Kirk Russell, 3Lenses.com

The photographic industry is in the midst of a serious growth crisis. Even before the housing crisis, recession, and market crash, studios were booking fewer appointments, and clients seemed to be more price-sensitive.

Old-school solutions such as advertising more promotions or new flavor-of-the-month fads such as displaying images on boutique, graphic-enhanced web site and brochures, or using pretty delivery boxes won’t attract people who find most of today’s portrait studios outdated, unresponsive, and over-priced.

There is a parallel between today’s photo industry and the current housing market and auto industry. Luckily, we can learn from them and consequently avoid a similar fate.

Here’s the comparisons:

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Have you ever wondered what the status of one of your orders was at 3am?

In the upper right corner of our website is a link to our order status page. Log in, and you can view:

• Orders This Year
• Orders Last Year
• All In Process Orders
• All Completed Orders
• All Orders

All orders are sorted by most recent first, so you can easily see the orders in the lab. This makes it easy for you to learn if orders are ready or what the total charge will be.  You can also quickly generate reports like, “how much did I spent at the lab last year?”

If you don’t know your password, send an email with your studio name and ID to heidi@jdlab.com.

A decade ago, getting your name and phone number in front of customers was simple. You put one ad in the yellow pages and one in the local newspaper.

Those days are over.

Today, over 80% of your customers will look for you online before they call. In order to make sure they can find you, below is a checklist of places your business needs to be registered so customers can find you online.

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Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer focusing on commercial print and video assignments. Recently, he took the time to create a video that describes step-by-step his process for storing and archiving images. It’s worth the 10 minutes to watch.

Three important points Chase makes are:

• Keep a clean copy of your original images. The moment you’re finished shooting, create a backup. These are your original RAW or JPG images. Never change them.

• Make redundant backups. The time to make your first backup is while you’re copying images off the cards. Depending on a single hard drive at any point in your workflow is a recipe for disaster. Hard drives will fail (trust me, it eventually happens to everyone).

• Keep your backups separate. A backup drive next to a PC is only slightly better than no backup at all. You should have 2 duplicate backup drives, with one stored away from your studio.

While most of us cannot afford to duplicate Chase’s collection of top-of-the-line servers and hard drives, any backup and storage solution should cover all the major points he makes. A quick glance over at Amazon shows top-rated 2 terabyte external drives going for $129, so you cannot afford NOT to make backups.

Update

Here’s a collection of videos from several world-famous photographers showing their workflows.

JD Photo Imaging will hold a “Raw Image Processing and Adobe Lightroom” workshop Monday, August 2nd from 10am until 2pm at JD Photo Imaging on Corunna Road in Flint. Cost is $59 per person preregistration or $79 on the day of the workshop, which includes a catered lunch and $20 lab credit to test what you’ve learned. You can pre-pay by credit card or charge your lab account by calling 810-239-8671.

If you’ve ever wondered how to get the best color from your camera, or if you’re considering changing over to a RAW workflow, this class is for you.

During the class we will cover:

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Recently I read two articles about companies and their brands. One is building their brand, while the other seems to be throwing a great brand away.

Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) workers are using Dawn brand dish soap to clean oil off animals on the gulf coast. Dawn responded by creating a huge branding tie-in that resulted in increased sales as well as cash donations of over $400,000 to the cleanup effort.

The National Pork Producers have announced plans to drop the universally known tag-line “the other white meat” that has become synonymous with pork over the last twenty-three years. The VP of marketing was quoted as saying it was great at first, but now “it doesn’t help sales.”

Both these examples made me think of the importance of our brand to our customers. While an “offer” or an advertisement can create sales, a good brand can build your business.

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I was talking to a client the other day about websites. He typed “wedding photographer” in Google, clicked the mouse, and turned to me.

“I want to be at the top of the first page in Google,” he said. “How do I get there?”

Most of us assume that the top spot on Google is the best position for your website, and that everything else is second-best. The reality is that the top spot is rarely the right place for your business: it will cost too much to get there, and like the game “king of the hill” you won’t stay on top for long.

Instead of focusing on the #1 spot, if you can be in the “top 10″ for your selected keywords, you’ll get just as many customers off the Internet, and you’ll save lots of money too.

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from June 14-28 we’re running our most popular special - 20×30 prints for $11.95 each. Same great JD quality at a great price. This is your perfect opportunity to:

• Show off your best images
• Update your studio look
• Offer as an up-sell to a new client
• Offer as a special in your next customer e-mail

To take advantage of these prices, you must enter either of the following promo codes in your order:

1. Deluxe Prints: EMAIL2030DEL
2. Econo Prints: EMAIL2030ECO

Don’t miss out on this great pricing before it ends June 28th. Order your 20×30 prints today!

Accordion Mini Books are a great new way for your clients to show off their images.

• Each order includes 3 identical books so your clients can share with their family and friends.
• The magnetic cover on the mini book makes it easy to carry in a pocket or purse.
• Accordion Mini Books have up to 10 wallet-size customizable panels.
• Standard Leather covers in black or blue or custom photo covers are also available.

To order Accordion Mini Books, in ROES select the Press Printed catalog and click the Multi-Folded Cards tab.

With business picking up again (albeit slowly), you may be thinking about hiring a new employee. Having hired many folks over the years, I’ve learned that some skills cannot be taught. I’m not the only one who thinks this way:

• An article in the papers recently stated that Walmart was actively seeking out military officers returning from Iraq to join their management training program. Their logic was simple - if someone has already proven themselves to be a leader, WallMart can teach them retail.
• I have a friend who is a florist, and she carries business cards with her all the time. Whenever she gets exceptional service - for example, a waitress in a restaurant - she gives them a card and offers them a job. Her logic is also simple - you can teach retail, but you cannot teach customer service.

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