Did the Super Committee Really Fail?

Anyone who actually thought the Super Committee would succeed is a fool. I felt sorry for all 12 of those folks the minute they were named. They were nothing but the scapegoats sent to battle by their respective parties. A group of fully informed Uriahs. We were told they were empowered to make change. They were told that failure would not simply be failure to congress, but failure to country. This was their act of patriotism. Then they were hamstrung by the same ideological chains of party affiliation that have created dangerous deadlock in Washington in growing degrees over the last 20 years.

I’m no fan of the Occupy movement. To me it is a colossal waste of time and energy. How can a movement move with no direction? If it is not meant to move then what is it meant to be? It may as well be the “I’m mad” movement. I’d get that. A lot of people are mad. The “failure” of the super committee makes me mad too, but I’m not mad at them. Is it the bank’s fault? No. Is it “wall street’s” fault? No. Is it big business’s fault? No. Is it democrats’ fault? Maybe. Is it republicans’ fault? Maybe. Is the middle class subjected to an unfair burden? Absolutely. Do we need to do more for the working poor? No question about it.

The real challenge we are seeing all around us is actually a failure of leadership. Elected leaders are so afraid of their various empowering constituencies that they are unable to do what they know to be right. Business leaders have the same challenge. In a world with a 24 hour news feed and quarterly stock reports those who run big businesses are slave to immediacy. Anyone who steps up and calls for the kind of compromise necessary to create real change is drawn and quartered. In a world that refuses to listen reason dies. A western business leader who decides to invest in future growth risks termination when the quarterly reports show diminished profitability. A political leader who calls for compromise is called soft by the party leaders who fund television commercials and re-election campaigns.

The super committee was doomed from the start. It was an extraordinary diversion, cooked up by the president on one side and congressional leaders on the other. It’s sole purpose was to kick the can down the road. Let’s not decide now... We can decide then. It won’t be our fault it will be theirs. Only it’s not their fault. If I’d gotten the call to be on that committee I would have scheduled an immediate amputation and taken medical leave. Listen to the party leaders now... Want to know whose fault it really is? It is the leaders’ fault and it is our fault for funding institutions that demand that ideologies are more important than practicalities. Only we don’t really want to accept that.

If we go back and listen to the airwaves during the budget crisis that spawned the super committee we will hear exactly the same comments we are hearing today. “Less spending” on one side and “higher taxes” on the other. In reality they are both right, and interestingly, they both know they are right. We have to find ways to cut spending at all levels in government and if we want all of the programs that we have been so happy to have, then we need to be prepared to belly up and pay for them. The challenge for the ideologically blind is that that sounds r-e-a-s-o-n-a-b-l-e. Reason is scary.

I’m in the hated 1%. My family makes more than $250,000 per year. So are a lot of my friends. I’d hate to lose my write-offs for charitable contributions and for my Mortgage. Before I give up all that money I want to know that the money I’m paying for taxes is being appropriately spent. The fact is that I may not ever know if that is true. At the very least I want to know that the folks charged with spending it treat that privilege with honor. Right now I’m not sure it is. Perhaps I should start a movement. We’ll call it the “Shut Up and Do Your Jobs” movement. That has the handy acronym of SUADYG. Rhymes with sewage. That’s about right.

The Most Common Photographer Marketing Mistake

I am frequently asked to review photographer’s web sites. I always tell them that they should ask me with caution. I’ll tell you what I think. If you don’t want to hear don’t ask. Pretty simple. It’s a funny thing, but most photographers whose sites I review are actually pretty good. However, there is one big mistake that many make and it’s a simple and obvious one. Luckily its also easy to fix.

Your hero galleries suck.

OK. What is the hero gallery? It is the primary gallery or slideshow that loads on the home page. Common mistakes are too many images, too old images, images that aren’t that great, images that are too large or too small, images of irrelevant people, too many images of obvious models, etc. You’ve all seen them.

