I think I need the layout and presentation of them to be better and I'm looking for ideas how to improve that. What I do now is simple and basic but does lack in wow factor I think myself.
I'm happy with a couple of places I have got. Both were initially wanting to blow me off on the phone but a little digging as to why they were uninterested and then showing them how I was doing things different and the benefits to them soon turned them around. So much so they booked. One was the manager of the 3 places from last week. Rang one week, saw them the next, she confirmed the booking with dates the next day.
I may have just struck a bad time in my initial ringing round. It was school holidays when a lot of places were closed or maybe the managers of the places that were open were focussed on other things. Certainly this 2 weeks has been bit of a doddle In getting appointments although getting to speak to the right people in catching them when they are in is a bit of a lottery.
I have taken on the biggest challenge of all in this market. I rang one of the biggest schools in the city that have 4000+ kids. They were the only people to say they have used the competitor ( for years) and " Have never had a problem." When I spoke to the person in charge, it was fast heading for a blow off telling me this but a few well chosen ( must have been!) questions soon got them interested and they were asking me questions. I have an appointment to go see them next week and the manager now seems to have a high level of interest.
If I can get this one over the line and get the booking I will be stoked. Landing a place with as many kids as anyone has whom have been a long time customer of the competitor will be an achievement.
It will also be a bit of a logistical nightmare to do the work but once I'm set up for it, I will have demonstrated I can do any client in the market.
Given that I was struggling and hadn't done cold calling for a while, I got on the net and looked up how it should be done. One of the first things I saw was read how CC is dead and you should work through social Media. That was not applicable in the market I was chasing, they just don't bother with social media.
On the cold calling I read a few things that gave me the idea which was basicaly talk about the benifit to the client not who you are or what you do or how good you do it.
I find that very hard as what I'm doing only has one and maybe a secondary lesser benefit to the client. I also have had trouble finding a "Smooth" opening for the calls. I know what I could say but here in Oz we don't like the sales talk and it would put people off straight away. Bumbling honesty is probably a better approach than being too slick here. :rofl
That said, I'm also finding a bit of ad lib and just talking to the ones I call like a person with the odd bit of a joke and sarcasm seems to be going a long way.
My approach and spiel may not be too great but my ability to think on my feet seems to be saving me.
One call I made this morning, I asked for the co ordinator and the person said that's me. I said "great, don't you just love it when you get the right person straight off and don't get duck shoved round the entire staff for 10 minutes? "
She laughed and related an experience she had that morning with that very thing and we had a rapport before she even knew who the hell I was or what I was trying to peddle.
As such, getting the appointment was a walk in and given the interest level and past experience with the competitor, I don't think closing the deal will be too hard either.
One thing that is an asset to me is what I always rant on about being business skills. Knowing how to steer the conversation when you are in front of someone, knowing what buttons to push and having an empathy for their side of things is a big advantage. It's not like you go in thinking about it, it's more of a subconscious thing for the most part in knowing what to do in a given situation.
I think this is essential for those that want to get ahead.
That's all well and good but I'm also feeling there is SOOO much more I need to learn right now.
I want to expand this business and basically take over not only the city I'm in but surrounding and interstate citys as well. Might seem pie in the sky but it's certainly noting loads of other businesses haven't done. I'm going to need to learn a lot more about management to do this though.
There are also other markets I have seen I feel are ripe for the picking and I want to get in on those as well.
I really want to be working on the business not in the business now. I'm the wrong sort of person for the work I'm doing anyway because I simply don't present well or correctly for the market. I'm too big ( even when I loose the weight, I'm far too ugly and just have the wrong look. I can see I put the parents off and even the managers I go to see are not expecting the likes of me to turn up. Yeah I can do it but I'm not the person I would hire by a long shot.
Anyway, I think people that have an idea just need to get out there and sell it. If you don't know how, bloody learn! There is heaps on the net that eliminate any excuse for not knowing how to present yourself reasonably if not wonderfully but hat will come with practice.
Competition is often not any competition at all. If you do have competition do it different. You DON"T need to be better, just different.
And don't give up easily. You might just strike people at the wrong time so if you don't do any good first time round, mark it in your diary and hit it again in a month or 3. That may be enough on it's own to make a previous fail a very good success.
