Risky Business

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It’s often said that it’s easier for a business to keep existing customers than to gain new ones. But it also works the other way around. It’s often easier for customers to buy from the same business than to look for a new supplier.

A photography customer that already has a go-to photographer will continue to use that photographer, (unless the photographer really messes up), because it’s easier than trying find a new photographer. A search for the phrase “toronto photographer” can result in 50 pages of search results. No one has time for that.

It’s always easier to continue doing things the usual way because there’s little or no risk. The usual way produces the usual results.

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Photo Estimates

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Another long post intended for new photographers. For those who hire photographers, this post will also outline the minimum of what to expect when doing business with a professional photographer.

This article offers some suggestions on how to properly prepare a photo estimate or quote for a client. Estimates aren’t usually used for editorial work for newspapers and magazines but should be used for almost all other clients.

 

Do yourself a favour and always have a paper trail right from the start. It can save you if you do or haunt you if you don’t. The “you” refers both to the photographer and the client.

Photographers: never give an estimate or price over the phone.

Clients: don’t think a verbal estimate is final because it isn’t.

In case you missed it, here it is again: do yourself a favour and always have a paper trail right from the start. It can save you if you do or haunt you if you don’t. The “you” refers both to the photographer and the client.
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Business Math

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Volkswagen is currently sponsoring a contest called The Fun Theory. The contest is looking for the best ideas that use fun to change people’s behaviour for the better. Watch the videos on the home page. The piano staircase is wonderful!

There are two ways to help change the behaviour of your customers. One way is to reward them for the positive behaviour you want. The other way is to punish them for unwanted behaviour. Guess which method is always more successful?

Bell, a Canadian phone company, wants to change to electronic invoices which would save Bell time and money. But customers would gain nothing.

Would you switch to monthly electronic billing if you could save one dollar per month? Would you switch if you got, say, an extra 50 text messages or minutes added to your account each month? I bet the answer would be “Yes!”

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Reputation Protection

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Earlier today, I received a panicked phone call from a photographer here in Toronto. He had lost some pictures on a memory card and had no idea what to do. His corporate client needed same-day delivery which he had promised.

This was the seventh time this year that a photographer has phoned or e-mailed asking for help to recover lost images.

Photographers, here’s the deal:

If you want to be a professional photographer, you MUST have recovery software. It’s not an option.

Data recovery software for memory cards has been available for at least eight years. There’s absolutely no excuse for not having this business-saving and face-saving software.

If you ever bought a pro memory card from Sandisk or Lexar in the past six years, (and why wouldn’t you have done this?), it came with free recovery software. But note that recovery software has to be kept up-to-date to recognize new raw formats.

Pro-level recovery software is no longer free. But it’s a cheap US $29 from PhotoRescue, which is probably the industry standard.

Today that $29 software saved an $800 job for a photographer. It also saved his reputation which is probably worth a lot more.

 

The Sport of Photography

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Chess, bridge, billiards, power-boating, hot-air ballooning, flying an airplane and dancing are among several activities that have been recognized by the International Olympic Committee as being a “sport”, although none are (yet) part of the Olympic Games.

From olympic.org :

If it is widely practised around the world and meets a number of criteria established by the IOC session, a recognised sport may be added to the Olympic programme on the recommendation of the IOC’s Olympic Programme Commission.

It’s high time that photography be recognized as a sport. It could even be in both the winter and summer games.

Photography is certainly widely-practised. It is one of the very few sports that can be played and enjoyed by people of any age, weight, height or sex, able-bodied or not.
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What’s in a name?

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As Shakespeare’s Juliet once pondered, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

But is this really true? Can simply changing a name change someone’s opinion?

I was looking through an online catalogue of men’s winter coats. Some of the available colours included: clay, slub, cold steel, varsity, elm, smoke, wine, merlot, cabernet, ink, twilight and midnight.

I’m all for creativity but none of those are actually colours. Some are very ambiguous. What colour is twilight? Wine? Varsity? Slub??

Whatever happened to black, grey, red, blue, green, brown? What about dark blue, sky blue and light grey?

Is this just marketing gone overboard or can using more fashionable names help draw in customers and even justify higher prices?

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Wrong Number

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The good thing about Bell, the Canadian phone company, is that it serves as the perfect example of what not to do in business.

It appears that Bell has quietly dropped two of its fake fees, (sadly, it hasn’t dropped all of them). Through one of its sister companies, Bell actually referred to its fake fees as a “made-up fee”.

Bell is currently in the midst of class action lawsuits regarding its System Access fee (aka “government licensing fee”) and its 9-1-1 fee. Both of these cell phone fees were just recently cancelled, although in some areas, the fees may still linger for some unknown reason. Just to be fair, the two other cell carriers are also involved in the same lawsuits.

Why wouldn’t a business tell its customers that it has eliminated some fees and has thereby lowered prices? Read on.

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