It matters. Here’s why. Almost anyone who is interested in your business will start their research on your web site. (read that carefully - I did not say, ‘on your blog’). Why? Because your web site IS your business online. Most consumers will only visit the blog after they’ve thoroughly reviewed the site. I’ve said it before but it’s a good rule of thumb, your web site is your living room and your blog is your family room. Important new visitors all go to the living room first.

When potential clients reach your site you want to greet them with the best possible message. Photographers spend an enormous amount of time figuring out every detail of the way their sites are organized. Colors, branding, text, type style, positioning, content allocation, everything gets viewed and reviewed almost ad infinitum. In many cases though the hero gallery is an afterthought. It shouldn’t be. It is the single most important element on your site.

Most consumers will actually sit through the whole slideshow before clicking through to a page. If it is their first visit (the most important one!) they have come to see your images. You want your very best right up front. Your VERY best. You also want to make sure that slideshow speaks for you. Here are some good rules to go by.

1. You want your slideshow to draw people into your site, not overwhelm them.
2. Stick to between 10 and 15 images, max.
3. Make sure the very first image strongly represents the people you most like to shoot.
4. Images of women should predominantly be beautiful.
5. Images of men should predominantly be fun. (I’ll get into why in a minute).
6. It is OK to intermingle genres so long as they’re in the same vane. (IE wedding and portrait). (Oh - I know I know - this is heresy. Consumers are evidently too stupid to figure out that you might shoot more than one kind of photography so you need separate sites and brands for each one ... OR ... these rules were made up by people who sell sites and branding and they just want you to buy more - you choose)....
7. Images should not live on your home page for more than 6 months. (they should be fresh).
8. Images should tell a story about your style and your business.

OK - A few examples.

If I were a wedding photographer my image order would be as follows: (Yes. Just one image for each number!)

1. Bride Beautiful. The bride is your key decision maker and her biggest question is whether you will make her look beautiful. This should be your best picture of a bride, period, and she better be beautiful!
2. Groom Fun. The bride cares about beautiful. The groom cares about whether you are going to be a pain in the ass. (sorry - business term there). The bride is worried about what her man is going to think too, so this image is communicating with both of them.
3. Parents, emotion. Once the bride and groom are comfortable you want to talk with the person who is going to pay the bills. Parents want to be sure that you will capture the important moments of the day. A great image in this category is the Father/Daughter dance.
4. A great group shot. No one likes to take them. Some photographers are lucky enough to have businesses that don’t require them. However, if there is any question, it’s a great idea to have a great group shot in the hero gallery. It shows your versatility as a photographer.
5. A great shot of the whole wedding.
6. A great detail shot.
7. A great venue shot. (of the venue you most love to shoot in).
8. A great reception shot.
9. A great leaving shot.
10. A great, the parents at the end of the evening, shot.

That’s it. 10 Pictures. Once they’ve seen them I want them to jump in to my more specific galleries. Every one of these images should be gallery quality beautiful. Tack sharp where they’re sharp, soft and sweet where bokeh rules. Perfect whites and balance and perfect framing. Nothing is thrown in just so it’s there.

The other galleries should be arranged in the same way. Never more or less than 10 images. Just enough to give people a taste of what you are communicating.

For portrait shooters I’d actually think the same way. A great hero/anchor image of the person who is the archetype for the clients I most like to shoot. A great shot of my client laughing and a great shot of an important moment. Then I would think about studio, indoors and outdoors. Show the range of light and your command of different textures. Make sure every single image absolutely rocks. Change them out at least every six months.

I think the most common mistake is simply too many pictures. Many times we’re the worst curators of our own work. You want your images to speak to the viewer about your skill, capabilities, style and vision. That will communicate more clearly with them than perhaps any other element on the site.

“Advanced Reading...”