It's been a little up and down but is smoothing out nicely now proving that with effort and marketing yourself there is still good money to be made in photography yet.
I don't know if other Shooters have experienced this or not but I found myself quite depressed before this started kicking in. I have been crook for a long time which didn't help but I think it was more than that. When you seem to be beating your head a gainst a brick wall, when everything you can think of seems to be all tied up and there is no where you can make a buck, It's hard and it seems to play on your mind and effect a lot of other things in life. Did for me anyway.
Once you get a couple of wins and find something you can go on with and see the potential in it long term, things change a lot. A real lot.
I also think you have to be ready. I'm not doing anything I couldn't have done some time back. I wonder why I haven't persued other ideas I had like this and I have come to the conclusion i wasn't ready within myself. Now I'm feeling in the mood to achieve.
I have stopped taking a lot of my medications and I feel better than before. Haven't had a blood test to see how I'm traveling but I don't need to. I know when I feel good and when I don't. Besides, no profit for doctors in healthy people so it's in their interest for you to feel crook and keep taking the pills.
I have put myself on a diet and although I have only lost 1kg or 2 Lb this first week, I feel better and enthused to keep up with it, as hard and annoying as it is.
Anyway, It seems to me there might be a lot of people struggling in this game but it's not dead by a long shot yet.
I have been busying myself making cold calls and following up leads for my school photography.
Things weren't going as well as I hoped a couple of weeks back but luckily have fallen into place rather nicely.
I have been spending time on the net looking up the various places around but concerntrating on my side of the City as the far side is just too damn hard to get to in the peak hours I'd have to travel.
It is a target rich environment though so I'll bite the bullet at some point, Hopefully when I have put someone on to do it for me.
The goal was getting 5000 kids shot by Christmas, I now have 10K+ lined up and am far from done yet.
Last week I booked 3 centres with a total of 4k kids all up. This week I booked one place with 2000 kids but they have booked for the start and the end of summer so another 4000 in effect.
The competition so far has been of no consequence, in fact I'd have to say, more of an assett. The people I am seeing talk about them every time as they have been around for a while and left their mark pretty well it seems. They have educated much of the market as to how what I'm doing works but also how it should NOT be done. I'm finding many managers that like the idea but wouldn't use the other company again so when I come along, their is little resistance to getting an appointment.
I bought some presentation folders at the office place and have made up an info pack. Most of it is printed on High gloss photo paper and I have sample images, packages, pricelist, into letter, explanations of commission structures and copys of insurances. It seems to be getting a lot of wow factor. That said I'm looking to add and improve upon it and also my actual products.
I think I need the layout and presentation of them to be better and I'm looking for ideas how to improve that. What I do now is simple and basic but does lack in wow factor I think myself.
I'm happy with a couple of places I have got. Both were initially wanting to blow me off on the phone but a little digging as to why they were uninterested and then showing them how I was doing things different and the benefits to them soon turned them around. So much so they booked. One was the manager of the 3 places from last week. Rang one week, saw them the next, she confirmed the booking with dates the next day.
I may have just struck a bad time in my initial ringing round. It was school holidays when a lot of places were closed or maybe the managers of the places that were open were focussed on other things. Certainly this 2 weeks has been bit of a doddle In getting appointments although getting to speak to the right people in catching them when they are in is a bit of a lottery.
I have taken on the biggest challenge of all in this market. I rang one of the biggest schools in the city that have 4000+ kids. They were the only people to say they have used the competitor ( for years) and " Have never had a problem." When I spoke to the person in charge, it was fast heading for a blow off telling me this but a few well chosen ( must have been!) questions soon got them interested and they were asking me questions. I have an appointment to go see them next week and the manager now seems to have a high level of interest.
If I can get this one over the line and get the booking I will be stoked. Landing a place with as many kids as anyone has whom have been a long time customer of the competitor will be an achievement.
It will also be a bit of a logistical nightmare to do the work but once I'm set up for it, I will have demonstrated I can do any client in the market.
Given that I was struggling and hadn't done cold calling for a while, I got on the net and looked up how it should be done. One of the first things I saw was read how CC is dead and you should work through social Media. That was not applicable in the market I was chasing, they just don't bother with social media.
On the cold calling I read a few things that gave me the idea which was basicaly talk about the benifit to the client not who you are or what you do or how good you do it.
