For Customers

Professional Insurance

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Professional photographers are insured but amateurs are not. Why would you hire an amateur to do your corporate photography or commercial photography? How can your business afford such a risk?

Here’s one example, another example and another example that show why an insured photographer is important.

Professional photography is all about reducing customer risk. The risk of problems during the photo shoot, the risk of poor quality pictures, the risk of missing deadlines, the risk that the pictures won’t meet your needs and the risk of wasting your time and money.

Professional photographers are worth more than what they cost.

 

Photo licensing saves money

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Did you know that it’s cheaper to buy a house than rent a hotel room?

A mid-range Toronto hotel room might be $160/night. That works out to $4,800 per month which is much higher than the average monthly mortgage payment on a house in Toronto. But since a customer needs a hotel room for only a short time, that $160 nightly room rental is 3,000 times cheaper than the average $480,000 house.
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Risk Management

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If the pictures aren’t important then your company can hire the cheapest photographer it can find. After all, if the pictures don’t turn out, only a small amount of money was wasted. You can can hire another photographer to re-shoot the photos.

But when the pictures are important, when there’s a tight deadline, when the photos can’t be re-shot or when corporate image is at stake, then there’s risk involved. Why would you compound this risk by hiring the cheapest photographer?

Smart companies will always hire an experienced photographer who knows how to minimize risk.

Minimizing risk includes such things as being insured, having backup equipment, location scouting, anticipating potential problems and dealing with them before they become problems, understanding the flow of an event, exposure bracketing, frame bracketing, having digital backups, having alternative picture ideas, and knowing camera limitations and how to get beyond those limitations.

All of this extra time, equipment and experience costs money but they all help reduce risk to you and your company.

When reputation, credibility and money are at stake, can any business risk going cheap?

 

Public Relations Laugh

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A political party in Alberta launched its provincial election campaign by unveiling its new bus. As is popular with most political campaigns, the bus was wrapped to look like a gigantic billboard. But no one bothered to properly proof the final layout.

A photo of the party’s female leader was placed in a rather unfortunate position over the rear wheels of the bus.

After a day of negative attention and being laughed at, the party says it will replace the $10,000 wrap. That’s an expensive do-over.

(Edit: a week later, the party is still being laughed at.)
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Advertising or Public Relations

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What’s the difference between advertising and public relations?

The short answer is:

Advertising is bought from a media outlet’s sales department.

Public relations is received free from a media outlet’s news department.

Guess which one has more credibility?
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How to save on business portraits

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How to save money on business portraits:

  1. Go to a department store or grocery store photo studio and get their $29.95 special. While you’re there, you can also pick up some shampoo, socks, cereal or any other supplies that you need. Sure, this will take a couple hours out of your work day but who doesn’t like to skip work?

 

  2. Have the lowest priced photographer on Craigslist come to your office to do the photos.  Hopefully this $79 photographer will show up and won’t leave you stranded because they couldn’t get time off from their day job.

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Choosing a business portrait photographer

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If you buy a cheap pair of shoes and they turn out to be uncomfortable, you stop wearing them. The money you paid for these shoes was wasted.

If you buy a more expensive pair of shoes and you enjoy wearing them, you’ll wear these shoes often. Over the life of the shoes, the additional money you paid, compared to the lower priced shoes, will be inconsequential becasue the value received is high.

Business portrait photography is a common offering from corporate photographers. Here in Toronto, business portraits can range from $50 to $1000. Even $2000 for a single portrait is not unheard of.

Why is there such a wide price range?
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