If it were me and I was in this business, I would have printed and mounted copies of each of the first five images with me when I meet with my clients. I would actually hand them the images and tell them the story of the people in the images. These would be signed prints, not an i-device. That’s because the kind of client I would want to attract would be a client who values the art of photography. I would want to make sure they understood that I was an artist who make perfect brushstrokes of their special moments. The stories of the people in the images will remind them of the galleries they’ve already visited and provides an important touchpoint in which I make clear my ability to connect with my clients not just through my lens, but in a personal way as well. (Again, because these are the kinds of clients I would want to serve)...

Embracing Change. Still waters are dead waters...

Still Water is Dead Water ...

We all fear change. Even those who embrace change do so with a kind of devil-may-care perspective that suggests they conquer natural fear rather than find themselves impervious to it. Change takes us from what is known to what it unknown. It is natural to want to resist it.

The challenge this creates is that change is a hallmark of life. In a very real sense, if we stop changing we die. In fact, the healthiest people, and the healthiest organizations actually seek out ways to change. They understand that all things are in a continuous evolutionary process and that the best way to succeed over the long haul is by not simply embracing change, but by planning for and strategically executing change as a fundamental element of the lives we lead.

So what? I think it is interesting that most businesses that fail fail because they fail to change. The marketplace moves on. Whether we like it or not, consumer preferences change. The most successful businesses anticipate change and work to stay ahead. Some stunningly successful businesses do a phenomenal job of simply following. The businesses that die are the ones that believe that just because this year was successful next year will be too. They are the businesses that think that this year’s accolades automatically translate to next year’s success. And - they are the ones who criticize the changing marketplace (usually because they understand that the change they see means they’re already behind, the world has moved on without them.)

Here’s the challenge of this post for anyone who wants to take it up... What will be different about your business next year than this year? What new product will you launch? What new market will you enter? What new technique will you try? If you listen well to your customers they will take you there. They’ll tell you what they want. Be smart about it. Putting things in a well defined, “idea” bucket and letting them succeed or fail based on customer demand is a good idea. Putting all of your eggs behind the new initiative is a bad idea.

But here’s the other idea. Change isn’t always adding something. Change is sometimes taking something away. A restaurant I know well has this challenge. They’ve been really hurt by the economy. They’re hanging in there, but barely. I talked to the owner a while ago and asked him why he continues to offer so broad a menu. I know it’s costly and there is a lot of waste. His answer was that he doesn’t want to remove things from the menu for fear that an old customer will come and want that particular dish. No business can actually do all things all the time. All businesses have to hone and focus their efforts on the things they do best that intersect best with what their customers want. Sometimes the hardest part of change then is not doing a new thing, but stopping an old thing.

I’ve been white water rafting a few times. I’ll be honest and say that I’m not a huge fan. The rivers scare me. I have tremendous respect for the power of water. When you ride the raft down the river there is a process of frenzied activity - when you’re in the rapids - followed by periods of rest. At times you “eddy out.” Purposefully pull the raft into the still shallows so the guides can survey and plan for a rapid ahead. I have to admit that in those times I wish that we could just stay in the peaceful eddy. We can’t though. If we did we would never get to where we want to go. And so, when the moment comes that we must turn the nose of the boat back into the white water I pull with all of my might. We have a plan. There will be unknowns but working together we can deal with them. When we get through we will feel the rush of satisfaction.

The same is true in business...

The One Secret to Professional Photography Success

I was in a discussion with some folks the other day about why some photographers succeed and so many others fail. These people mentioned a series of things. Business acumen, economics, etc. I was mostly listening. It’s a subject that is near and dear to my heart since Pictage’s mission is to help professional photographers succeed in as many ways as we can. When I got home I did an admittedly unscientific survey of photographers who’ve emailed me or messaged me through the forums. I looked at sites of photographers I know are doing well. I looked at sites of photographers who are hurting.

These results aren’t universal. There are exceptions to every rule. If you’ve contacted me for help and you think I’m writing this just about you, I’m not. If it hurts do something about it. If it doesn’t this either isn’t a problem for you or you will also fail. That’s ok. 72% of the photographers who start this year will be out of business within two years.

