How do we make our ideas, our brand, clear to the public? We must speak in more concrete terms. In order to do this, we MUST have a clear idea of who we are and what we do and it should be well thought out. When we teach, we talk about how we understand what we do very well, but then we make the fatal mistake of assuming that our clients understand what we do too and they don’t! We must provide a very clear vision to them everywhere we can, both in our physical space and all materials that are printed.

One awesome way to get outside of your own world and get feedback on how clearly you are presenting your message is to have some of your friends read over your material and give you feedback. Often as photographers, we use photography-related words that the outside world doesn’t understand. We actually hired a marketing director 15 years ago who was a past client and she helped us to see our business through new eyes. She told us, from her perspective as a past client, the things we did that were confusing to her. We took this very seriously; after all, if she was confused, how many of our clients were also confused? It was during this time that we started getting serious about a “Clarity Campaign” which simply meant everything we printed had to pass the clarity test and that is also when we started segregating our work more stringently (ie: black and white Relationships and Color Studies).

Clearly defined ideas are easier to remember. One thing we did along with separating and defining our photographic styles was to not dilute any of them with crossovers. What I mean by that is that we didn’t and still don’t photograph clients dressed all in black turtlenecks and black slacks which is the wardrobe for our Relationship black and white portraits as a Color Study. No, that would dilute the message of clarity. Color Studies have a completely different goal and that is to photograph someone looking their best and they have a classic twist. Relationship black and white portraits are more contemporary and always include more than one person celebrating life, love and family. The Beau Visage paintings are milestone images, done when children are at least 4 years old and they are usually very formal. Making these decisions early in the game to never crossover allows us now to continue to define and refine our clarity efforts.

I will end Part 3 with a short chapter from the book, “You, Inc.” by Harry and Christine Beckwith.

“Most venture capitalists, who make some of the largest purchases in all of sales, ask two questions of companies that come to them for money and help. Their first question is simple, but the answers often are not. What do you do? You must answer simply too. Otherwise, you will confuse the person. If it sounds like you do too many things, or too many seemingly unrelated things, the person will assume you cannot do any of them well. Ask that question. Write down your answers. Show it to four people whose opinion you value. Ask them:
Is it clear?
Is it simple?
Does it inspire their confidence that you are focused enough to master whatever you are selling? Ask and answer: What do you do?”

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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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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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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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This week, I am excited to write about my friend, Angela Carson, who, along with her husband Steve, were our guests last week after they attended the Kentucky Derby. We sat around the table, drank coffee and chatted and I wrote down  a few of Angela’s witty comments about photography in general, her life and her studio. And remember, she lives and operates her studio close to Detroit, Michigan, one of the hardest hit areas in the country economically. I know you will enjoy her comments as much as I did!

About the recession: “I made a conscious decision at the beginning of this year to not participate in the recession! The thing that I had to change the most was my attitude from last year.”

What I did: “I knew I needed to get people through my door, so I decided to start some personal projects and the first one was a newborn coffee table book. I invited clients with newborns to come and be a part of this project and then I could do additional sales to the parents as well.”

What makes me happy? “If I am taking photos, I am in a happy place.”

Decisions I made: “I refuse to worry about what others in my area are doing. I stopped hanging out with negative people that would pull me down.”

Another philosophy: ” If I can get 125 clients a year through my door that I can make happy with my photography, then I am happy. That’s all, 125 people!”

Funny comment: “If you are Carla the Coupon Clipper yourself, you are going to attract the same type of client.” Interpret this however you want.

In the Camera Room: “I always say to my client during the session, “You are going to run out of money way before you run out of images your like.”

In the Sales Room: “When clients ask for their session on a disk, I am not afraid to say, “No, this is now I make my living.”  I think photographers are afraid to say that. Twenty-five years ago, I heard a photographer say if you give away your proofs, you give away your profits and in today’s lingo, that would translate to if you give away your images on a disk, you give away your profits. You cannot make a living giving away intangible things”

How she stays in contact with clients who move (this is my paraphrase since I couldn’t write fast enough): Angela said if a great client moved away, she did everything she could to keep in touch with them. If she happened upon them or a family member or friend, she always planted the seed that she could fly to them to do their photographs. After all, she said, what is a ticket to fly anywhere…$300 or so? What is that in comparison to a great sale? Also, what she does when she is trying to close these deals is to make up any story (excuse) of why she needs to go to where these clients are. For example, if the client had moved to Denver, she would say to them that she had a cousin she was going to visit out there and while she was there could do the portrait. Or maybe there was a museum in that city that her and Steve were thinking of visiting and while she was there, she could do their portrait. In other words, she is a quick thinker as to why she is going to be in a particular city that just happens to be where her clients are!

Final comment: “For most of us that have been in business for awhile, we have always had clients without having to work hard to get them and we became content with status quo. Now, we cannot be fat and lazy; we must work hard to get clients through the door.”

Have a great week everyone! Bev

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Ask yourself, “What is possible?” and not, “What is everybody else doing?” In today’s environment, you must distinguish yourself. That is why we have been teaching what we call “finding your style” for many years now. Often, we wonder if we should remove that part of our program as we have taught it for so long, but we always leave it in. We know not everyone has grasped this concept yet and it is critical.

