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Need order form for upcoming Team & Individual photo shoot
photodad1
Registered Users Posts: 566 Major grins
I am bidding on a youth program's sports team and individual photography services and I would to like present them with an order form with my current price list. This will be my first big job if I'm selected for the job and I'm looking for an order form where I can add my own business logo, prices and photo sizes. Is there a form online or software that I can buy that would have an order form already to go with minor modifications? Any suggestions? :scratch
Thanks,
Chris
Thanks,
Chris
0
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I would recommend including a release as part of the form for use of the photos to include at a minimum posting images on your website, and use in promotion materials for your company. Check on releases as there may be a specific form that is required for your organization, and your own release may not be adequate.
I would also recommend including the sales tax in your prices, and round to even numbers. Many of my parents still used cash, so change was an issue, and some parents would write checks without noticing the need for sales tax. This is a change that I implemented after my first round of T&I.
If there is a template out there I would be interested as well. These forms are always so confusing, and messy looking.
Good Luck
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Did you use Word or Excel to create your own form?
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Looked awesome.
Order form on the front, list of packages and products on the back.
I did this for 3 years for my town's little league. I'll probably do it again. I took this year off because I had to coach two teams. They missed me. The photog they got to replace me did the old-school paper forms. Everyone disliked that.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I'm certainly keen to have my eyes opened to other methods though.
I'b be very interested to know the value of your base and top packages and what your average order value is. Do you know what percentage of orders you get to players?
I'm also puzzled as to why your clients find going online less hassle than filling in some basic details on an orderform.
I can't imagine how online ordering could in fact be easier or faster than filling in the simple order form I have which despite being given out a week before, most parents stand around and do while the kids are being photographed.
I am very interested to find out more about your system though!
Some years ago I ordered pre printed Forms with a tear off envelope from a company in the US. They were printed with attractive graphics and had sample products on them, many of which I didn't offer. I used these on 2 teams I shot and saw my average sales rise Very nicely although the only thing I could see different to previous jobs was the envelope itself. I thought the presentation was worth the significant cost but they paid for themselves many, many times over.
Since then I have just bought large white envelopes in bulk and printed them myself.
I like being able to customise the layouts for whatever sport I am doing and the images of the products seems to work well in showing parents what they are actually getting.
Many companies here have a person on the team write the orders on a list and handle everyone's money. The ability for the parents to write their CC details on the form or put the cash in an envelope and just require one person to collect all the envelopes and hand them over gets a lot of positive comments.
Anyway, Dunno if envelopes are a given there and that is what an order form actually means but certainly not everyone uses envelopes here.
The other thing I do with T&I is to have a full size poster of the contents of every package in life size so the parents can actually see what they are getting and compare them. I have these hanging in the pop up tent we have where we put a table with computers and printers etc.
After each team is shot, my wife prints out a form with a pic of the team on it. The kids have a number written on them and then the coach or manager writes that kids name on the corresponding line, Spelled correctly. This is how we ID the kids and know what to print for them package and extra's wise.
The last few T&I I did and the next one coming up will have the prints delivered on the day.
I have the packages set up as actions on my computers so all I need to do is crop the pic if need be, hit a function key and the package comes out the pooled printers.
For the group, shot we put the names and info on the print and run the border template and print the number required on a separate printer pool.
I assign a team to be photographed every 10 min and we average about 15 on the printing.
We shoot the teams before the game and they are ready to take home when they are finished. This buffer allows us a little leeway in the production side so we can be slower than the photography but still well ahead of the collection time.
Printing on the day has been a BIG help in winning gigs over the competitors whom are all pretty much promoting on price. I have a big head, a large ego and a wife that loves spending ( being the operative word) too much time at the shops to be cutting margins to nothing by dealing on price. No one else offers same day delivery so it it really is a stand out of our business. Turnaround is a big concern here so that's the USP I go in on and it works nicely.
For a full-timer who can handle the fulfillment, forms in advance will surely generate more income. But if the goal is maximum income, then photodad1 needs to use your on-site printing method.
I use expiring coupons to create a deadline effect. It's not as effective as forms in advance, but it helps. I don't do packages. It's all a la carte. My coupons were tiered, like 20% off your order of $25 or more, 30% off your order of $40 or more, and so-on. So, a similar effect as packages, but the parents get to order what they want. I think people are online enough these days that ordering photos online just isn't a hassle.
