I had a few free hours this weekend and thought I would look up a few websites. It was so interesting to see the different approaches of photographers, not only to their photography, but their websites as well. It got me thinking about design and how much I love great design and how my emotions are touched by it. It is such a monumental part of my life now; design projects are where I get inspired and have so much freedom and fulfillment when I can pull off something that looks enticing and gives great joy.

Recently, while designing several e-zines for the studio to use as informational pieces and as our newsletter, I realized a few things about design. These were principles I knew, but they were reinforced by having to structure an entire magazine, so I thought I would share them with you.

First of all, I realized every design piece must be simple, easy to read and quick to grasp. That is the “utility” part of designing. Everything must function correctly, grammar must be right, text must be laid on the page where it is easy on the eyes and the message must be clear and easy to understand. I made sure that for every text-heavy page, it was followed by a design page with a quote and image with a lot of negative space around it. I was giving the eyes a place to rest and take a breath, so to speak! I thought of these pages like an oasis in the desert.

Second, I knew I needed to make these e-zines so compelling that the reader couldn’t stop looking at it. This is where two things combine for me; beauty and emotion. By the use of unique fonts, colors and images along with creative page layouts, I knew I could make the publication beautiful. Emotion came in the stories and quotes and it really added to the mix to create pieces that were easy to read and also delightful. Don Norman, an author and engineering professor said, “Aesthetics matter. Attractive things work better.”

Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind” says this, “Good design, now more accessible and affordable than ever, also offers us a chance to bring pleasure, meaning and beauty to our lives. But most important, cultivating a design sensibility can make our small planet a better place for us all.” I love that thought of bringing pleasure, meaning and beauty in what I can sit down and design in Photoshop and it is now so much easier that 10-15 years ago when we had to take everything to InstyPrint to have done. We have come a long way!

I am including the Walden newsletter and the Walden e-brochure here to help you grasp the concepts of utility, emotion and beauty. Enjoy!

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You MUST develop your own style and carve your own niche to gain recognition in the marketplace.

Adding the “E” (emotional) factor into your photography, marketing and sales will elevate your studio in every way including sales numbers!

Perception is more important than reality and will become your reality. In other words, “To be successful, you must look successful!”

Telling the stories of others with your images is a win-win situation in the marketplace. Behind every face is a story!

Marketing integrity in all of your literature, whether printed or electronic, is a must for the true professional.

Partner with other like-minded businesses in your community to elevate both and cross-market.

Hire your “perfect client” as a marketing director to help you create new ideas and implement them in your area.

Give back to your community by offering your talents in an area of need.

Create a buzz in your area with new and exciting products that the “digital” world has opened up, but be selective in what you choose.

Don’t be surprised if your next staff member is a graphic artist.

Have a great week!  Bev

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This week, I thought I would post how I get images ready for the Sales Appointment. Above, you see a before and after. Below, I show the Before, two in-between steps and the After to show the progression. The reason I do this prep is because people are visual, so I want to put my best foot forward in the Sales Room to show what a wall canvas will actually look like or at least, get it close.

As it does take more time, I do a simple and quick prep on a group of my favorite images and do this extensive work only on the one or two I suggest for the wall pieces. Once clients see the “fixed” image(s), they are sold! Some of you are thinking you don’t have the time to sort and then work on a few images that you suggest, but my thought is I would rather take the time in private, before the sale, to sort, eliminate and work on these few suggested images and then, the sale is much shorter and much less confusing and tiring. On the sales audio I recorded called “Solving the Puzzle of Successful Sales”, I talk about the three things that kill a sale; confusion, frustration and fatigue. You want to avoid these things at all costs!

The four image details:

1. the Original image has just been cropped and nothing else.

2. Image 2 has been retouched to remove the red blotch on the bridge of her nose and a few stray hairs and then I applied the Imagnomic Portraiture filter and brought the opacity down to where it looked soft, but still natural.

3.  Image 3 has been vignetted and had the edges blurred using Tim’s palette from Ron Nichols. Even though named Tim Walden’s Black and White Darkroom palette, it works beautifully for color imagery as well.

4.  Image 4 has the eye work applied and also other highlights bumped up as well as a few lashes added and the darks enhanced which include the pupil and the ring around the iris. When all was done, I darkened the entire image a bit.

Hope you enjoy this post! Check out Tim’s palette at www.ronnichols.com and my Sales mp3 audio on our website under Educational Products.