Here’s what I found... earth shattering I know...

Successful photographers take great pictures.

It’s funny, right? And it should be obvious. It’s not though. Sadly. So much time and energy is spent on so many other things. But the most powerful determiner of success is the quality of the images you shoot. Period. Full stop.

Think about it. Do you worry that other photographers might be better? Do you worry about Uncle Bob or Cousin Kerry? Do you know that every time you go out to shoot, no matter what you are going to face, that you’re going to get great images for your clients? If you worry about any of these things then stop worrying about branding, marketing, etc. and go out and learn how to make great images. It is the most important thing you can do as a photographer.

I thought this was awfully simplistic. But when I went back and went through the sites again there was a common theme in what I saw, (at least in what I could see online). Very few of the images really “popped.” They were all good. I just can’t say that I think they were great. I get that this is pretty subjective, but I think it’s important to understand that the client is being subjective too. The client’s measure of great is a wholly subjective measure. Do I feel like I look great?

What defines a great image? Great emotion. Great light. Great settings. An understanding of the power of depth of field. A fearlessness about light and dark. An understanding of the power of natural light. An understanding of the purposes and proper use of augmented light. An understanding of the proper use of the various lens focal lengths and their impact on a subject. It is important to understand that an automatic camera doesn’t actually know any of these things. It is programmed for safe and average. It is not programmed for spectacular.

A modern automatic camera can take solid pictures without much knowledge. That scares a lot of photographers and, quite frankly, it shouldn’t. Clients don’t hire professionals for solid. They hire professionals for excellent. They know their foibles. They’ve seen decent pictures of themselves. What they want from you is nothing short of greatness. That’s why they’re hiring you. Can you deliver? If you do they will hire you again (in a heartbeat) and they will tell all of their friends about you. (probably “steal” a few pictures and put them on FaceBook too!). Conversely, if they feel the job you do is just good enough they’ll likely more or less bury the images away and move on. You’ll never hear from them again.

Great photographers know how to work within a setting to capture what is happening in a way that will translate powerfully to a captured image. If they are shooting a live event like a wedding, bar mitzvah or even a kids T-ball game they understand light and angle and they know the capabilities (and drawbacks) of their equipment. In a portrait situation a great photographer can make a mundane setting extraordinary. They have taught themselves to see light differently. When their clients see their images they will say, “I never would have seen this this way” and they will mean it.

Great photographers also understand that post production is like the seasoning at the end of the cooking process. It’s that last touch of salt, sweetness or acidity that gets the balance just right before the dish is served. It is not the core ingredient. While it is true that the modern professional cameras, capturing images in RAW format provide extremely forgiving latitude, nothing can make up for a bad shooting angle, missed focus or the wrong equipment. As a rule, if you spend more time editing than you do shooting then you may want to brush up your camera skills. (because all of that editing time costs you a lot of money -whether in out of pocket cash or in time).

The business of professional photography is first and foremost the business of taking great pictures. Everything else is secondary. Lots of other things may have an impact on how successful you become, but nothing has anything like the impact of a great image. If that’s not in your repertoire, it’s time to get to work.

Here’s the thing. Being a great photographer is not the only measure of success. Once you’ve nailed great image capture down marketing, connecting with your clients, staying ahead of product trends, etc., are all important. I’ll talk through a few of those in the coming weeks. It’s just that it all starts here and when you think about it that makes sense.

Why Does it Cost So Much. A public service for professional photographers.

These days there is a lot of confusion with regard to consumer preferences for digital file vs printed product distribution. The good news, and the reason I’m not going to address that here, is that both markets are actually growing quite dramatically. (with specialty printed photo products growing at a rate of over 40% per year).

So this isn’t a discussion of whether people want digital or print, it’s just a public service for professional photographers whose clients clearly want prints, but who want them cheap.