The SmugMug Pro model just makes it A LOT easier for a part-timer like me because there is no fulfillment, no money/cc handling, no keeping track of players, and no paperwork. It makes it easier and friendlier on parents because there is no obligation, and nothing to do in advance. Since I do this in my own town, it is more neighborly this way. All the other people involved in making Little League happen (the committee, umpires, coaches, snack-shack workers, etc) are volunteering their time, I am the only person in town profiting off Little League (to the whopping tune of about $12/hr). So I want to be as gentle and discrete about that as possible.
Yes, I lose a significant amount of money by the fact that for some people, once they enjoy the images online (watermark and all), they are done with the photos. They email the link around to their family/friends, maybe take a screenshot, and then they do not feel a need to buy the photos. Or, they just procrastinate ordering and then they forget. Other people go bonkers and buy a lot. My method is not a way to make a living, but it has paid for all my toys and then some. I would like to improve my system though.
I think if I do it again, I will set up an online pre-deposit method. I will probably model this after Andy's (see deposit dropdown at the top). I'm thinking I'll charge a $20 deposit and shoot only the kids who's parents have prepaid or who approach me on the day-of and agree to pay. Then I will give them a $25 print credit as a reward for paying in advance. I think this will provide incentive to the parents, and solve the issues of free viewing, and people who just aren't that interested in pics. Yes, this will bring some obligation and an in-advance or day-of deadline back into my process, but I think I can sell this in a way that makes people understand it is only fair. I will still allow people to buy a la carte out of my galleries online after the fact with no deposit, of course.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
And I guess I assume that everyone doing this is actually doing it for profit rather than fun or as a service.
While I don't keep the never ending numbers some carry on about, one I do keep a very close eye on is average sale. I have 2 parameters on this.
Average sale value of all the kids there divided by the amount of money we took and the number of actual purchases made divided by the amount of money we took.
The one that I apply to T&I work is total number of kids divided by total number of Dollars.
On T&I, that is around $31 for me atm and has been for a while. We do a little better here and a little worse there but the average of the averages is the higher or lower end of $31.
This includes the sales of the $20 base coverage I have and people who buy the $60 package plus extras etc and each and every infinite combination in between.
I have not worked it out on an hourly rate accurately but off the top of my head it's certainly around the $500 mark gross.
I am surprised you find the fulfilment such a chore even though I assume you have a full time job.
I have sort of done the printing in 3 different ways. First I batched up all the pics into their sizes, put them on disk and sent them to the lab. That was not a great way of doing it for a bunch of reasons, mainly either us or just as often the lab missing prints or orders and having to send a makeup order.
Next step was in house printing. MUCH easier overall and nothing got missed because if anything was you just printed it and out the door a perfect order went. The average club I would do here would be about 2-300 kids and my wife and I could sit down after dinner for 2-3 hours a night depending on how we felt and easily have the orders done by the thursday night printed, packed, in a crate ready to go out the door. We always used to say 2 week turn around then deliver them the next weekend which always went down well of course.
When the clubs would mention the 2 week turn around I'd tell them straight out, That's to give us a buffer in anything goes wrong. Nothing ever does but you are a lot happier now I have brought them a week early than you would be had I brought them a week late.
The onsite of course is a standout in the business here and it does allow me to charge a slightly higher base price than everyone else. What never Ceases to amaze me though is how the committees on these teams are tunnel visioned on the lowest price package when you are going after their business, but never look at the actual value of anything.
My average sale can be Double the price of my lowest offering ( if I have to drop it to get the gig) but they never look at the poor value a single 5x7 offers for $15 when for $5 more they get another 5x7 and an 8x12 as well. I do have $60 packages because they sell quite well. If you have 25 orders for them out of an entire team which can be less than 10% of the overall orders, They still jack your average very nicely and make up for the equal amount of $15 sales you get and still keep your average on par.
I hear people here complaining that their average sale is only whatever pitiful amount competing on price returns, but then when you look at what they are offering, there is nothing for the people that are willing to spend with no limits to buy anyway. I have well heeled friends that just look for the biggest package they can buy and tick that box. I made sure to provide for others like them and have the mother of packages to cater their income level the same I do as the always catered to poor people like me. It's definitely been a smart move.