We got the first glimpse of it when we developed our Relationship Black and White portrait line years ago. At that point, in our studio, we were all things to all people. No style…no consistency and failure as a studio. However, as our Relationship style has matured, it has taken on a life of its own and formed the foundation for our success over the years. It makes up 60% or more of our sessions and the public still embraces it with gusto. Why? It is very distinct, narrow, focused, different and appeals to the masses. These characteristics are what form a successful style.

Some of the UNIQUE things we did when we first started with Relationships several years ago:

1. It was always in black and white when the rest of the photography world was all color.

2. It was named Relationship Portraiture…who had ever heard of naming a style at that time? Nobody!

3. It was more about capturing the moment and body language and less about rigid poses.

4. It had a strong emotional pull by showing moms, dads, babies and children interacting with each other.

5. The composition was much closer and all about the faces as opposed to “pictorial” portraiture that made the subjects very small.

6. We allowed ourselves the freedom to crop into subjects’ heads, sometimes cropping entire heads off! Whoa! Is that ok to do??? Answer-YES, when appropriate.

7. We only offered it AS FINE ART BLACK AND WHITE IMAGERY, ONE COLOR OF MAT, ALWAYS SQUARE,NO SEPIAS, LIMITED SIZES AND LIMITED AVAILABILITY and we included Certificates of Authenticity and registered each image.

In other words, as you can see from the 7 points made above, we created a distinctive style with attributes we could consistently do again and again. We never strayed from these principles and today, our Relationship portraiture is still much sought after and very successful. My challenge is to think about who you really are and what your style is. What would your clients say if asked? If you are currently all things to all people, you have diluted yourself in the marketplace and making it harder for people to choose you unless you are the cheapest or the easiest to get to. Without that strong element of style to draw clients, people will choose you based on price and convenience of location.

If you have always wanted to do a Relationship style of portraiture, but need a little help with the posing basics, we have created a Relationship Pocket Posing Guide which will be on our website under Educational Products and available to order later this week. It has over 50 Relationship pose ideas in it and they are categorized according to subject. Also included is a lighting diagram showing what we use daily and a vendor/equipment list. I believe it will be a great resource to keep handy in the camera room when you need a new idea or a boost. The introductory price is only $49.00 plus shipping. I will alert everyone on our email mailing list, so if you have never gotten an email notification from us and would like to, please contact us through our website and get on the list.

Have a great week, everyone!       Bev

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When I was thinking of what to write about, I started thinking about what has been one of the main keys to our success, and that elusive thing is originality! We discovered the concept of being original when we started shooting the black and white Relationship portraits 15 years ago when everyone else was shooting only in color! Wow, was that different! Then, adding to that, we cut people’s heads off! Well, not in a real life-threatening way, but in our imagery. We wanted to cut through the clutter to get right into the child’s face or the baby’s eyes or whatever the subject might be.  This concept was against all that was being taught at that time which was to back way up, make the portrait pictorial and the subjects so small that you had to get a 30×40 to even see the faces! And then there was the fact that we set up a darkroom and hand-printed every image when everyone else was sending all of their work to a lab and you see why we stood out!

In today’s marketplace,  you can see what we started nearly 15 years ago around every corner and the concept of “baby parts” in a 9-opening mat is not so odd, but it was original way back then! When the public caught on, we were on a rocket ride straight up and our sales went through the roof! Those were the days, as they say. The public really loved seeing their loved ones’ faces close up and they loved the drama and simplicity of our Relationship portraits.

In fact, here we are in 2010, still shooting Relationship portraits nearly 60% of the time. As the years have progressed, we have finessed our Color Studies and they are in high demand as well. As most of you know, we also added Beau Visage, a trading up division that offers painted portraits in 2005, and that division is coming along nicely, but it still has room to grow which we are working on right now. The important aspect is to be original, no matter what the medium.

Along with being original, you must try to be the first as well. Being first allows you to capture that particular “territory” in your client’s mind. With the Relationship portraits, we were both original and first, and we own that “brand”  not only in our state, but virtually everywhere we go. In the book “Positioning, the Battle for your Mind” by Al Ries and Jack Trout, they lay out a complete strategy on how to position your business for success. I would recommend this book, and in fact, I just purchased a follow-up book about this topic called “Re-Positioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis” by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin.

As I close this blog, I challenge you to find originality in your photography style. What makes you different? Why would a client choose you over a competitor? What do you offer that would entice a client to come to you? How can you keep your clients from leaving you for someone else they see as more original? I believe the answer to these questions may very well be the difference between the success and failure of your business in the coming years!

Have a great week!  Bev

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Tim and I have been running our studio together for 30 years now! Boy, how time has flown by and how things have dramatically changed in the way we do business. In cleaning out the studio recently, several things I found reminded me of how we used to do things and caused me to reflect on how we are doing things now. It is always good to reflect on the past to make sure you haven’t drifted from what you once did to become great!

