There is a general rule of thumb that says that 80% of the money is held by just 20% of the population. For me, I want those people as my clients. In fact, the next rule is that 80% of your business' income comes from 20% of your clients, and that's certainly true for me.
What about customer service issues?
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Yes, sadly, 20% of your customers are the ones responsible for a full 80% of the problems/complaints/issues that your customers present.
Further, there is another rule - if 20% of your customers are not complaining about your prices, you're not charging enough.
Concentrating on the 20% of the clients you have and you'll be doing all that you can to continue to maintain 80% of your profits.
Simple?
Yes.
Let me state it another way - if I spend all my time focused on handing out my business cards to people at an event I photograph, the net revenue from those prints will be far less than what I could have earned with all the time making prints and billing them, and collecting $20 here, $40 there, than if I took a billable assignment, or worked to cultivate more assignments during that time.
Or, identifying the class/type of clients who, for you, are responsible for that most profitable 20%, and work to grow them. I can't know which type they are within your business, but it's a truism that applies cross-industry.
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
Cal Sport Media is looking for experienced sports photographers to cover NCAA/pro sporting events in the Louisiana area. All work is paid on a comission basis (spec). Must have 400 2.8 and ability to transmit live from events. Quality and experience a must. Please email portfolio. Thank you.
Translation:
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POST JUMP TEXT. You must have a $7,000 lens and $3,000 laptop with $60/mo cellular card to work for us, in addition to every other wide to zoom lens and body (bodies), and we're not going to pay you one red cent for all the time you put in both before the game, during the game, and doing post-production and captioning after the game, or for the use of your equipment. You also have to have done this before (which makes you realize what you're giving up when shooting spec, by the way), and, oh yeah, you have to be good at it. Further, your photos will have a brief shelf life until the next game, so there's a narrow window of opportunity to generate revenue, oh, and you'll be competing for those limited dollars with every other photographer there, many of them actually being paid to be on assignment including the covering of their expenses.
And, when you get a photo sold, we'll take - yeah, 50% of what the photo sells for (or a close approximation of that percentage), and if you have to pay to park at the arena/venue, get hungry/thirsty, and so forth, you're on your own.
No doubt, several people have already responded, giving creedence to the person who coined the phrase "there's a sucker born every minute", even two centuries later.
Or, to bring the mentality into the current generation, with thanks to Forest Gump: "Stupid is, as stupid does." Just because these organizations can get you a credential doesn't mean you should be bending over and shooting for them on spec. There are a number of other ways to get great photos and experience without selling your soul. If they give you a guarantee of $X-hundred dollars a game, plus expenses, paid out against your sales, that's another thing - but they're not doing that. They make no commitment to you, and you're the one literally paying for the privledge of working for them because it will definately cost you actual dollars to go to the venue for the day/evening, not to mention all the required equipment.
Still think Spec is ok? Then see a few of my previous posts:
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
Incase you're going to be in NYC for PhotoPlusExpo next week, you might want to make the rounds of two of the evening parties - Thursday is PhotoShelter's, Friday is DigitalRailroad's. Since after each day's activities, your head just wants to explode with new information, ideas, and equipment you "just have to have", winding down is the best way to do it each night.
RSVP sooner rather than later!
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PhotoShelter party - PhotoShelter A Go Go 2 - Drink, Dance, Network and get your groove on with our go-go dancers at the hottest party of the Expo. Open bar all night long. Bring your promo cards. Hang them on the clothesline. Live your life the way you always wanted to. October 18, 2007, 7 to 11 p.m. Lotus Space 122 W 26th St. (between 6th and 7th Ave) reserve your spot at: http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/rsvp
Digital Railroad cordially invites you to our party, co-hosted with APA National, on Friday, October 19! Come socialize and network with your fellow photographic community members.
Friday, October 19, 2007 8 p.m.-1 a.m. Sandbox Studio 250 Hudson St., 11th Floor New York City
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
We travel a lot, and carry a lot of equipment. Each case, before we go, is labeled with white gaffers tape with it's dimensions, and weight. This saves us a lot of time when, at check in, the gate agent assumes the equipment case is outside their maximum dimensions (it's not, it's designed to not be), or over 100 lbs (we never do do that either, kinda misses the point). Frequently, with excess baggage charges, it's been less expensive to bring along a second assistant and paid their airfare and get their baggage allowance to fill.
When we are packing, we weight each bag with our scale, ensuring that each are either 98 or 99 lbs. I have been known to put a superclamp or Hensel battery in my carryon bag (since they're not weighed) to hit the 98 lb max, to avoid hitting their 100 lb max, with that wiggle room for their scale being off.
We've set up freight accounts with several airlines, and that can be useful. However, what do you do when you're returning?
Other than remember the exact way everything was packed, I found this neat little inexpensive gadget - the Digital Scale, that's only $25, is compact, and weights in at just 8 oz. Check it out!
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Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
The mystery photo editor over a the A Photo Editor blog writes (Who is this Dan Winters Fellow?) about the challenges of superiors/colleagues being enamoured with Dan Winters work, "...he loves a photograph he once saw. Not, that he will love the photographs he’s about to get....Could a Photo Directors job get any easier then giving Dan an assignment? Right up to the point where you’re told to give him art direction."