I suppose I'm happy in a way that I had your system wrong in my mind although I would have liked to learn something new and better. You have confirmed my concerns that having people order off the net is not particularly efficient for maximising returns from these ( or in my experience, any other ) endeavours. I kinda get you position on it but it sure makes me wonder about other peoples.
Sure smutmug etc are easier but clearly the work that is not being done is not being paid for either and by a significant margin. I have never got more T&I work than I can handle so I have been prepared to do more hours and get more money for it.
I think your prepaid idea will be a winner. I have heard of this with other things such as dancing and event work and it always seems to bring good results. I have tried prepaid a few times but it hasn't been accepted which I put down to my poor performance in selling it to the groups I have tried it with. I still believe it would be a winner for those that can pitch it to audiences that may be a bit more receptive to new ideas than some I have tried it with.
A suggestion I would make if you want to increase your returns from this work would be to have your base price of a $20 deposit but then offer your incentive for say a $30 deposit and then give the $5 bonus credit. This will bump your average sales figure by 50% less the 5% or so the incentive materials will cost you.
Having guaranteed returns before you even shoot is always the best business model IMHO and if you can increase the level of those returns, then you're really laughing!
Thanks for your considerate reply. I think you are doing it right, my friend. Your on-site printing is exceptional, and worth a premium. I just wanted to offer an alternative to photodad1 as an approach worth considering if he is a part-timer. I do have a full-time job in software development, and I have two young kids in the league I am shooting. I also coach their teams.
The first year I did this I offered forms in advance and I did the fulfillment for those orders, about 200 of them. Never again. At that time SmugMug Pro did not offer coupons or packages.
Wow, I need to change careers! ;-)
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
It might be worth it if you could get 30 hours a week instead of one morning every few weeks!
Weird, I can't fathom that. Did a quantity of people actually tell you that? My league has about 450 kids, and I got that complaint from exactly 2 parents.
Selling through SmugMug Pro does not preclude you from doing that.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I do recommend getting orders up front. I have about 50% order up front (with cheaper prices), and only about 10-15% additional will order after the fact. My T&I has been with middle school which I believe has less conversion than elementary age kids.
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This was my experience with event work and why Online would never work for me.
When we put the images online they would say they would look at home when they had more time etc.
Total online sales over 3 months, 12 events and 25K plus IMages: 0. Nada. Zip. NONE!
Stopped doing online and the whineing about not having enough time to look then and we were even told that was stupid and too bad for us they didn't have time to buy any if they werent online etc.
The people that told us they didn't have time to look then usually came back and spent more time looking and procrastinating than anyone else.
Sales dropped when we put them online, they went right back up when we stopped it.
I know they work well for some people but I sure as hell couldn't make it work for me no matter how hard I pushed The site info etc.
Something occurred to me just today about this during discussions for a job I booked.
It seems ironic how so many parents will go on with a load of crap about Child protection and putting images of their kids on the net but then others almost demand it and get annoyed when you don't.
Given my low ordering rate, I'm quite convinced there are a number of people with ulterior motives.
The rest are just Typical humans. Slack.
Perhaps JM a worthwhile compromise for you would be to have order forms/ envelopes and get them to order on the day then you just do the ordering yourself through smutmug so they can do the printing and delivery.
More work, yes.
More profit, I'd pretty much guarantee it!
Out of interest, of the 450 kids you mention, how many would you actually get orders from as a rough figure?
For order forms you can make your own. But I also suggest having them printed on cheap envelopes. This way, you can put the product into the envelope and they have the order form. You really want the envelope for keeping the product for a customer together anyway and printing the order form on the envelope saves you a piece of paper.
Look at some of the other companies out there for printing. If you deal directly with Bay Photo you can do some magazine and trading card work as well as memory mates. Other outfits are similarly suited for T&I work.
If you're going to do T&I work you really need at least 2 people - preferably 3:
One person shoots Individual, one shoots team. It helps to have a third person to handle money & mark shot #s on envelope.
You'll find that repeat business has a lot to do with your workflow at shot time. People don't want to spend an hour at the shoot. You want to be able to get whole teams in and out in a very short amount of time.
Next, you want the orders processed and back within a week.
Third: you need the ability to shoot indoors - backdrops and strobes. This way you have flexibility - you set up 2 locations: outdoor and indoor. If weather is bad, the shoot still takes place.
The whole idea is to make the shoot as quick and painless as possible - and preferably to move the whole league through the shoot in the same day so you don't spend overhead time for each team.