Bev

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We just received a note from a fellow photographer who was really struggling in his business…that hits home with all of us! As educators, we know there is no quick fix for the economic mire we are in right now. However, what we do know and teach are principles that have proven to be true  and we are living those principles day in and day out in our own business. Most of the time, what we teach are ideas that take time to start producing, but for us, they are the right ideas for building long term success.

What I would like to accomplish in this blog is to hear some ideas that are working for you right now to get customers through the door in your business.  Let’s all pitch in with ideas to help each other in this time of need!

I will start by sharing one idea that is working well for us to generate new business. We decided that starting January 1st, we were going to re-energize our efforts to get business partners in our community to align with us and help us find new clients. In order to do this, we decided to close on Monday and dedicate that day strictly to this effort. That is one-fifth of our work week, but it shows how important we feel it is! We found two new children’s clothing stores in our area that were suited for each of our divisions…one is perfect for Walden’s (more classic) and one is perfect for Studio B (more contemporary and colorful)!

We visited each store and pitched our ideas about partnering with them and shared our thoughts on clients. Of course, it needs to be beneficial for both of us to work. Whenever we approach a new business about partnering with us, we always ask two questions. “What can we do for you?” and “What can we do with you?” Then we work out the details of each question to everyone’s satisfaction. We do offer to photograph the owner’s children and/or family in order for them to experience Walden’s or Studio B, but we clarify how long we would like them to use that sample in their business before taking it home. We want it to be a win-win situation for all parties. We then design custom cards with those portraits and a few other portraits we feel are appropriate from our files that have a gift of a Session Fee from us that they can give their best clients. From there, we play it by ear as far as what we will do for that business.

Some things we are doing for our partners at this time:

~We visit a few times each month, take them treats (or take them to lunch) and talk about ideas to work together on.

~We set up drawings a few times per year (ie: Mother’s Day, Easter, etc) and from these drawings, build a data base of names and emails that we can market to. Besides the main winner of the drawing, we have the store owner select 10-15 additional clients they feel would be a good fit for us, and we send them Gift Cards worth $300.00. The amount given has to be enough to entice that person to call. If you just give a few dollars or an 8×10, it is not enough to create a successful call to action. We also put an expiration date on these cards with a 30-45 day window.

~We make them custom clothing tags with images of their children and both of our logos. We use WHCC’s Rep card template for these as they are economical and come in larger sets.

~We show up at store events with a snapshot camera and take a few shots (just because), have them printed and give the images to the store owner.

~We make sure to change out images often and if we photograph any of their best customers, we use those as their samples.

So, this is one idea to generate new business. What are some of your ideas? I really would like to hear from all of you who read this blog:-) Let’s help our fellow photographers out with some of your great ideas!

Have a great week! Bev

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In the Sales Room…Experiencing vs. Explaining

We often ask photographers as we teach, “How much time do you spend in a typical sales appointment experiencing the imagery versus explaining your finishes, sizes, packages, etc?”

What is usually said is 50/50 or 40/60. We are looking for experience to vastly outweigh explanations, so the answer for us is 90% experience and only 10% explanation at the close to validate the purchase.

There is a saying, “People buy with their heart first and then justify the decision with their head.” We live and breathe that mantra in our sales appointments. We hit hard on emotional aspects of our imagery and stay on it throughout most of the hour and do a quick rundown of more factual items at the end.

What clients are buying is experience, emotion and memories. What clients are not buying is paper or canvas, bubble texture or linen texture, 16×20 or 11×14…this or that!

If there is too much talk about the details and not enough about the emotion, it switches the brain from right to left, from emotional to factual. You are asking them to think and all they want to do is feel!

What we do to combat this is a two-pronged approach; simplify everything and pre-educate the client before the sales appointment.

Years ago, we realized we needed to simplify, simplify, simplify! We started taking things off of our price list, eliminated packages (too hard to explain in a short amount of time), took off finish choices, combined sizes for one price (ie: 8×10, 5×7, 8×8 are all one price) and took the Session Fee down to either studio or location.

I cannot stress this enough; you need to offer less and really strengthen the items you do offer. Look at your price list(s) and try to fit everything on one 8.5 x 11 page. If it doesn’t fit, take off items until it does. This process took us years to do, so don’t do anything you feel uncomfortable with…keep working on it every year.

