Aspiring Photographer: Photography Advice and Inspiration

Customer Service: Penny-Wise and Pound Foolish

Recently, I had two dramatically different customer service experiences on the same day, and felt the need to share the contrast between the two. The two examples show the awareness, and alternatively, the lack thereof, of the lifetime value of a customer.

I'd started out the day deciding to take my daughter out for a little treat at my favorite little neighborhood coffee shop. I had a small standing credit at the shop from a gift certificate a friend had purchased for me a while back, and figured that would let us order what we wanted without guilt. Just a fun special treat for the two of us. Here, I need to point out that the shop changed hands several months earlier, and the previous owners, who had become dear to my heart, are no longer there. The new owner greeted us in a fake half smile. No recognition that I had ever been in the shop before. She silently, and somewhat glumly, made our order. I then told her I was using up the rest of my gift certificate. They have an "old fashioned" way of accounting for these in a little file box, so I prepared to tell her my name so she could look it up. She very matter of factly told me that she had given people a deadline to use their credits from the old owner, but that they had all expired a few months ago. Just sort of "sorry, that's the way it is," as I expressed my disappointment. So all of a sudden, our little treat, which I'd thought was going to be on my generous friend who had purchased the gift certificate, was now on me. So that brought us down a notch, and we sat at our little table, whispering about how mean the girl was. I decided right then and there that I wouldn't be going back! Does she care? No. But that's the problem. She should. She had no understanding about the lifetime value of a customer. Had she been a little more friendly and honored my little $20 gift certificate when I asked, she could have totally turned things around. But she was more concerned about saving a couple dollars in that one transaction than she was about saving me for the long term. People don't spend much in a coffee shop at any one time, but we all know how much a coffee shop can eek out of us over the course of a year. And she lost every future penny from me. Not to mention those of my friends who I used to always bring along with me. Bummer for me. Bummer for her.

Later that day I made my way to the Apple Store due to some problems with my laptop. Not only did my power cord not work, but I also had a cracked screen! Yikes, I wasn't looking forward to how much this was going to cost me. I'd purchased Apple Care, so I figured they'd probably replace the cord since there no visible damage, but I knew better about the cracked screen. I'd signed up for my appointment on their easy-to-use website, and they were right there to help me at my assigned time. Perfectly friendly and welcoming, too, although they'd never seen me before in their life. The guy took a few minutes to look over the problems and told me they'd be happy to give me a new cord. The cracked screen was not covered by Apple Care and had a hefty price of nearly $500 ... bummer!..., but, he said, he'd go ahead and cover it for me anyway. Of course, I was jumping for joy (well, inside my head, anyway) and left the store a super happy camper. I love Apple, in large part because they did the same thing several years earlier when I dropped my iPhone and it cracked. Not covered, but they covered it anyway. They know that over the years I'll spend many more thousands of dollars on their products. It's worth it to them to go the extra mile and me happy now, even if it costs them a little more. With customer service like that, is it any wonder they're one of the top-valued companies in the world?

Part of me wants to explain to the new owner of my ex-favorite coffee shop how should could have handled things differently, and why I won't be coming back, and why a lot of her former customers won't be coming back, but she wasn't even warm enough to make me want to bother. I have a new favorite coffee shop where the owner knows my name. I'll be taking my laptop with shiny new screen there from now on.

How NOT to Market Your Photography Business

So a few days ago I was at my studio listening to podcasts and painting away. We always have this need to redecorate our studios in January, it seems! Unshowered, dressed in my grubbies and covered in paint, I heard a knock at my door. I only take sessions by appointment, so I figured it was the landlord or the tenant next door needing something. I opened the door to find a guy standing out there. "Are you Ashley?" I said "Well, sort of. My last name is Ashley." So he says "well, what's your first name?" And I say "who are you?" He tells me his first name, and that he's from a company that helps photographers get more business. I tell him my name, and he says "Okay, well I just wanted you to be able to place a face with a name." He'd called and left a message on my phone the day before, and had sent me a postcard a week or two before that. I told him I was really in the middle of something, so he left.