I find that very hard as what I'm doing only has one and maybe a secondary lesser benefit to the client. I also have had trouble finding a "Smooth" opening for the calls. I know what I could say but here in Oz we don't like the sales talk and it would put people off straight away. Bumbling honesty is probably a better approach than being too slick here. :rofl
That said, I'm also finding a bit of ad lib and just talking to the ones I call like a person with the odd bit of a joke and sarcasm seems to be going a long way.
My approach and spiel may not be too great but my ability to think on my feet seems to be saving me.
One call I made this morning, I asked for the co ordinator and the person said that's me. I said "great, don't you just love it when you get the right person straight off and don't get duck shoved round the entire staff for 10 minutes? "
She laughed and related an experience she had that morning with that very thing and we had a rapport before she even knew who the hell I was or what I was trying to peddle.
As such, getting the appointment was a walk in and given the interest level and past experience with the competitor, I don't think closing the deal will be too hard either.
One thing that is an asset to me is what I always rant on about being business skills. Knowing how to steer the conversation when you are in front of someone, knowing what buttons to push and having an empathy for their side of things is a big advantage. It's not like you go in thinking about it, it's more of a subconscious thing for the most part in knowing what to do in a given situation.
I think this is essential for those that want to get ahead.
That's all well and good but I'm also feeling there is SOOO much more I need to learn right now.
I want to expand this business and basically take over not only the city I'm in but surrounding and interstate citys as well. Might seem pie in the sky but it's certainly noting loads of other businesses haven't done. I'm going to need to learn a lot more about management to do this though.
There are also other markets I have seen I feel are ripe for the picking and I want to get in on those as well.
I really want to be working on the business not in the business now. I'm the wrong sort of person for the work I'm doing anyway because I simply don't present well or correctly for the market. I'm too big ( even when I loose the weight, I'm far too ugly and just have the wrong look. I can see I put the parents off and even the managers I go to see are not expecting the likes of me to turn up. Yeah I can do it but I'm not the person I would hire by a long shot.
Anyway, I think people that have an idea just need to get out there and sell it. If you don't know how, bloody learn! There is heaps on the net that eliminate any excuse for not knowing how to present yourself reasonably if not wonderfully but hat will come with practice.
Competition is often not any competition at all. If you do have competition do it different. You DON"T need to be better, just different.
And don't give up easily. You might just strike people at the wrong time so if you don't do any good first time round, mark it in your diary and hit it again in a month or 3. That may be enough on it's own to make a previous fail a very good success.
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Comments
Re: health/size issues, what I tell my friends in the same boat is, you didn't get that way overnight and it won't go away overnight. BUT.... when you stick with a program - any program - to shed the pounds, over time the results will appear. All you have to do is stick with a program and focus on the brass ring at the end. Enjoy the little successes along the way too! And when you get the wgt under control, the health normally follows along. Call it a two-for-one.
Did you ever decide on the photo-booth approach? I believe you were looking into that as a possibility.
.
I am still working on the photobooth idea but planning to take a 2 pronged attack.
Instead of doing booths, I want to offer a small studio setup with greenscreen and onsite Printing.
I think I can present this as a much better value for money concept. I'll offer 6x8 Prints and push them as being twice the normal size as I can get that paper cheaper than 6x4 anyway so may as well use it to me advantage.
My plan is to market it right in the photobooth arena adverting it alongside them as an alternative.
I will also look at booths in the future, probably starting out with a simple open design and a background. If I can start booking that out I'll build some more.
the local schools are all contracted with the same company, and I hear time after time that no one likes this guys pictures. But the fact is you cant really get creative with 4000 senior pictures when you have to book them 5 minutes apart.
what % are you giving back to the school?
Thought I posted about this earlier. Couldn't have. Seems I'm on a roll.
Amazing what happens when you get your confidence up.
Went and saw the place that had been using the competitor. The person I had to see had another meeting come up and was on her way literally, out the door. She told the sec sorry but she would just have time to stop at the door to take my info but couldn't chat. I did a 30 sec run through and she wanted to know more. 20 min later, I walked out with the deal. 4000+ Kids.
Pretty stoked with that.
This is one of the biggest 4 places in the city and to the best of my knowledge, the country. Now I have them I can go hit the others when I am done and I'll be a shoe in.
get your confidence up.