The second thing we do is to pre-educate the client through phone conversations, discussions at the Design Appointment, letter we send and then we follow up with PDFs. Every time and through every medium, we say the same things over again. We find that redundancy is a HUGE factor in our success. Clients don’t often get the details the first time, so the repetition is crucial to sharing the information they need to know.

What this does is allow me to focus on the emotion during the sale and then briefly hit the factual items at the end since they have already been told everything throughout their time with us.

So, my question to you is this…”How much time do you spend in a sale explaining versus experiencing?” If it is too much, how can you change that scenario?

Have a great week everyone!  Bev

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This week’s blog is about looking inside ourselves and our businesses to determine if we are the highlight of our client’s day; the very BEST part of their day.  We must be exactly that in order to stand apart from the competition, and in this market and economy, the ones that go the extra mile are the ones who will rise to the top and succeed. In fact, in a Seth Godin blog I read a few weeks ago, one thing he said stood out to me. He said everyone goes 90% of the way, but it is those who push through and go the final 10% that will be the successful ones! The final 10% is the hard part, the part that nobody wants to do. After all, isn’t 90% enough? Not in this business!

I love this quote, “It is our professional responsibility to be absolutely delightful!” from the book “Indispensable” by Joe Calloway. We are in a business where people and our relationship with them is critical; we don’t sit in a cubicle in a huge office building entering data into a computer…no, we meet and greet the public daily and we must win them over and form bonds immediatley.

In order to do that, we need BIG VISION, CREATIVITY and the WOW FACTOR.

It takes BIG VISION to see down the road and understand the immensity of your business and how all of the parts interact with each other. Even after 30 years, I am not very good at seeing down the road, but Tim is! Between the two of us, we succeed because of his vision of who we are, where we need to be in one year, five years and ten years, and then, what it will take to get there. I am more in the moment of the day, rarely meditating on the future. If you are like me, you need to find a “Tim” who can help you make a plan for your future. However, the vision of your business and how it needs to develop should be birthed from you.

Second, we need CREATIVITY. I used to teach how to be more creative in artistry and photography. Now, I see creativity as being useful in running our business  and help us to stand out from the rest. One example I can think of is a mailing we just sent out to names our “partners” gave us. Our partners are businesses in the community that help us gain clients and we do the same for them. We asked for a list of ten of their best clients we could send a special mailing to, and we wanted these mailings to be something that was more hand-made, not a press product. In other words, we wanted these people to notice our mailing since everyone gets so much “junk” mail these days. We had some beautiful, soft blue watercolor type paper, a rubber stamp set and black ink. What we did was cut the paper into 5 3/4″ squares, stamped them with the stamp that said “A Note For You” with a tree branch and a little bird and then we hand-wrote our message. These went into vellum 6×6 envelopes (envelopemall.com) with an image we printed in-house the same size. They looked really sweet and different and we felt we had created a unique mailing piece for this handful of potential clients. So, open your mind and brainstorm often. Don’t be a follower all of the time; create a path for others to follow every once in awhile.

The WOW FACTOR, to us, means doing something totally unexpected for a client! We provide a WOW experience with our facility, our staff, our work, our service and our experience. It takes all of these things working in harmony to create a fully finished WOW factor. The scary part is that this can be destroyed by one staff member doing or saying the wrong thing. That is why we must work on building a culture of WOW experience within our studio.

Think about  Starbucks employees. We go there at least 5 times a week and have our order taken by different people working the window, but they are all similar personalities. They are young-ish, quirky, talkative, kind, interested in us and what we are doing, and in general, very engaged with us on many levels. I LOVE  that! It makes me feel special. It is the culture of Starbucks!

To build the culture we desire at Walden’s, we meet weekly, we talk, we teach leadership principles in our staff meetings and we understand that what we put importance on is what our staff will put importance on as well. It flows from the head down! We also live what we preach! We do love our clients and they are like family to us! We are authentic!

So…are you ready to up the ante and be more delightful this upcoming week? I would like for you to write and tell me how you create a delightful experience for your clients. Have a great week!  Bev

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Our journey in understanding this principle started in our previous studio 15 years ago after I read the book, “The E-Myth-Revisited” by Michael Gerber. The sentiment that caught my eye was that whatever you perceive yourself to be, others will perceive as well. Perception is more important than reality for it will become your reality. We’ve all heard the saying, “To be successful, we must look successful.” It is absolutely true!