I’ve written this specifically so that you can use it whether you are a Pictage client or not. If not, simply replace Pictage with the name of your lab or your site if you’re using another proofing and purchasing environment. (and ask yourself why they don’t do this kind of thing for you!)... You can also replace Canvas Prints with Photographic Prints, etc. I’ll write a separate version for Photographic Albums.

Go ahead - use this. Just copy and paste it. It will make your life easier. Ultimately, that’s what I’m here for.

What to do when your client says, “I just want to print it myself.”

Hey, I got your note. I'd love to send you the digital file but I think there is a misunderstanding with regard to pricing that I'd like to clear up. If I send you the file the cost is likely to be pretty close to the difference between a discount canvas printer and the pricing you see on Pictage (my site). Here's why. The price on Pictage includes a series of prep and editing fees that go into preparing the image to be printed on a format as large as a canvas. I do some of these and Pictage actually does a bunch too. If the file is to be printed by another vendor I still have to do my steps, but I can't guarantee that the image is going to look the way it does when you see it on your computer.

Most people have a hard time understanding this so I'll explain. A printer is not a printer. Printers are calibrated to monitors, etc. Consumer grade canvas manufacturers gear their printers to consumer grade images. Consumers make a lot of photographic mistakes (no offense!) so the printers are designed to even things out. They reduce contrast and saturation, etc. in effect, making the images dull.

I've actually worked with Pictage to calibrate my monitor at home to their printing process and this extends to their canvases. I use them because I know that what I see is what I'm going to see when the orders come back. They do a bunch of other stuff too, like ensure the canvases are properly treated to be resistant to light damage, beefed up frame construction, including all of the hanging hardware, making sure the canvas ships ready to hang, etc.

I hope that helps ... Like I said, if you still want me to provide the digital file for your use in printing one canvas I can, I just wanted to make sure you understood that you probably won't end up actually saving any money. (and if you do you might be sorry!)

Your helpful photographer.

Now, there is some discussion around why you would even want to do this. There are two answers. And again, this is for all photographers whether you use Pictage or not. The first is that for any professional photographer the sale of products related to their photography is an extremely important revenue stream. In fact, most estimates suggest that as much as 1/3 of a studio’s revenue must come from the sale of products in order for the studio to be successful. (there are always outliers, but this is based on the industry average fee structure). So learning to sell these products is important.

Second. The fact is that your client is likely to go ahead and print some of the images you provide to them digitally. They do this because one of the biggest challenges consumers face today is the understanding that it is far too easy to lose track of all the content they have on their computers, etc. They certainly don’t want every image printed (as a rule), but they want the best ones. That’s why the specialty photo products market is growing so fast. When they print through their local cheap printer, the same image compression occurs and it is not uncommon at all for the images to look dull. If that’s the way you want them to see your work, no worries. If not, then this is helpful.

It is here that a professional photographer must make a choice and a lot of it is client dependent. Do you want to provide the service of creating those products or do you want to leave your clients to do it for themselves. If you choose the first path you must learn to sell these products. If you choose the second path you need to make sure you have enough shooting opportunities to fill in for the lost revenue.

The choice is obviously ultimately yours. I just know that professionals are frequently asked why professionally fulfilled products cost a lot in comparison to consumer products and that having the answer above in your hip pocket will be helpful when the time comes.

Tomorrow I’ll create a different version of the response specifically for photographic albums. That one will be generic too ... Cut and paste away.

The lesson of Moneyball

The Lesson of Moneyball...

I read the book when it came out. I didn’t read it because anyone said it was good. I didn’t read it because I thought it would be particularly interesting. I read it because I was flying home from Florida and I didn’t have a book and it was the only one I saw on the non-fiction rack at the airport bookstore that looked remotely interesting. I read the whole thing that night on the plane. It changed the way I think. I saw the movie this weekend and it did the same thing all over. Here’s why.