If you have to do everything yourself - collect money, mark the sheet with shot #, take individual, set up for team you're in trouble. If you have to rely on outside shooting you're in trouble too.
Keep packages simple - 3 or 4 packages max. Then you can offer a whole bunch of add-ons. $15 is a good minimum package amount.
Not here in Oz. Tried the trading cards for baseball some years back. No one knew what the hell to do with them!
Bread and butter for me is keeping the average spend high.
I tried this once but of course it required BIG envelopes to put 8x12's back into and they were a pain in the butt to handle. I think the envelopes I use now are C4 size.
I return the prints in plastic sleeve protectors. The person giving them out can see who belongs to that package straight off, They save a fortune on presentation folders, stop any water getting on the prints and are a lot cheaper than zip lock bags. We just tape the open end over to stop the prints falling out.
The kids can see the big print and the team shot we make sure to put facing out so they don't have to open them at the grounds. I think we pay about $10 for a box of 300.
I have shot Baseball, netball, soccer and Football and allow 10 min per team shooting on my own and run early. The key is preparation and organization. My 3rd person ( when I have had one) is to organise and collect envelopes and to get the kids to pay attention to how the kids before them are standing etc or if there are none. To tell them what to do, how to stand etc. That makes shooting much easier.
If I don't have the 3rd, I can still manage to let them know what I want in 30 sec and keep to time.
Having someone to handle the money and organise envelopes, team info is essential. No way I would do that as well even in double the time I take now. There are always people coming up with questions that will go to the money handler rather than bother the shooter. If there was no 2nd, The photographer would be shoving the proverbial up hill to knock a team over in 25-30 min on their own due to other distractions besides the actual work itself.
Could not agree more!
The way we work on the day has been the thing people compliment us the most on and what gets us referrals that are walk up starts. I have had numerous bookings from shooting on a paddock where other teams were such as netball and people from other clubs watching us push the teams through quickly and efficiently and come up to my desk Jockey and talk dates before they even talk prices.
I have also lost clubs on price and then when the under cutting company are running 60 min late by their 6th team and just causing Havoc on the day with away teams etc, I don't have much trouble getting them the next year.
That's a BIG sticking point here. May of the ones competing on price promise around a months delivery time but then fail to keep it. sometimes by months.
A sweet price goes no where in eliminating the bitter taste that leaves even 12 months later and they don't get the gig again.
Never had to do an indoor shoot yet. I was going to do one one year but then I got a bright idea of shooting them outside. At Night. With back lighting in the team colours. With a smoke machine. And a generator. Still a 4 light indoor set up plus more needed.
That was my sons team whom refused to have the shooter the club engaged from the previous year again. ( cheap but disorganized on the day, slow to get prints back, several people got short changed on their orders BUT, they offered the committee more commission than I did or was prepared to.)
Suffice to say the committee chit a kidney when they got my sons team shot and when it went up in the clubhouse and every other coach and manager wanted to know why the hell their team pics didn't look like that?
I got the gig for the next year within weeks of that years pics being shot but surprisingly, they all wanted to go back to a conventional morning shoot. I wasn't worried, I had the gig, Did my sons team again at night the same way.
Again, couldn't agree more.
You need to involve the committee etc as LEAST as possible. Once they give you the nod all you need is the teams running list/ shoot order and times and the next thing is when you hand them their donation and shots for their club records. It seems I have worried a lot of clubs by how autonomously I work which makes them wonder what I'm doing because everyone else pesters them to death for things.
I could not do this with any possibility of efficiency on my own. An assistant is as essential as a camera really.
I can shoot inside if I have to, most teams here would rather re-schedule than do that because they want to show the outdoors in the pics. At most clubs here, the clubhouse is too small to even be considered to an indoor shoot anyway. That said, I fully agree you need the gear to be able to do indoor if the Possibility is there.
I have a popup marquee with white sides I use as a studio. The thin nylon is just like the covering of a fish fryer and yields a nice soft even light just like in a studio. I use fish fryers on studio heads as well to give studio quality lighting.
The roof is waterproof and I could use this and another larger still marquee I have in the event of wet weather. I have done lots of wet events where I have put my Vstations under them so no real difference. I would want some sort of flooring though to stop the ground being churned into a bog.