Even in the biblical account of the 12 spies (Numbers 13:32-33) that went into the promised land (which was then occupied by the giants), we see this principle at work. “So they (the spies) gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” Wow, every time I read that I am amazed that we do have the power to change perception by changing how we perceive ourselves! By the way, they lost the promised land because their perception of themselves as grasshoppers in other’s eyes! They just gave up!

After I read “The E-Myth-Revisited”, a major change took place. We started to see ourselves as successful to attract others that were successful. Our clientele changed from those looking for a deal to those looking for art, which was another perception that we were working to change. We became artists, not just another photography studio that took “pictures.” In fact, we changed our vocabulary as well, watching every word we said to make sure it sounded successful. Pictures became portraits or images and we still use those terms today.

We started working on our studio to make it look like an art gallery instead of a photography studio by removing clutter, small images, proof portfolios and signage. We even made the hard decision to hang just a few larger images in magnificent frames rather than a bunch of smaller wall images. Choosing which few would get the honors…that was hard! We replaced carpet and then bought a pricey oriental carpet for the front room (on payments) because we didn’t have the money to be doing all of this at that time. After talking to a carpenter, we decided to add crown moulding to the main floor which was unheard of with commercial dropped ceilings, but it looked beautiful! Specialty lighting was added, wall colors were changed to a deep, rich eggplant color, custom drapes were made for the front bay window area and we were almost there, but there was still the furniture.

The funniest thing happened when Tim came in and said he wanted all of the front room furniture gone…out…now! What we had at that time were wing back chairs in mauve (this was the late 80s) and claw feet end tables in dark woods. We replaced that furniture with sparse benches and columns to hold sculptures. Very sparse…very artsy! Our gallery was finally taking shape and we felt we were looking successful! In fact, a doctor came in for a business portrait not long after we made these changes, and as he stepped through the front door, he stopped and said, “Wow, I am going to be spending some money in this place!” We knew then we were on the right road!

As a final move, we decided to separate the galleries by style, so the entire main floor was dedicated to our newly introduced Relationship black and white portraiture, all in the same white mats and simple black frames. We moved the Color Studies to the lower level and our Sales Room became the Color Study gallery. We didn’t have Studio B or Beau Visage at this time.

When we moved into our current facility, we remained true to the lessons we had learned in our previous studio. We knew we wanted to look successful, to be a place where art was purchased, and we wanted our clients to have a grand experience. When we were talking with our contractor, she asked why we were wasting so much space on the front gallery when we could use more space in the office area. We told her that just the opposite was true…a large gallery that had the WOW factor was never wasted space! We put in dark cherry floors, separated our galleries physically within the facility (just like before), put in specialty lighting and installed Tim’s dream, a waterfall.  We don’t exhibit any small prints and we keep clutter away (all lessons learned before).

Today, Walden’s Photography has a grand presence in the community and our clients are wowed as they walk through the door. So, back up, take a look at your facility and see what you can do to improve. As you perceive yourself to be, so are you!

Have a great week, everyone. Remember to check out our Coaching Community and join! We are already having so much fun on the forum with topics that are so interesting to discuss (and there is so much more to see, learn and do).  Bev

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During the many years that Tim and I have been teaching together, we have always stressed majoring on the minors and explained that it is a foundational element of excellence. Most people say to stop majoring on the minors; don’t sweat the small stuff and so on. We say ,”Sweat the small stuff; it’s what separates you from the masses!”

This mentality goes back to Tim’s father, Bob, who taught us both to be excellent at all that we do. Tim often states that his dad said he could come to him with anything except an excuse! So, during our formative years while we were learning the business of photography from Bob, we were taught over and over that you watch the details and if something is not right, you fix it, even if it costs you money.

Today, we are probably a bit overboard on making sure we major on the minors:-) However, I would rather be that way than be the studio that clients whisper about because we delivered shoddy products or lukewarm service to them! It is now part of our DNA to make sure our clients receive only the best products, service, experience, effort…we give our all to them so that we can lay our head down at night and sleep peacefully, knowing we have done a good job that day.

That brings me to the introduction of our Coaching Community which will be available Tuesday, June 1st for you to join. Just as we would offer our clients only the best, Tim and I have invested our hearts and souls plus hours, days, weeks, months and years into this new venture, and we did major on the minors for those photographers who want to join us in our Coaching Community! Have you ever lost sleep over a project you were working on because you started thinking about a new idea in the middle of the night? Welcome to our world!

