by Kirk Russell, 3lenses.com

It’s likely you’ve taken risks with a new promotion, or new pricing structure, and for whatever reason, it failed (at least in the short-term) to produce the sales or response rate you wanted. But a bad month, or even a bad year, can actually be a “Good Failure.”

Today, with our industry in transformation, a “good failure” can be much better than a “weak success”. A weak success is realized when you do the same thing(s) as before, and the result is a small increase in sales.

A good failure is the result of trying a new thing, with the potential to attract new clients, but it fails because it was ahead of its time, or a little too “out there”.

When you only try things that are sure to succeed, you’re only imitating something that’s already being done by most of your competitors. If you want to be more appealing to clients, you must be innovative, and be willing to accept the potential of failure. I believe that if you’re not failing more often than you’re succeeding, you’re not innovating. And if you’re not innovating, long-term failure is inevitable.

I encourage photographers to push themselves, and their clients beyond their comfort zones, because complacency, and a failure to innovate, will result in the loss of clients to more aggressive competitors.

If your photography, products, and services aren’t new, they will become less and less appealing.

A friend of mine in real estate decided she wanted to start making video walk-through tours of her homes to post on YouTube. Since she knew nothing about video – and assumed video is “kind of like” photography – she thought I could help her buy some equipment. While I’m no video expert, I agreed.

After an hour shopping on Amazon, I realized she was right. If you’re a professional photographer, you already own everything you need to start making videos. I’m not talking about wedding videography – I’m talking about the low-res 2-3 minute videos made popular on YouTube. Here’s a great example.

Which leads to my point: since you already have the equipment, have you made a video yet? I think you should. Here’s why.

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If you’re an ImageQuix user, watch your email. ImageQuix will reactivate your old events online for the remainder of the year and send an email to participants inviting them to revisit their images.

This would be the perfect opportunity to offer orders for holiday folded greeting cards. You can contact your customers via phone, send them to this page, let them select a card style, then take their order over the phone.

In addition, professional photography makes a great Christmas gift.

A potential huge client will be in the studio in the next few minutes. If all goes well, this could be your biggest sale of the year. It could put your studio in the black again. The importance of the job begins to make you perspire a little bit, and your mind begins to race around the studio looking for things to tidy up.

So with 15 minutes until the client arrives, how should you spend your time?

According to Sian Beilock in her new book Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To, panic under pressure happens to everyone. One of the secrets is to not feed the panic with negative thoughts about bad possible outcomes (the client is really broke, they don’t like your work, etc.).

So how can you apply this to your business?

I suggest you make a scrap album of all your best work, the stuff you’re most proud of. The album isn’t for anyone else but you. Fifteen to thirty minutes before the client arrives, look at each page in the album. Pause and remember the pride and accomplishment you felt when you took that image. Focus you on accomplishments, not worries.

Once you’ve settled down, walk though the entire sale in your mind. Imagine the feeling of confidence as you tell your story, handle any objections, and close the sale. Imagine always saying the right thing, and being proud of how well you will serve your new customer.

Then when the big client arrives, put the book away, and go meet them. You’ll be ready.

The Detroit Professional Photographers Association will hold it’s annual Fall Print Competition on Tuesday, November 16 at 7pm at the Birmingham Conference Center. Contest rules and Entry forms are here.

If you have never entered a print competition, I have five reasons why you should make the commitment to get started this year:

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A couple of times a year a customer will call and say “my computer died. I installed ROES/LabPrints on my new PC, but how do I get my work back?”

There are actually three answers to this question: how to backup ROES, how to backup LabPrints, and how to backup your images.

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One of the stories I’ve been following lately is professional photographers who sell portrait sessions via online coupon sites like Groupon. While this service could be a great opportunity if designed and marketed correctly, it could also hurt your business.

If you are not familiar with online coupon sites, they way they work is this:

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JD Photo Imaging will be attending Imaging Expo USA January 16-18, 2011 in San Antonio Texas. As a service to our customers, click here for free passes to this exciting event.

Why should you attend?

Education – To freshen your art and strengthen your business skills, you need education—ignite your creativity with our world-renowned photographic education.

Classes – Innovative thoughts are kindled when you listen to others’ experiences—come gather ideas from our sizzling line-up of expert instructors and networking ops.

Tradeshow – Hot new products and services can fan the flames of inspiration—see them at Imaging EXPO, one of the largest professional photo tradeshows in the U.S.

Free Stuff – Once you register, you’ll be eligible for weekly give-aways by industry vendors.

If you can only make one trade show this year, Imagine Expo should be on your list.

JD is proud to have partnered with Kirk Russell at 3lenses.com to help bring you a whole new level of marketing knowledge for your business. Kirk is known throughout the industry as a photography marketing expert, and can help you take your studio to the next level.

To make it easier to find all Kirk’s resources, we’ve opened a new website jdphotoimaging.3lenses.com. Here you can find:

• Recordings of Kirk’s Webinars including Weddings, Families, Dance & Pre school, Seniors and Sports. Each hour-long webinar is packed with action-items you can use in your studio to help you be more profitable.

• Free marketing Evaluation. Kirk will schedule a private phone interview with you to review your business and help you set new goals.

• Inspiration. A collection of Kirk’s articles designed to inspire you to take your business to the next level.

• Tips, Techniques and Templates. A collection of useful scripts and templates you can use in your business.

To get started, go to jdphotoimaging.3lenses.com and register. Registration is FREE for JD customers only.

Once you’re registered, check back often. Kirk will be regularly adding new materials to the website, and you don’t want to miss any of them.

If you’ve been following JD’s blog regularly, you’ve read lots of tips for improving your website for SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is the secret sauce that can help you get your website to the first page of Google, Yahoo and Bing (the big 3).  Unfortunately, most SEO doesn’t work for the beautiful all-flash websites that I see many photographers have started using.

Why?

95% of all flash websites are invisible to Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Do you have an all-flash website? Not sure? Here’s an easy experiment I’d like you to do:

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