I went back into the studio and thought "this guy went to the effort to find my studio's address and drive over here, but he didn't even bother to find out my name before he showed up?" Couldn't he have just checked out my website for two minutes? " How about approaching me this way instead?: "Hi, are you Mary Lynne? I was checking out your website, and you sure have some beautiful baby photography on there. January's sure a slow month for photographers, isn't it? Do you have a few minutes to talk about how our company might be able to help you with that?" Of course, I still wouldn't have been thrilled about him just showing up without an appointment, but he might have had a chance with me. A few days later I received an e-mail from a woman trying to sell me an Internet/phone bundle, and the first thing she said in the e-mail was how impressed she was with my photography, and how she wished she lived closer so she could bring her kids to me. I didn't need Internet service, but she at least earned a polite decline from me.

How would this lesson apply to your photography business? It took me back to the time I had a client show up to pick up her prints, and my new employee gave her a blank look and said "and your name is...?" completely acting like she hadn't just recently spent a couple hours in a session with her and another hour or two in the sales room! Knowing our clients' names is HUGE. They certainly deserve it after making the important decision to choose us as their photographer.

Well, that's my little rant for today! It just seemed like a relevant experience to share.

-Mary Lynne

How to Become a Certified Professional Photographer

This is an updated version of a post I made earlier this year about becoming a Certified Professional Photographer (CPP). I recently put it together in video format and added more information. Certification is a more important way than ever to set yourself apart in this competitive industry.

 

Here are the links I mention in the video:

Professional Photographers of America (PPA)

Professional Photographic Certification Commission

Certify with Sandy

Photography by Barbara London, John Upton, Jim Stone

 

Starting a Baby & Child Photography Business: Collecting Sales Tax

New photographers -- Are you collecting sales tax from your photography clients? If not, I'd ask you to take one-and-a-half minutes to listen to my message about why you need to and how to go about doing so.

Listen up! Why you need to collect sales tax.

 

Becoming a Professional Photographer: PPA Certification

There are sooooooo many new "professional" photographers out there these days. Many are people who are just printing up some business cards and putting up a website with absolutely no training or experience. One of the favorite new words used on the photography forums to describe these folks is "fauxtographer," which I have to agree is a very creative and accurate description. One of the ways that you can advance yourself above and beyond these unqualified photographers is to become certified as a professional photographer through the Professional Photographers of America (PPA). It requires a rigorous course of study that ultimately involves a review of your portfolio and a certification test.

Sandy Puc has started a site to help photographers become PPA Certified called Certify with Sandy Puc'. The program is free, and will include webinars and other training resources to help get you started towards certification. Visit the site and sign up to get started.

Presenting Yourself As a Professional

What officially makes you a professional photographer? Unfortunately, not much, for a lot of people. Many people just print up a business card, make a website, and there you go -- they're a professional photographer! Without the experience, though, they are usually hurting themselves, their clients and other photographers as well. So what makes a person a "professional?" I believe it should be a combination of your experience, your education, your business practices and the quality of your work. People have widely differing opinions on the subject, and some of mine are below.

Collecting Sales Tax

Get a sales tax license! Unless you live in a state that doesn't charge sales tax, if you're selling a product, you need one. Where I live, you don't charge sales tax on the service, just on the physical product. So I don't charge sales tax on my session fees, but I do on the actual prints. If you do not have a sales tax license in a locale where one is required, you are not presenting yourself as a professional. Check with your city or county to find out what you need to do. You'll probably have to go downtown, stand in line, fill out some paperwork and pay a fee. You will probably need to file your sales tax payments quarterly, and ultimately you'll need to do it every month if your sales are high enough. Yes, it is a royal pain in the patootie, but it is required.

How to Dress

Your choice of attire is really up to you. Many people will tell you that you need to dress in nice business attire when you're with your clients. I happen to disagree. I spend my sessions climbing up and down on a step ladder, getting down on the floor, doing deep knee bends and jumping up and down. It wouldn't work for me if I had on a skirt or some nice suit. In fact, I think it would look silly and unnatural. I don't think you have to dress up, especially if you're crawling on the ground with kids. The couple times I wore nice pants, I regretted it. I typically wear jeans and a nice top. I also, though, don't think that sneakers or casual t-shirts are appropriate. I think you can wear jeans and still look nice. You can also wear jeans and look like a bum.