Today I had some time to kill after visiting a place to drop off the promo material for shooting there next week. Spotted a nice looking centre in a good area as I was on my way to another place. Dropped in, the manager was out but the owner was in and saw me.
Took me under 10 min to sew that one up. 1600 kids there.
Then went to see the other appointment and got that one, 1200 kids.
I'm booked now till Christmas. Solid. So solid in fact I'm technically double booked. I'm now hiring people to help me with the sales so they can be selling a week behind me shooting. I'll also need another shooter for the big place and hopefully to give me a rest now and then seeing I have booked myself for about 40 days straight.
I ordered a Pallet of photo paper today. I may order another one in a couple of months depending on how I go booking for next year. Ink I'll have to see who can supply in 5L or so drums and negotiate a price on that. I can see next year I may have to look at lab type printers because I simply won't be able to get enough set up of the type I'm using.
I can also see this is a big stepping stone for so many other avenues of work because I am in on the ground floor of getting in front of these people that are involved in sporting clubs, want family portraits, and a whole load of other things they are involved in that can get my name out there.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
There is no magic speech you can just roll out and get work. That's just not possible.
Photographers are the most Naieve people when it comes to business I have ever come across.
It's proven on forums like this where 99% of the discussions revolve around quality and technique and " how much should I charge?" rather than you ever seeing anything about getting business and doing business. It's amazing.
Honestly, I can barely remember what I said. It sure as hell wasn't some off the cuff speech though because that would have got me nowhere. I sussed out the situation and determined that they had pics done before by the competition. Knowing what they do, I showed how my service and product was better and without rubbishing them in any way, because I have worked out what people don't like about them, I homed in on those points and showed how what I do eliminated those problems and was superior in other ways.
I also go for test closes and get positive responses all the way through. Something else I do is stating almost like an apology a facet of what I do that I know the clients actually like but is for whatever reason, not the done thing.
When I sense I have covered all the possible objections and questions and determined ( at the start) who the decision maker is and if the decision can be made now, I ask when would they be looking to do this ( and lately they just flat out ask what dates I have they can book in for) we work out a time, I say "I'll put down for then shall I?" And that's basically it.
No magic Bullets, no miracle phrases, no secret handshakes, just a decent working knowledge of sales, my product and what appeals to the clients and showing how what I do will benefit them directly or otherwise.
After I have the booking, I will then generally get some more info I need like number of classes, sizes, where to set my table for selling etc. Sometimes I have found this out during the presentation proper, sometimes not because you have to go with the flow not sit there like a robot reading a script.
I have said 1000 times that sales is the important part of photography yet people still have it in their heads that the most important things is how good you are as a shooter, how pretty your pictures are, how well you can photo fiddle everything and all the rest of the amateur, customer thinking.
You can tell people that their problem is they need to know more about business and get online and start reading but they don't believe you and will argue.
No skin off my nose. Now I have enough of my health back watch out because I'm out to make up for lost time and I'm making it up faster than even I would have dreamed possible. I'm no super salesman, I just know a hell of a lot more than the competition whom 95% of know nothing at all.
It's like I don't have to be a good driver to win a nascar race If I'm in a car and all the other competitors are on pushbikes.
I went to seminars on photography 20 years ago as one of the hopefulls that I could be talented enough to be a huge success. After a while I realised the guy down the road who was known in the area for his crap work was doing 20 times better than me. I found out why and it came down to the fact he was a natural salesman. He could talk to people, make them feel comfortable and at ease and earn their trust. He may have dissapointed a lot of them through his slack customer service but by that time the job was taken from everyone else and he did have their money.
I gave away photographic seminars and started going to business, advertising and marketing courses and workshops because as thick as 2 planks as I am, I was smart enough to figure out the bleeding obvious of what was the real important factor in what I wanted to do.
I can take photos of sufficient standard that my clients are very happy and I exceed their expectations. Now as horrified as it ill make the poor starving artists, I don't need to know anymore than that. It won't get me any further. Knowing how to sell myself to bigger and better clients sure as hell will though so what would anyone with half a brain put their time and effort into?