We, along with our amazing associate, Jeremy, have created the Coaching Community as a place of learning for those ready to get serious about both the art and the business of photography. For those who love Card Templates…we have them for you to download (two each month) as part of your subscription! How about Image Studies where we take an image and lay out the details of how it was created in both audio form and as PDFs for you to print and start your own binder! Little nuggets of wisdom on everything from Sales to Marketing to Leadership are included in our Fridge Notes which are fun to read each day. Ever have questions that you just can’t figure out? We have the answers in our Q&As and it’s all audio-based, so you can hear us tackle tough questions in detail that we have gathered from photographers all over the world on many different topics. As if that’s not enough, we also have in-depth teaching videos and audio lessons in our Knowledge Library on pertinent topics for today’s photographer as well as a Forum where ideas can be exchanged between members. On a random basis, we will also be posting cool gifts, absolutely FREE, that we call RAK or Random Acts of Kindness! June’s RAK gift is a set of three textures from Italy’s little Tuscan towns.

At this moment, Tim has an extensive tutorial on the home page of our website, which will take you on a tour through the Coaching Community and its benefits. Be sure to watch it and join us on this exciting venture June 1st to receive our special introductory price! Have a great week!

Bev

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We are in Philly and between getting ready for this trip and working towards the Coaching Community opening next week, I am postponing a new blog until next Monday:-(

Have a great week everyone!  Bev

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Today, I’d like to talk about a topic I am learning more and more about, and that is telling stories. What does this have to do with business? Everything! In the book “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel H. Pink, a quote is stated that goes like this, “Humans are not ideally set up to understand logic; they are ideally set up to understand stories.”   Roger Schank, cognitive scientist. Where do we, as photographers, have the most trouble getting clients to understand the value of photography and how they can use it in their own homes? I would have to say in the Sales Room.

The Sales Room is where I have learned how valuable stories can be in promoting understanding, both of our photography and its value. For instance, when you have a repeat client who purchases wall portraits each trip, how are you going to handle it when they say they don’t know where to put any more wall portraits. Or you have a client who says they just don’t have much wall space. When I hear this, I instantly think of a story my good friend, Sarah Smith of Kent Smith Studios, told me. She said this, “Art will always travel the home, just as an art museum puts up a featured exhibit, but then moves it as a new featured artist comes in.”

What does that mean to you? I will tell you what it means to me in a story. We have two daughters, grown now, but can you even imagine how many wall portraits we have of them? Each portrait is valuable, depicting a special time in their lives, so why would I want to remove them from my walls at home? The answer is I don’t, but I do move them around, just as a museum might do with a featured artist’s exhibit. Let’s talk about the rooms in a home. Here is where I always ask them what is the primary wall in their home where they could see and enjoy a portrait the most. Many times, the answer is over the mantle in the den or family room. Bingo. I say to my clients, “That is where you will always display your most current portrait, just as an art museum would display its featured artist in the main area of the museum.”

Then I go on and say, “Now, what about the portrait that is already there? What do you do with it? Well, let’s think together about a secondary spot in your home where a portrait will still be seen, but maybe not in the top prime spot.” I then give the example of my home as my story continues…the secondary spot in our home is actually in the kitchen where we have a sitting area and we are in the kitchen all of the time. Surely, anything there will be seen very often. Then I ask them to tell me their secondary spot. You see, if you can give examples on your own home, it helps them visualize theirs. We then go on to the third spot we might consider moving a portrait, the forth spot and so on. I give many examples of where I hang portraits in my own home through STORYTELLING. It helps them visualize cold, hard facts in context and with emotion of me telling them about our girls growing up and how quickly that happens.

In fact, I also tell them a story about Tim’s mother and something she once said about her home. She has a small home, but has more furniture, art pieces and beautiful flower arrangements than you could imagine would fit, yet it always looks so put together and striking. I remember she once said that if she loved something, whether it be a couch, a table or another piece for the wall, she would find a place for it. She did not consider, before she bought it, where she would put it. No, her thinking is just the opposite. So, that is another story we can tell in the Sales Room when someone says they just cannot imagine where they will put a wall portrait in their small home.

So you see, you need to arm yourselves with your own stories. I want to end this blog with a quote from the book “Thing That Make Us Smart” by Dan Norman. “Stories have the felicitious capacity of capturing exactly those elements that formal decision methods leave out. Logic tries to generalize, to strip the decision making from the specific context, to remove it from subjective emotions. Stories capture the context, capture the emotions…stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package, information, knowledge, context and emotion.”

Have a great week! Bev

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