For example, are we better now at customer service or are we in a rut and just going through the motions? Do we really love our clients as much as we used to? Sometimes, I get so consumed in my daily tasks that I lose track of those who create the tasks (our clients) and I have to step back and evaluate myself.  I take myself out from behind my computer and call up some friends for lunch just to have live conversation. I think part of my problem is the massive amount of time spent on the computer without input from humans. Remember them????

Our studio meetings every month or so also help all of us to get on the same page and talk about some of these problems if we see them cropping up. If we are taking our customers for granted, we talk about it and ways to again raise our level of customer service and customer experience at Walden’s, bringing to the forefront the importance once again.

Our clients are truly the best in the world! I want to make sure we treat them as they deserve and never sell them short.

Have a great week!  Bev

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For those of you who attended the IUSA Pre-convention class on charities, you heard us speak about Daniel’s Care, the pediatric arm of Hospice here in the central Kentucky area. All hospices have a pediatric division; just not named Daniel’s Care as this was named after Rick Pitino’s son, Daniel, who passed away as a child. For those who don’t know who Rick Pitino is, he was our UK Basketball coach several years ago before he moved to the northeast to coach a professional team and then came back to Kentucky (they always do), but took a different position than UK when he became the coach for Louisville. Enough on that, though!

Several years ago (I think about 7), our marketing director, Donna, came to us to discuss a charity we felt we would be compatible with and she actually had Daniel’s Care in mind. What we needed to work out was what to do and how to do it, so we met with the woman in charge of it and talked about what we wanted to accomplish. This is what was decided that day long ago and is still the way we work with Daniel’s Care.

~We do one Black and White “Relationship” portrait per month of a critically ill child with their family which Daniel’s Care chooses based on health factors. We get the most frail children first.

~All portraits are done in our studio (easy since most come to Lexington anyway for doctor’s appointments, etc) and the others live here.

~After the session, we select and print a 16×16 matted, archival fine art black and white portrait which is then matted and framed and ready to hang.

~The social worker in charge gets the portrait and delivers it to the family. No money ever changes hands…EVER!

~We also raise money for the Indigent Fund at Christmas along with collecting toys for the children.

I want all of you who read this to go to our website at www.waldensphotography.com and visit the Daniel’s Care page where you can get the contact information of our local chapter who can then put you in touch with your local chapter. Also, watch the video there-I promise, your hearts will be touched. If you feel you could do a similar concept in your area, please let us know if we can help in any way. After seeing the tragedy in Haiti this past week, I think we all understand better how very blessed we are daily and we should all review what we do for others for absolutely nothing in return. Charity involvement, volunteer work, helping others in need, having a giving heart…whatever it may be, please get involved somewhere. My mother volunteered at the Ronald McDonald House (after she retired) for 15 years and my dad, a veteran, volunteered (pushing other veterans to appointments in wheelchairs) at the Veteran’s Hospital for as long as he could until his health started failing. What great examples were set before me:-)

This week, determine to do something to help your fellow man. Until next week–

Bev

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I must start this blog with an apology to all of the readers as this week, I am tardy with the blog due to the IUSA convention. It was with good intentions that I was going to write one before we came so it would post on time, but…well, you can guess what happened (or didn’t)!

On top of that, many of you stopped me at this convention and told me you like to read my blog and thanked me for being so consistent in my postings;-( Sorry to all of you and please forgive me:-)

OK, I wanted to tell you all who may not have attended a few of the things I learned this week. The first thing I heard over and over from the attendees was a general feeling of optimism that 2010 is going to be a better year. I heartily agreed with them and am planning on that outcome for us as well.

From Nancy Emmerich and Rose, her daughter, I learned that they schedule their Senior outdoor sessions all on one night each week and they always meet and stay in one general area, each session lasting 1/2 hour. They can fit 4 in at a time that way and it utilizes their time more efficiently. Also from the Emmerichs, I learned that the Seniors love signing their name on white paper which they scan and add to the images; sort of a personal touch. Great idea!

From Greg and Lisa Daniel, I learned that you create a desire with distinct branding (where have I heard that before), then you build a relationship and satisfy their needs by understanding the client’s vision and fulfilling it. They recommended the book “The Experience Economy” and “Work is Theater and Every Business a Stage” to take customer service up a few notches. They also get their clients to write a few words (a testimonial) at the pick-up and mentioned that if your client says they will just mail it, you will never receive it, so get it then! Great information.

From Drake Busath, I learned about posing families that were quite large and thinking of the heads as music notes to make sure our melody is not stagnant, but curvy. Guess you had to be there to understand this concept…additionally, we learned how he stitches panoramas of families together and gave us some helpful hints. I think he is one of the best teachers around right now, so if you ever see him listed as teaching anywhere near you, GO! You won’t be sorry!

After these programs, we wore ourselves out at the trade show and had the opportunity to teach at the Kodak booth, always an honor! One of the most creative ideas I saw at the trade show was at Jen Hillenga’s booth called Love Notes and she also has a wonderful collection of textured backgrounds and layouts that can be combined for cards, books and canvas wraps. You need to check her out at http://jensfabulousstuff.com/store/

I will post some photos from this week on our Fan Page later, so check them out there. The one of us with Bill Clinton and George Bush are hilarious! Until next Monday, have a great week!

Bev

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