It seems for photographers it will still be photography and they will still be in the same place in 12 months time complaining about amateurs taking their work, dribbling on about Wether RAW or JPG is best, what camera has less noise and posting up pretty pictures they photofiddled for 4 hours and after all that,they will still have the arse out of their pants and be poor and unhappy.
Even though so many other shooters think I'm a nutter, ( which is true enough) I put my time and effort into sales, marketing and promotion and don't give a crap about photography as long as it meets and surpass the customers expectations and lives up to professional standards.
And that is why I can walk into places that use the competition and take the work away from them like taking candy from a baby.
And I am doing it repeatedly, not just as a one off.
Thanks Snow.
I'm feeling very happy atm and also inspired to go a lot further.
It started off a little rough and I was getting dissapointed but then I realised there was something I had overlooked beyond my control so once I waited that out, it's been almost too easy.
I am now wanting to look at the real big picture. What I'm doing is really just a base for much bigger things particularly in the kids market. My plan is for world domination in kids photography. In Sydney to start with anyway.
There is no reason I can't do it. There are only a couple of markets that are really sewn up here but so many are wide open. Dancing is a huge one. tens of thousands of kids in different types of that but it's all being done by different people. I think if I could have a division where we had a standard type of Photo, pricing etc and people knew what they were going to get, Just like McDonalds,it would be a huge success. Same with T&I work. The companies doing it here are pretty small and twice as dodgy.
Get a good quality, reliable, fast turn around company doing that and doors would fly open as well.
I want to start setting up different divisions to cater to these markets and have them running on their own. Yeah, it's a bit pie in the sky thinking right now but I would have said that 6 weeks ago with the work I have got in since. It can be done, I'll certainly have to get help in structuring the business side as it will be beyond me to do things of that scale but there is no reason on earth it can't be done.
I don't want to work in the the business, I want to work ON the business. I already have more work than I can handle on my own, from here on it's get the work and then get people to do it under my close watchful eye.
Today I'm sitting here and I feel a bit hobbled. I could be lining up more work right now but I literally have no time to do it. I have put out a job ad so If I can get some people in whom I'm happy with ( have 1 already) then I can put more work on this year. Other than that, I'll have to put it off till next year.
And this is just one of my grandiose ideas. With Christmas coming up there is a fantastic opportunity for Family portraits which I could advertise through the other work and get in front of maybe 10K families but when am I going to shoot them? Even if I got .1% of the people I advertised to, that's 10 sessions and no time. I need to find another shooter quick smart!
Sure wish you were here Snow!
Hee hee. Sadly, my transportation fee & expenses would greatly exceed my shooting fees! Otherwise I'd send yo my resume!
World domination? OK then, give that a few months...
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
The way things are going Snow, I might be prepared to pay.
I'm going to New Zealand next Month to shoot an event with the family so doing gigs internationally is far from out of the question.
Taking on work I have never done before doesn't worry me, dealing with insane amounts of kids and printing Pallet loads of paper doesn't worry me but I got to admit, Hiring staff has me very nervous. There is a lot riding on them.
I spent the day chasing up all sorts of old contact and people I have worked with including a few models that have a brain.
All have full time jobs which bummed me a bit that I couldn't get any of them but not surprising.
World domination , for sure! Just like I am a world famous Photographer in my street.
In actual fact I see the market is ripe for the picking. What competition there is I'm walking over so I can get established now and grow the Biz to cover the market..... If I can find the right staff.
From there I'm in a great spot to leverage other markets. For one thing I'll go after the T&I again next winter for the sporting clubs. That gets busy where this falls off so it should balance nicely.
The one company that has some market share here again has less than a great reputation. They tend to use poorly trained kids who have no idea what they are doing and don't seem to stay long enough to learn before being replaced with another kid that also has no idea.
Like the competition in this market, they are working on price but it's the wrong button to push with the decision makers. I'm confident I can ramp that up the same as I have with this market.
I booked another place today, just a little one, 1000 kids but the guy there came up with a great idea for Christmas pics. I'm so taken with it, I'm going to line up 2 other places with 4000 kids each and do it there as well. I think this may work out to be a decent Christmas Bonus.
If I can get the staff, I'll do it in some of the other places as well.
I wish December had 8 weeks instead of 3 till Christmas. It seems to be when the penny drops and everybody goes into spend mode. Just the same, I'm going to put some samples and advertising out on the places I do beforehand and see what that brings.