For those who haven’t read the book or seen the movie the story of Moneyball is pretty simple. Billy Beane is the coach of the small market Oakland A’s. He’s tasked with fielding a team that is competitive in spite of a payroll that is a fraction of his competition’s. His scouts and advisors try to do it the old fashioned way and he knows it won’t work. In a chance meeting with Peter Brand, he discovers a new way.

The story isn’t really about baseball. It is about taking chances. It is about knocking over the apple cart to see if there isn’t a better way to stack the fruit. It is about trying to understand the real cause and effect relationships that make the difference between success and failure and then when you discover they’re different than you or anyone else thought they were, it is about having the courage of your convictions.

The hardest part of this for any business, large or small, is deciding to try to look at the business and its key drivers in a new way. There is a great line in the movie when Beane asks Peter Brand (his out of the box thinking advisor and assistant GM) what he is doing that is so different. Brand says, ‘you guys spend all your time trying to draft players, I think you should be drafting wins.’ It turns out he’s right and when they adopt this method and make the hard decisions about fielding the team accordingly they start to win.

Spoiler alert, if you want to see the picture and you haven’t seen it yet stop reading here...

The team wins 20 in a row. They become the first major league team to do so. Then they lose in the playoffs to the Twins. There are two ways to measure success. There is the ultimate success, a world series win, wealth beyond your wildest dreams, etc. Then there is practical success. In the world of major league baseball the simple fact is that the team with the most talent in all areas is likely to win. They have to put it all together and there are a lot of variables but at some point the math just works that way. So are Beane and Brand failures because the A’s are eliminated in the ALCS playoffs? No. The fact is they should never have gotten to the playoffs at all. To get there they had to beat teams with payrolls many times their size. For the A’s success is a competitive season, not a World Series ring.

You have to measure success the same way in your market and if you are unhappy with what you can potentially achieve, then you have to change your market altogether. That’s a story for another day. From this story the big question is, are you asking the right questions? Are you sure?

Onward ...

Your Logo Doesn't Matter

Your Logo Doesn’t Matter

Joe Buissink and I are doing a series of seminars (they’re free by the way which is, I think, the right price to hear me but a bargain to hear Joe!) around the country. Joe spends the first hour and 45 minutes (It’s supposed to be an hour and 15 but I never really care. I never get tired of looking at his incredible stuff!) talking about art. I spend the last 15-20 minutes talking about business. People who’ve come seem to be enjoying it and we get a lot of questions afterwards. Many of the questions I get have to do with a slide in my deck entitled, “Your Logo Doesn’t Matter.”

It doesn’t. Or it doesn’t as much as you might think it does. Here’s why that is true. You will never win a client because you have a great logo. Period. No one is going to sign up with you simply because they like the really cool custom typeface or your particular shade of celadon. I know. Shocker. What amazes me is how often I am asked what I think of a particular logo and the amount of time and energy someone may be putting into it.

I call that “Logo Myopia.” Typically you are a victim of Logo Myopia when during the scope of a rebranding exercise you find that you have become completely fixated on the logo. Typical symptoms include dreaming of logo variations, incessant logo doodling, hiring yet another designer because the last 9 didn’t quite come up with exactly what you were looking for, posting your logo to online photographer forums to hear what other photographers think about your logo (a good idea if you are targeting photographers!), etc. Go ahead and take a second and wipe the sweat off of your brow. We’ve all been there. I know about this syndrome because I’ve been it’s victim. It’s almost like you’ve got these blinders on and all you can see is the logo. Oh my God! I’ve got to have the best Logo! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

Take a minute and breathe. There’s hope. Here’s the thing. It’s true. A great logo, no matter how great it may be, will never get clients to come to you. To be sure. Your logo should fit your brand. It should essentially say something positive at a glance. But that’s about it.

Now. There is one final thing about logos that is important, especially to my many photographer readers. While a great logo will never win you a client, a bad logo will most certainly lose you some. So if your logo sucks you need to sweat it a little. Just don’t let myopia set in.

Onward!