Ah. This message is clear - just because you are a phenominal photographer, with a great style, doesn't mean clients will want to work with you. And, if you make it worse, you make it so that you can't take direction. This is a recipe for a lot of one-off clients, with little repeat business.
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We are in the business of making pictures. Pictures people want, pictures people need. And those they want and need are the ones that actually fit into a story, or a mocked-up layout for an ad. If you want to try something edgy, fill the request, and then shoot your "something different", and offer it up. In this way, the client has what they need, and if they like your second image, they might go to bat for it. Placing a client in a position where they have to take what you've given them, and only that, places them in an uncomfortable position, against deadline, or additional costs for a re-shoot. Apply, instead, the "one for thee, one for me".
We are also in the business of taking direction. Sometimes it's vague, sometimes (overly) specific. To presume that you wouldn't deign to take direction, or, worse yet, you consider direction something to work opposite of, ensures that you will get a reputation for being difficult to work with, or for people to only work with you when their superiors press for it.
I can't know how Dan Winters works. He may well be a fine and responsive photographer. The mystery photo editor may just be miffed at Dan for other reasons, who knows. But, the overarching point is, you have to be easy to work with, and deliver what the client wants. Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
This past weekend, I was at the White House News Photographer's day-long multimedia program, and near the end of the day, on the panel discussion, several photographers were asking about getting the "important" stories told. Now, these were the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, young, eager, altruistic photographers. They believe that all they have to do is propose an amazing story, and if they do it right - if they talk to the right person, why, anyone would be a fool not to hearald the news from the tree-tops. The panel summarily crushed those thoughts.
The message essentially was, news is business. If your story doesn't sell more papers, more ads, more eyeballs on web pages, it's not going to get accepted by these outlets. Period. The "news is business" mentality isn't new, it's just more obvious these days. There are, essentially, three things you can do to get these vital stories out.
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1) Save and underwrite the story yourself. The reason that the major outlets won't take you/your idea on, is because they have to commit resources (i.e. money/staff/time) to the project, and they're not willing to take that risk. Since you believe in it so strongly, save up, and then take time to go cover the story. One example is Washington DC photojournalist Jamie Rose, who did just that, with her piece "Abandoned: Kenyatta's Orphans". Rose spent two months away from the political grindstone to make this, and other stories. She continues to spread the word on this important subject herself - one example is her presentation at the Travel and Adventure Workshops in Maine, in the beginning of December. You can learn more about that presentation here. But, that's not the only time she's made a presentation about that material. Jamie worked with The Calvert Foundation on the piece as well. Here's a quote from their webpage:
At Calvert Foundation, it is critical that we illustrate the impact our investors’ dollars have in the US and around the world. The best way to do this is through photographs and stories. We have the benefit of working with highly talented partners and photographers that help us bring to life the great work we support in underserved communities.
Following that, a bio of Rose is listed below those sentiments.
2) Produce the content and publish yourself. No longer are the main news outlets the gatekeepers, precluding you from telling your story. The web has democratized, and dare I say, deputized us all to tell the story. The viral nature of blogs and YouTube make it possible for people to get the news, unfiltered, or, better yet, filtered by issue/subject matter. It then becomes your responsibility to go out to other blogs, other discussion forums and listserv's to drive eyeballs and minds to read/watch your piece.
3) Use your more commericial work to underwrite your "stories that must be told" work. If you are generating $4k a month with a mix of corporate/editorial work, change that mix to increase your revenue to $6k a month by taking more corporate work, and then every 3 months taking two weeks and spending that extra $6k (3 months x +$2k) on your project. Or, change the ratio to be $1k extra a month, and then take one month off a year to go somewhere and use the $11k you saved to tell your story. This is a follow-on to the idea #1 above, but is a more agressive approach, and further, will allow you to travel to far more distant locations. #1 above might allow you to tell a story within a few hundred miles of your home (and believe me, there are many a story to be told that close to home), but this approach will allow you to travel several thousand miles from home.
I further submit that the news outlets have an obligation to the community. That, say they apply the ad-driven/eyeball-counting methodology to 8 out of ten stories that are driven by what the marketplace wants, with a revenue cushion that covers the costs of the remaining 2 out of 10 that are driven by a "what the public should see" approach, where the outlets are motivated by doing good rather than making profits. This model is evident for Bank of America in their loans division. I've done work before for them, and they have a seperate division, the Community Development Corporation, where they make loans and work to develop communities in areas that their more strict, profit-centric loaning division would not touch.
In the end, IF you want the story told bad enough, it will get told, come hell or high water. At what sacrifice? That's your call. You are, in this enlightened age, empowered with the tools and potential audience to make a difference. The only question is, how far will you go?
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
2 ... 2 ...
There is a general rule of thumb that says that 80% of the money is held by just 20% of the population. For me, I want those people as my clients. In fact, the next rule is that 80% of your business' income comes from 20% of your clients, and that's certainly true for me. 