I made up some stands a foot high to stand the kids on for the team shots and I drew some outlines of feet on them at the angle I want the kids to stand. I tell them put your feet in the other feet and turn your head to me and they are posed and at a better height for me to shoot without wrecking my back too early in the day.
I have four packages and 4 add ons.
I list the packages from most expensive to least expensive. It's a big psychological difference to listing them the other way round. The cheapest package is something cheap and nasty looking like a single 5x7 for $15 which looks poor compared t the other packages I really want to sell with lots more pics.
The 5x7 "Package" is what often gets me in the door with the committees that are worried about what your starting package is.
I also have the addons which are a Mag cover, The team and individual shot on a background with the team/ club year on it ( I think that is similar to what you call a memory mate) a calendar of 12 months under 1 Pic ( near Impossible to see the small calendar but a good seller just the same) and a MVP bordered Print.
All the extras are only available with a package and all sell equally well. All are A4 and they are all $20 ea.
We always have a couple of parents or more in every club that will buy all 4 extras plus the top package which can add up to $150.
Only do that 2-4 times on average per club, but they are great sales when they do come in.
For those I usually throw in a disk with everything including the original image on it with a thank you note.
What does that say about the images though? I make about $5k off of 450 kids, all through the SmugMug online-only business model. I agree your business model is better for a full-timer, but zero online sales?? Something isn't right there.
Is there a reason you consistently spell it "smutmug"? You do realize that's a demeaning parody of the name, right? Anyway, agreed, I do need to offer more in-advance/in-person options with incentives if I want to increase revenue.
Hard to say, I don't keep track. I would guess 200. A small number of teams have a parent with a decent DSLR who will shoot their kids' teams all season and give away pics for free. That means no sales for me from those teams. I attribute the rest of the no-sales to the other reasons being discussed.
From my experience I believe this means one of three things, in order:
1, the images are simply not compelling enough. This may or may not be the photographer's fault.
2, people do not value the photographs the same way the photographer does. A significant number of people simply don't care about photographs enough or at all. I have some shots that I have confirmed with several people are outstanding, and they have never sold. Like this one for example. I can't get over that one. What parent sees that picture of their own son in a genuine moment of joy and goes "meh."?
3, the images are compelling, and the parent intends to buy but never gets around to it for whatever reason. It may be laziness or it may be other stuff going on in their lives that puts photos way at the bottom of their to-do list. I even have a few close personal friends in this camp! Nothing you can do about this in this business model.
I tried SM Events once. Never again, complete waste of time, practically nobody used them. YMMV.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I also think the T&I and the action shots are different markets. The online only T&I probably works better than the online action.
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I'm sure your business has suffered from all 3. #2 and #3 are simply beyond your control in the online model. As for issue #1, it's youth sports, and lets face it, many kids are simply not going to create the fantasy photograph, especially in Baseball. You could do everything right and the kid will either not produce, or actually ruin an otherwise perfect shot.
Other way around. How are you going to set up a pay-in-advance business model for action shots? No way you can guarantee a thrilling action shot of every player that pays.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
It's interesting to hear everyone else's take on selling online. I personally don't because once the parents walk out the door, half of them forget or they have time to think and decide they don't have the money. Gotta love those impulse buyers! My real reasoning is the same reason I don't take credit cards, it costs too much. On a shoot that I make $20K on, that 3 percent adds up to quite a chunk of change!
Yep, that has been my experience as well.
Online is a great excuse for many people NOT to buy.
I pay half of that fee. Seems odd that I can get that rate here and you are paing double where the market is probably 10 times more competitive and you seem to be making about 4 time or more what I do on a T&I. I'd definatly be shopping round and playing the banks off against each other for a lower rate. That's what I did.
At the end of the day, I wou;d easy loose more than 5% of my sales if I didn't take CC's. About 90% of the sales we make are paid on card. I also think people tend to spend more on the card when they can pay for it later and not see the actual cash being handed over.
Don't know about other places but it's VERY rare anyone ever gets paid cash here anymore. It's all direct deposited into your bank account. No DD, no job basically People pay for Coffee and a Muffin here on CC and it dosen't raise an eyebrow.
Many people just don't carry more than about $20 now and the cash they get is when they buy something else on CC . I have actually ordered a 2nd CC machine to cope with the customer throughput I'll have for jobs coming up.
For me the fees are a much smaller loss than not taking CC at all.