Your Website

You don't absolutely have to have a website, but I don't see why you wouldn't. It serves as your portfolio, and is a fantastic source of new business. Having a website shows that you are more serious about your business. I've seen some fantastic sites, and some that totally scream NEWBIE!

1. Make sure your website shows only your best work. You want to avoid having too many photos of the same kid on your website. If you do, people will look at it and realize you don't have enough experience. What if you don't have enough photos? Start asking your friends if you can photograph their kids for free. Give a couple prints in exchange for the portfolio-building experience. When I was starting out I asked everyone I knew if I could photograph their children. I built up an impressive portfolio this way, and my initial website gave the impression that I'd photographed lots of kids -- BECAUSE I HAD! These days with digital, you can build a portfolio with a very minimal cash investment.
2. Make sure you include your location. You don't necessarily need to list your address if you are a home-based business, but you should at least list your city and state. I can't even tell you how many sites I've seen that don't share this information. Makes it tough for potential clients to find you!
3. Get your own URL. I don't know what's the cheapest and easiest way to attain one these days, but if you do a quick Google search, you'll find lots of options available.
4. Consider purchasing a template. People have already done the work designing and creating sites for photographers, and if you buy a template then you can invest your time in improving your photography and other skills. I have used www.bludomain.com and www.winkletwebdesign.com. With bludomain, you choose from a wide assortment of templates and they do most of the work for you, uploading it to their servers. There is apparently also the option to host it elsewhere. They provide you with a very easy user interface for updating the photos on your site whenever you want to. With Winklet, you purchase the template, populate it, and then upload it to whatever server service you want. I use a bludomain site for my main website, and a Winklet template for my portrait party website. At the time I made the decision, all the bludomain sites were at least $800, but they now have templates available at lower price points.

Printing Your Photos

All the photos I sell to my clients are printed through a professional lab. I upload the photos to
their website, and the photos are delivered directly to my door. The pro labs spend a lot of money making sure their quality is consistent on everything they print. They use the best quality papers, trained staff, and they also offer services such as adding protective coatings, print texturing and mounting. I think it's important to use a professional lab if you want to present yourself as a professional. You wouldn't want your clients to catch you picking up their photos at Sam's Club!

To find the lab that would be best for you, I recommend joining one of the two online forums I discussed in my article My Favorite Resources. There you can search the discussions and learn the pros and cons of the different labs.

Your Education

I believe that the quality of your work is the most important factor in putting yourself out there as a professional. You're not guaranteed to make money if your work is excellent, but you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors if it's not.  It's difficult to attain the quality if you don't have the education. Sure, you may have had some phenomenal success just putting your camera on automatic, but you won't know what to do when you're confronted with a scenario where that doesn't work. These days, getting a solid photography education doesn't necessarily mean sitting in formal classes. You can learn more than you could ever imagine about photography and the business of photography online. I also recommend spending time every day studying the work of other photographers. The message boards I recommend in my article My Favorite Resources, contain hundreds of new photographs posted daily. Make it a habit to review those photos regularly. You'll learn as much from the bad photos as the good ones. Make mental notes at to what didn't work and why, and keep clip files of the images that particularly grab you.

Gaining Experience

Kids are tough, and you need to experience lots of kids at their best and worst to be prepared for what might happen during a paid client session. Nail the technical aspects, and then get the experience however you can! Every time you photograph another subject you'll learn something new. If you've only photographed your own children, then you probably don't have adequate experience. You will gain experience as you work on building your portfolio, which I discuss in more detail in my article: Building Your Portfolio.

You can also gain experience by shadowing other photographers. I have learned some great tricks while shadowing others, such as how to get the family dog to cock his head in that really cute way.  Remember when you shadow others, though, that every photographer has a different style and method, and that just because one photographer does something a particular way, it doesn't mean that you have to do it the same way.

Professional Certification

You will certainly increase your credibility if you can say you are PPA Certified. PPA has a rigorous testing system combining technical knowledge and a professional review of your work, resulting in PPA Certification. While I think this certification is valuable and impressive, I don't think it would help me personally in gaining more clients. My clients typically come to me because they've seen my work and like what they see. If they weren't impressed with my work, I don't think they would care if I were PPA Certified. I am not PPA Certified, but may seek it at some point. I admire my friends who have had the self discipline to study for and complete the testing. I just haven't found it necessary for myself up to this point.